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.
