Lador vador, from generation to generation. This morning’s Torah portion and haftarah portion both are about how parents pass down tradition from one generation to the next.
People ask me what business I am in. I say that I am in the best business in the world—I manufacture Jewish souls. And I get to play with kids and teach them while I am doing it. And as the rabbis teach us, while I have learned much from my teachers, I have learned even more from my students—and had fun doing it.
Last year Rabbi Sandy Sasso spoke at the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis. Amongst the things that stuck with me was the idea that Hebrew Schools do a good job teaching the mechanics of how to do a ritual or how to recite or memorize a prayer but not the whys? Sometimes we even turn kids away by not answering their questions. Why do we do this? What does it matter? How does God fit into this puzzle?
At Congregation Beth Israel we meet the children where they are. We strive to answer their questions and not brush them off. In fact we actively encourage them to stump the rabbis. And if we don’t know the answers, we will get back to them. Or to you!
This year we are exploring blessings, brachot. The rabbis teach us that we should say 100 blessings a day. This works if you go to morning minyan and say all the required prayers. But many of us don’t, so how do we cultivate a heart of gratitude? How do we learn to say these spontaneously? How does our tradition help when we are sad or angry or need comfort? That is the kind of thing we are exploring this year.
Some of it comes through experiential education. Creating Jewish memories that we hope will last a lifetime. Making use of all of our senses. To prepare for Rosh Hashanah this year, we tasted apples and honey, heard the sound of the shofar, sang songs in the special High Holiday nusach, felt the linens on the bimah as we changed them from our year round grays and blacks to High Holiday white, and painted honey pots and cards. Some it is more cerebral as we learned, even in preschool, the hardest word when we practiced saying I’m sorry. In the process we learned about being part of a community—both at Congregation Beth Israel and the wider world. Check out our beans, lettuce and cucumbers that we have planted to feed the hungry as part of the 9-11 day of service.
This year, we are working closely with the adult study committee on the scholar in residence program as we explore Shabbat as a school. We are learning blessings, ways to celebrate, ways to mark Shabbat in our over-scheduled, busy, suburban lives. Just how does Shabbat work with dance recitals and soccer games? Can we really turn off cell phones and iPods for 24 hours in our 24×7 world? We are celebrating a taste of Shabbat on Thursday afternoon. Come celebrate your birthday with us as part of M&M Minyan—for all the generations. And then that weekend, we will have art work that our students made to decorate the shul and hopefully a special video that the kids are making of what Shabbat means to them—and to all of you, an important way to link the generations.
Generations are important. We are teaching a new generation how to blow shofar, some of them you will hear later this morning. They not only learned the mechanics of how to blow but the spiritual meaning of each of the notes.
Just last Shabbat we read in Deuteronomy that we all stood at Sinai, our leaders, our elders, all the men, women and children, the strangers among us, the woodchopper and the water drawer, to enter into the covenant. Even those not yet born. That is all of us. We have a choice, to choose to be part of this covenant or not. To choose life or death, blessing or curse, so that we and our children will live. Our children have that same choice. In every generation, they need to wrestle with the tradition, interpret it and make it their own and then accept it on their terms, when they are ready—not because we as the parents, as the adults, told them had to.
At Congregation Beth Israel, we have kids who are making that choice. They are choosing to be part of that covenant—whether that is in USY, where we sent 30 kids to the boat cruise earlier this week, or as a TAP student, where we have 10 kids who are mentoring our younger students and are an indispensable part of running the school, or in our revamping midrasha adventure, where we are giving them the choice—the flexibility and freedom they crave. They will be studying American Jewish history and genealogy, going on field trips, taking on social action projects. They are wrestling with difficult topics. One of those difficult topics is the effects of bullying. On October 23rd thanks to a grant from the federation, we are hosting a Merrimack Valley wide program on cyberbullying with Urban Improv for the teens and Dr. Larry Epstein for the parents. While we continue to tweak the midrasha adventure, I ask that you be patient with me as we figure out how to administer that type of new creative program.
Generations are important. We are creating life-long Jewish learners. People who want to be engaged because Judaism is meaningful and engaging. My monthly bulletin announcement includes the review of an adult book that is tied to some curricular material in our school and a story you can read with the kids. We are revitalizing the adult library. This is another way to bridge the generations.
What is it that we want to teach the next generation? The school committee spent a lot of time this summer revising and tweaking the curriculum, discussing what is important. For me, it comes down to giving kids tools to cope with life and find meaning in the day to day through a Jewish lens. Finding the strength and beauty in community. Seeing those 100 blessings. Knowing that they themselves are a blessing, created in the image of God. Or as Abilene in The Help said, “You is good; you is kind; you is important.” Some of our kids learned that they are important and can make a difference at the Matisiyahu concert this summer, something they chose to attend. The song “Pure Imagination” says, “Look around and you’ll see paradise.” “Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it.” Like Willy Wonka, Pirke Avot says, ours is not to finish the task, neither are we free to ignore it. Come join us as the younger generation helps us repair the world. Then it will be a world like Matisyahu sings, “One Day there will be no more wars.” Then it will be a sweet new year for us all. LaDor vador.
Delivered at Congregation Beth Israel, Andover, Massachusetts, September 30, 2011.