~szr
So, on the first Sunday of the last year that I taught religious school, I challenged my seventh grade students: "How do you have a conversation with God in the 21st century? Do you even have a conversation at all? How do you come to God when life is good? More, how do you come to God in times of anger or sadness or despair, when all you want to do is curse at God? How do you connect to Judaism?"
Being a fan of symmetry and neatly wrapped boxes, on the last Sunday of the last year that I taught religious school, I asked them: "What is it that connects you? To Judaism, to God? Are you connected? What does it mean, to be a Jew?"
I don't know that I have answers any more now than I did when I started that year. For that matter, any more than I did when I lost God, when I was convinced that God had lost me, or any more than when I felt sheltered and carried gently in the palm of God's hand. But I know now, I think, what connects me. I know, now, what binds me to my faith.
Hooray for me (she said, somewhat dryly) (after all, this is not about me). But still I ask myself "Have I done enough? Have I, have we, the community that surrounds and supports these questing, growing, questioning minds--- have we given them enough, to anchor them in their doubt and disbelief, to strengthen them in their journey to adulthood? Will they, too, become Jews by choice?"
I look at my son, who, at thirteen, is right there: a jumble of belief and doubt and cynicism and hope, so ready to believe, so fearful of his honest disbelief. What can I give him, that he will choose to be a Jew? Around and around I go, on a merry-go-round of ask-and-answer. And every so often, I'm lucky enough to stop long enough to hear enough from others who ride their own merry-go-rounds of hope and doubt and faith and love.
It lets me know, if nothing else, that I'm asking the right questions. At least, that we are all asking a lot of the same questions. And we're finding some... if not answers, then at least a little bit of clarity. And so I can say: what does it take to be enough? And I can start to hear the tin calliope merry-go-round music of an answer coming back to me:
It's about passion, I think. My passion. Our passion. The passion and joy and exuberance of being Jewish: of study and community and service and prayer and family and God. It's choosing and being engaged in the choice. It's mindful and sometimes hard and sometimes frustrating and always, always--- it is ok to be passionate. It's good to find the wonder and sense the awe of who we are and where we fit. Judaism can be an intellectual pursuit. But it is so much more; can be so much more. If we allow it. If we let it. How can we not show that? How can we not share that?
But wait-- there's more (she said with a cockeyed smile). It's also about obligation. We spend so much time sheltering our young, of giving and teaching and doing for them, we don't always remember to teach them their obligation to us, their community. We don't always show them that there is as much joy, as much passion in obligation and service outwards as there is in being served. God has taught us that lesson well: we are commanded to serve, we are bound by our obligations one to another, to our community and to God. It is that obligation that helps give us all a framework of connection that can transcend doubt or disbelief.
Passion. Obligation. Joy. God. Beginning the conversation. Being caught in the act-- of choosing, every day, to be a Jew. What else, what else, what else? What am I missing? What are we missing? I don't know it all, not by a long shot. But I've learned that there are those who can fill in the blanks, if I ask. There are those who can help me find the questions, if I listen.
So-- I'm listening. I'm asking. Is it enough? Is there joy enough, wonder enough to bridge the doubt? What connects us? What will bind us, one to another and to God? What words do I give to my son, so that he can find his own way to choose, every day, to be a Jew?
And finally, I offer a small prayer of my own: that we can all listen in wonder, ask in joy, choose in faith, dance with God. Amen.
Hooray for me (she said, somewhat dryly) (after all, this is not about me). But still I ask myself "Have I done enough? Have I, have we, the community that surrounds and supports these questing, growing, questioning minds--- have we given them enough, to anchor them in their doubt and disbelief, to strengthen them in their journey to adulthood? Will they, too, become Jews by choice?"
I look at my son, who, at thirteen, is right there: a jumble of belief and doubt and cynicism and hope, so ready to believe, so fearful of his honest disbelief. What can I give him, that he will choose to be a Jew? Around and around I go, on a merry-go-round of ask-and-answer. And every so often, I'm lucky enough to stop long enough to hear enough from others who ride their own merry-go-rounds of hope and doubt and faith and love.
It lets me know, if nothing else, that I'm asking the right questions. At least, that we are all asking a lot of the same questions. And we're finding some... if not answers, then at least a little bit of clarity. And so I can say: what does it take to be enough? And I can start to hear the tin calliope merry-go-round music of an answer coming back to me:
It's about passion, I think. My passion. Our passion. The passion and joy and exuberance of being Jewish: of study and community and service and prayer and family and God. It's choosing and being engaged in the choice. It's mindful and sometimes hard and sometimes frustrating and always, always--- it is ok to be passionate. It's good to find the wonder and sense the awe of who we are and where we fit. Judaism can be an intellectual pursuit. But it is so much more; can be so much more. If we allow it. If we let it. How can we not show that? How can we not share that?
But wait-- there's more (she said with a cockeyed smile). It's also about obligation. We spend so much time sheltering our young, of giving and teaching and doing for them, we don't always remember to teach them their obligation to us, their community. We don't always show them that there is as much joy, as much passion in obligation and service outwards as there is in being served. God has taught us that lesson well: we are commanded to serve, we are bound by our obligations one to another, to our community and to God. It is that obligation that helps give us all a framework of connection that can transcend doubt or disbelief.
Passion. Obligation. Joy. God. Beginning the conversation. Being caught in the act-- of choosing, every day, to be a Jew. What else, what else, what else? What am I missing? What are we missing? I don't know it all, not by a long shot. But I've learned that there are those who can fill in the blanks, if I ask. There are those who can help me find the questions, if I listen.
So-- I'm listening. I'm asking. Is it enough? Is there joy enough, wonder enough to bridge the doubt? What connects us? What will bind us, one to another and to God? What words do I give to my son, so that he can find his own way to choose, every day, to be a Jew?
And finally, I offer a small prayer of my own: that we can all listen in wonder, ask in joy, choose in faith, dance with God. Amen.
Dear Stacey,
ReplyDeleteAs as "ultra-orthodox" person, (as many among the non-orthodox would label us, to stigmatize, sideline or stereotype us, instead of just calling us plain orthodox), I'd like to answer your heartfelt questions about your son's upbringing. I read the previous essay where you spoke of your family. Judaism in your home was anything but thriving, warm and wonderful. This is exactly what can take a child away from the warm bosom of orthodoxy and it may well be many years or decades even before the realization or at least the thought of "an error in my ways" beckons at the Jewish soul again.
Without a real God, without a solid Yeshiva education, without an all-out intensified study of Torah and Talmud - I believe - no good can come of a "Jewish education". Because then the Talmudic sages are not deemed sages, the perfection of Torah is doubted, tradition is seen as outdated, "modern" society is given priority over wisdom of yesteryear, when in fact we are the dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants who preceded us.
Without a proper Jewish education, the grand mosaic of brilliant light and exquisite pattern, revealing little by little the bright underside of many pieces in this magnificent perfect puzzle, when the temporary facade has many impediments that can sway the non-diligent to pursue other sources of promised light and thereby rob himself of the real brilliance exposition that patience and diligence, a little consistency and some effort will eventually deliver, an occasional light source here and there will otherwise not deliver the spectacle of Jewish truth - that which the whole world relies on whether they know it or not. Without that education Judaism is just another "religion", just another set of mindless rituals.
Without a solid background he can easily see the world as flat, in that he relies on his own senses, rather than necessarily relying at first on the wisdom of our predecessors who will show him the world as round. You see, Stacey, in order to make the Olympic high-jump, you first have to take a few steps backwards before you can lunge to your real potential heights. Before a seed turns into a tree, it first must undergo a rotting to free the kernel waiting inside its shell. Before filling a glass with clean water, the little dirt in the glass must first be emptied or the water will still be dirty. There must first be a humility suffered to be able to gain unexpected ascendancy.
My point is, the Jewishness of a viable orthodoxy is a different species when it is enjoyed meaningfully. Your boy - dare give him a Yeshiva education. When he comes home, ask him and share with him what he learned. Offer support by buying books that have been republished now for well over a millennium. You meanwhile can read the likes of Rabbi Avigdor Miller, an easy English read, where he debunks many "givens" that "modernity" or "highfaluting science" may yet impress upon you.
At the risk of appearing to talk too much, I bid you and yours a warm return to the Jewish fold.