Let's talk to the next generation Rosh Hashana 5776

Let’s talk to the next generation

Temple Beth Jacob of Newburgh

Rosh Hashana 5776

Rabbi Larry Freedman

My goal, when I became a rabbi, was to help Jews be the best Jews they could be and to help Jewish families be the best Jewish families they could be. 

That has worked out fairly well but it also has been a non-stop 23 year cold-water-to-the-face wake up when I meet Jews who really don’t care and Jewish families who have better things to do.

It’s just part of the job to be insulted once or twice a month by people who have no idea they are insulting me when they say that this thing I have studied, the heritage I have dedicated my life to and this mission of helping you that I have chosen is, I am told, “well, I don’t know, my grandmother used to do that but who has time?”

(You folks aren’t usually the ones saying that.  Being here pretty much takes you out of this other group.)

A few of us experienced this when we ran the Jewish Outreach Institute’s ”Passover in the Matzah Aisle” program.  For three years, a few weeks before Pesach, we set up a table near the Pesach foods at a supermarket with different kinds of charoset, matzah and other tasty Pesach treats.  We had a raffle, collected names and contact info and basically did some outreach to the community.  Instead of waiting for Jews to come to us, we went to them.  We will continue to be creative in order to reach out but in this case, it didn’t really work.  The Jews we met just thought it was great to see us and they told warm stories of seders with family and warm memories of foods and afikoman hunts and all that.  They were so pleased for this touchstone but when we said, would you like to come to our community seder?  You should come visit us at the synagogue and meet our community they said, oh no.  I don’t do that anymore.  I don’t have time.  I might as well have been showing them how to grind their own flour.  It’s nice to know someone is doing that but back here in the real world… pass.

Unaffiliated Jews and Jewish families are out there in Orange and Dutchess counties but getting them to engage their Jewish identities is a big hurdle.  This is a sign of big trouble.  The Jewish community of the US is in trouble for a number of reasons. I want to focus on just one reason and one small solution and to get there, I want to talk about talking and to do that I need to talk about intermarriage.

Now, after you’ve taken a big gulp, everyone relax.  It’s not what you think.  If you are in an interfaith relationship and you are part of our community I’m not talking about you.  You are the heroes of this story.  I want to repeat that.  You are the heroes so for those of you who have heard the word intermarriage and have already tweeted that the rabbi stinks and you’re never coming back, let me say again, I’m not talking about you.  You are in this room.  You are part of this community.  You have had the hard conversations and you have given us your time and money and most precious of all your children.  You have trusted us –me- with your children.  You are the heroes of this story.  Do not feel threatened.  Indeed, I humbly suggest you feel smug and self-congratulatory as you will see.  Okay?  Okay?  We good?  I’ll come back to you but we good for now?

The attack intermarriage typically took is that it lead Jews out of Judaism.  But a study came out a number of years ago that challenged that assessment.  This study looked specifically at young Reform Jews of marriageable age to see what their attitudes were towards Jewish living and intermarriage.  It wasn’t great.

When they looked at basic markers of Jewish identity, lighting Shabbat candles, having Jewish friends, supporting Jewish institutions and so on, young Reform Jews had very low percentages doing these things.  When it came to behaving in ways we would identify as living a Jewish life, our own young people weren’t doing it.  And then their rates of intermarriage were very high.  A long time ago I was listening to the writer Leonard Fine.  He said he told his children that the reason they shouldn’t marry someone from China is that they don’t speak Chinese.  It’s hard to forge a relationship if you don’t share the same language.  In the same way, he encouraged his daughters to marry someone with whom they speak the same cultural language.  He meant Jews because they would share a common cultural language.  He was correct but not in the way he imagined.  Today, young Reform Jews speak secular culture more fluently than Jewish culture.  Indeed, they may not speak Jewish culture very well at all.  All this is to say that intermarriage doesn’t lead people away from Jewish connection.  Those already barely connected have no strong reason to find a Jewish partner anyway.

That’s why I say that those Jews and their non-Jewish spouses who join a Jewish community are the heroes of the story because they have had the thoughtful, difficult conversations with spouses, made a considered choice for their own religious life and for their children.  Within these couples, the even greater heroes are the non-Jewish spouses.  We have these amazing spouses who, and I’m going out on a limb here, when dreaming youthful dreams of marriage and a family, joining a synagogue never came popped in their heads.  It’s the rare child who says, when playing house, I’ll be the mommy or daddy and I’ll pretend I’m part of a cultural group with which I am totally unfamiliar.  Spouses who didn’t grow up Jewish and yet contribute considerable time and energy to the Jewish community are people who are owed a tremendous debt of gratitude and we, and certainly I, don’t say that enough.  So, thank you for what you do and the gifts you have given us. 

The statistics are very clear.  The children of most intermarried families are barely connected.  The grandchildren, statistically, have faded away, lost to the Jewish people.  You are the minority that rejects that premise.  You are the vibrant percentage that is keeping us strong for yet one more generation.  You have figured out that living a Jewish life has meaning and is worthwhile.  Too many others have not figured that out.

We are failing to teach Reform Jews a sense of urgency, a sense of purpose, a reason to keep this heritage going.  We have failed to make it personal.  Too many of us for too long have treated Judaism as a nice aspect of who we are, just another of our many identities but nothing central to our being.

I have many interests, many concerns but central to my being is that I am a Jew.  My life proudly revolves around my history and heritage and faith.  I accept our received texts and wisdom with love and admiration with the caveat that as a rational Reform Jew I’m able to reflect critically at those texts.  I also accept that as a Jew I have a mission, a purpose in life; that once granted the privilege of being born into this people I accept the responsibility of using my heritage to make the world a better place and make myself a better person.  And I accept the notion that as a Jew I have the responsibility and joy of always learning more about my heritage so that it enriches my soul and makes my Jewish life more sophisticated.  That’s me.  And it can be you as well.  Indeed, it already is the way many of you experience your Judaism.  But for many others, not so much.

Intermarriage isn’t the issue.  It’s one generation proudly educating the next generation what Judaism means to them.  Pride is the key term.

If you are a parent and want Jewish grandchildren, it might help if your children marry Jews.  Statistically speaking, it offers a bump.  But you know what works even better?  If you, you the adults, the parents and grandparents and great-grandparents sitting here can dig down and articulate to the next generation why you find it meaningful.  Don’t tell them why they have to find it meaningful.  Explain to them how it stirs your soul, how it moves you, how it informs your life.  That is going to be a challenge for some of you because you may feel you already figured out how much Jewish life you want in your life.    But you are never too old to change habits.  Maybe, upon reflection, you could add a little more Jewish living to your life.

For years, just five days after Yom Kippur we would have a minyan and a half show up for Sukkot.  Now with our pot luck dinner, we had 60 the first year, 90 the second.  If you haven’t joined in, come on out.  It’s fun, it’s social, the food’s awesome, we don’t have tefillot but we do have a lulav and etrog to shake in the sukkah and I will never tell you to stop talking.  Ninety people changed their habit and re-engaged a little bit of Jewish life.

Next thing on our agenda to rehabilitate is Simchat Torah.  This holiday should be the most thrilling, the sprint to the finish coming 8 days after Sukkot.  We’re working to re-imagine Simchat Torah to highlight the best part of the celebration and retire what doesn’t work.  So join us for ending and restarting the source of all we are, the reading of Torah.

Okay, enough of the pitch.  Back to the hard work of explaining what stirs your soul.  I’ve spoken before about the pintele yid, the little bit of your Jewish soul deep inside.  It flames up over the High Holidays then settles back down.  But it’s there.  When you feel more connected, when you have a spiritual moment, when your Jewish self is fully engaged, the pintele yid burns brightly.  What makes it burn brighter for you?  That’s going to be a hard question to answer but if you can’t come up with something, how will the next generation believe you when you say it’s important?  “Just because” doesn’t work.  Come on…. You like this stuff.  You do.  But you probably haven’t been challenged to articulate it since your bar or bat mitzvah.  And while you need to articulate it for the next generation because they are listening, it’s actually more important for you to articulate it for yourself.  It’s more important for you to be able to understand it deeply for yourself and your spouse.  I suspect that even those people not Jewish have had so much experience with Jewish life that you, too, can be challenged to articulate what in Jewish life brings uplift to your life.  What have you found to be moving and profound?

For many people, more energy is spent explaining why the next generation must be a Yankees fan than why they should continue Judaism.  We seem to realize that we can’t just assume the kids will be Yankees fans.  We have to teach that.  Same for Judaism.  Is there something so important in your life that you really wanted your children or grandchildren to follow?  Did you spend the same amount of time teaching why Judaism is important to you?  And if not, why not?  Could it be that you’ve never had to put words to something more emotional?

Join me for four weeks in October for a planned giving class.  I’m calling it a Yerusha Will class.  Yerusha means heritage and it is what God gave to Abraham and what we have spent the past 4000 years passing on.  It’s not easy to do.  The Bible is filled with stories of generations that were not very good at passing it on so you’re in good company. 

Four weeks in October join me as we talk about what moves our souls, why we think there is something valuable to pass on to the next generation and a plan to make that happen.  Think of it as Jewish planned giving but your planning to pass on not your estate but your Jewish life. 

Do you worry the next generation isn’t very connected?  Maybe we haven’t explained why we feel connected. The intermarried couples here are among the few couples in the entire community, I venture to guess, who have had to talk about the religious life of their family, of the yerusha they want to pass on and how to explain that to their children.  They’ve had to talk about why Judaism stirs the soul of the Jew in the partnership.  Other intermarried couples, and this I know from directly hearing from them either a) found the Jew unable to make a compelling case for continued Jewish life b) never had parents who cared about religion in general so they don’t care c) don’t want to talk about it as it will upset their marriage; they had enough stress when they got engaged and don’t want to bring that up again or d) they met a rabbi who was rude to them and they walked out never to return.  I’m sure among the vast numbers of unaffiliated there are more reasons but these are the reasons I’ve heard.

This Rosh Hashana as we delve deeply into our souls, as we consider how we wish to live, let’s commit to considering why we love it so.  And we do love it because we’re here.  Something moves us.  Let’s understand what that is and then let’s put that feeling into words and pass it on.