Do As We Say, Not As We Do

There is a well-known textbook—not one that we use—in which the chapter on Passover states that the father leads the seder and the mother cooks the dinner.

That statement no longer reflects an inevitable reality, if it ever did. In our congregations, gender does not determine religious role, nor does gender necessarily determine other roles in our society. Accordingly, we prefer to adopt textbooks that define religious roles in the ways that we understand them.

It can be difficult to maintain a completely egalitarian point of view, especially when a textbook has illustrations. Until recently it was unusual to see an illustration of a woman reading from the Torah, even though women have done so for decades in many congregations, and it you are still unlikely to see an illustration of a man lighting Shabbat candles.

It is possible for issues like this to cause misunderstandings in class. For example, it would be correct to teach that it is appropriate for every Jew to light Shabbat candles—but if a child has seen this done only by a mother or grandmother, the teacher’s statement may not ring true. The student may be puzzled, may reject the lesson outright, or may accept the lesson and conclude that there is something wrong with the way his or her family does it.

This phenomenon goes by the exalted name of cognitive dissonance. As learners, we always measure what is being taught against our own experiences, and yet one of the roles of school is to introduce ideas that are outside the experiences of the students.

There are many opportunities for cognitive dissonance in a Jewish school. The pronunciation of Hebrew provides frequent examples, because the school teaches “American Sefardi” pronunciation, while some parents and many grandparents use Ashkenazi pronunciation. If family members help a student to practice Hebrew reading, they and the teacher may be pulling in opposite directions.

Even more opportunities for cognitive dissonance arise when specific observances are taught. Although our school’s policy is to respect the religious choices of each family, we teach the practices that are normative for the two congregations. Some families will choose not to carry out every observance that we teach, and some may find value in practices that we do not teach. Sometimes teaching in a way that does not create unnecessary tensions either in class or at home feels like a tightwire act.

An approach that I like is the one adopted by Reform rabbis in a series of handbooks published in the 1970s. Rather than stating that “everyone should” follow a certain practice, these books typically state “It is a mitzvah to….” This formulation leaves the choice of whether to adopt a particular practice, and how to carry it out, open for each individual or family, while stating clearly that, in the view of the authors, it is a mitzvah.

Taking Purim Seriously

This was my bulletin column for March.

As a child I loved Purim. How could I not, in a congregation with a large Purim carnival that was lots of fun?

But it has taken me most of my adult life to learn to appreciate Purim again. In many congregations, Purim seems to be a holiday—like Tu Bishvat— that is mostly, perhaps exclusively, for children. If we attend a megillah reading, it’s a serious business: after all, it’s in the temple or synagogue. It must be serious!

This feeling is stronger if you grew up, as I did, in a congregation with both a German heritage and great formality in its ritual. The expectation of seriousness is apparent from our language, as in almost all congregations, we observe holidays. This seems to be specific to Judaism; I’ve noted that in other religions people celebrate holidays.

By “observe” holidays, we can mean either of two things. One derives from the Hebrew verb that is used in this sense, which has the root shin-mem-resh and most often means “to guard.” This describes our attending services and carrying out the prescribed rituals out of a sense of duty.

The second is the ordinary English meaning of “observe”: to watch as a bystander, without participating. Both meanings are at odds with celebrating Purim. Although there are specific mitzvot for Purim—reading the story of Esther and giving food to the poor—it’s most important to have a good time. This is why even a megillah reading is usually lighthearted, if not downright silly. And it is, frankly, burdensome to attend Purim celebrations without participating in them.

We do our children a disservice if we teach them that everything in the temple or synagogue is supposed to be sober and formal. (We would also be wrong not to teach them to be serious when it’s appropriate, but that’s not the issue at Purim.) And if we inadvertently teach them that some celebrations are only for children and others, presumably, are only for adults, it’s the wrong message.

So I encourage everyone to get into the spirit of Purim. Bring the whole family to Purim events: dinner and megillah reading at Congregation B’nai Israel on Friday, March 6, megillah reading at Congregation Shomray Hadath on Monday, March 9, and the Jewish Community School Purim carnival (downstairs at Shomray Hadath) on Sunday, March 8.

And wear costumes. It’s not just for children—dress up in something outrageous no matter what your age. It doesn’t have to be a “made” costume, just something inappropriate to wear at regular services, or something so far out of fashion that it’s funny. Let your children see that the way we take Purim seriously is by not taking ourselves too seriously.

Blessing Children (Vayehi)

The Torah portion Vayehi comprises the last months in the life of Jacob, his death in Egypt, and his burial in the Land of Israel.

During Jacob’s final illness, Joseph brings his sons Ephraim and Manasseh—Jacob’s grandsons—to him, and Jacob effectively adopts them as his own sons. This explains why the Twelve Tribes of Israel include separate tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, but no tribe of Joseph. Jacob also blesses his [grand]sons with the words, “By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.”

This blessing—God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh—is the traditional blessing for parents to bestow upon their sons on erev Shabbat. The blessing for daughters asks that they be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.

In family workshops, I like to encourage parents to bless their children on Shabbat, because it provides an opportunity to transmit values to children.

Once children have started Sunday school, they are likely to recognize the names Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, even if they cannot fully recount their stories. Young children today, however, may not recognize the names Ephraim and Manasseh, and the traditional blessing may therefore be less meaningful.

One of my friends, certain that her son, then four years old, would not recognize Ephraim and Manasseh, would substitute other names from the Torah that she thought he might remember. Occasionally this was incongruous: traditional Jewish parents did not wish their child to grow up to be like Esau (although Esau does represent some qualities that the modern world values). Be careful what you wish for!

Because young children think in concrete terms, it may be helpful to express a Shabbat blessing through references to real people whom they know, and to be explicit about the qualities you hope they will develop. For example, although a midrash considers Jacob (yes, the same Jacob) the archetype of the Jewish scholar, rather than citing Jacob as a model, you might say, “May God help you to become a good student like Grandpa Al was,” or “to have a sense of humor like Aunt Debbie.”

Another reason for blessing children on Shabbat is that parents who may have some difficulty with prayer in general usually find it easier to express prayerful wishes for their children. The traditional time for blessing children is immediately after lighting the Shabbat candles. Place your hands on the children’s heads as you state your hopes for them, citing either the persons you choose or Ephraim and Manasseh/Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Conclude with the priestly blessing: “May the Lord bless you and guard you, May the Lord show you favor and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you kindness and grant you peace.”

Why is Hebrew so difficult?

It is unsettling to walk along a street in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and hear small children speaking Hebrew. Don’t they know how difficult Hebrew is?

Why is Hebrew difficult? Or, more accurately, is Hebrew difficult? For Israeli children, it doesn’t seem to be. It’s just the way everyone around them talks.

For us, that’s part of the trouble: we’re surrounded by English, not Hebrew. Our children learn to speak English before they know how difficult English is—and with its countless exceptions in spelling and grammar, English is considered one of the most difficult languages.

An alef-bet that is different from the Latin alphabet that English uses is the most conspicuous issue. Letters that look too much like one another contribute to errors; I often tell students who are inclined to “glance and guess” when reading aloud that
even Israelis have to look carefully at every letter of every word. For a child, Hebrew letters are scarcely more difficult than English letters, and the regularity of Hebrew pronunciation is a relief after the unpredictability of English.

Because children in the lower grades of school still have a capacity for natural language acquisition, we have begun changing to pedagogical methods that draw on it: teaching oral vocabulary from kindergarten onward, even before students begin learning to read Hebrew, and focusing on “picking up” meaning rather than memorizing rules.

Research has found that three factors (other than individual students’ language ability) strongly influence students’ success with Hebrew. The first is whether a parent knows any Hebrew, e.g., to read from a siddur. Secular educators in Israel had
to change their teaching methods when they began to teach Hebrew reading to the children of olim from countries like Russia, where few Jews were familiar with the Hebrew of the prayer book. Our teaching methods anticipate that not all parents know Hebrew, but it is still helpful if parents know some Hebrew or begin to learn.

The second factor is whether the family’s congregation uses Hebrew in worship. Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman has written that congregations that use little Hebrew in prayer rarely achieve high student accomplishment in Hebrew—there’s just no incentive. The effect is compounded if parents seldom bring their children to services.

The third is parents’ expectations or predictions. When a parent says, “I never managed to learn Hebrew and I know my child won’t, either,” it almost always turns out to be true, even if the child has more than adequate learning ability. Or when a parent says, “You don’t really have to learn all that,” who will the child believe: the teacher or the parent?

So, for parents: first, if you don’t yet know Hebrew, begin learning. Second, bring your children to Shabbat services with some regularity. Third, cultivate the belief that your child needs to learn Hebrew and will succeed at it.

Shabbat School

My only direct experience with Shabbat School was as a student some 40 years ago, and based on that, I would say that there are potential problems that proponents of it will tend to understate. There are also potential advantages but not all of them are to the students.

I grew up in a Reform congregation (so there was no issue with writing, cutting, pasting, etc.) that had Shabbat school for the upper grades – the primary grades met on Sundays. One potential advantage of this was that students were there for the Shabbat morning service. We also had a service attendance requirement on Friday nights, and the result of this combination is that I still know most of the English text of the Union Prayer Book from memory. I find that I know quite a lot of useless stuff and that is one of the most conspicuous.

Having the students there on approximately 30 Shabbat mornings a year – instead of the 10 or so you might get for Junior Congregation – would seem to be an advantage if teaching the Shabbat morning liturgy is an important goal. But unless you have three days of school a week (two weekday afternoons and one weekend morning), it will be a strain to get both enough prayer time and enough class time. When I have supervised Junior Congregation it ran either 1.5 or 2 hours; in a 2-day school we could not afford to lose that much class time, nor would I have been satisfied with only one hour for Shabbat tefillah.

It seems to me that one of the reasons that Shabbat school is proposed is to eliminate the need to bring children an additional day for Junior Congregation, but I am skeptical about whether it would improve attendance. In my experience, both as a student (back in antiquity), and more recently as a teacher and principal, there are even more activities competing for students’ time on Saturday mornings than on Sunday mornings.

Also, here (this morning especially) the greatest problem with Sunday attendance is family vacations. We had about 50% absence this morning even though the public schools that most of our students attend are in session Monday through Wednesday, because families are blowing off not only religious school but also three days of regular school in order to take a 9-day family vacation only a month before the winter break! Those who want “family time” on Sundays may want it just as badly on Saturdays.

One potential advantage, which I've seen as a visitor to a Reconstructionist congregation that has Shabbat school, is that if school hours are synchronized with service hours, the attendance at the main service may improve – that is, instead of dropping children off, parents attend the regular service. This is indirectly beneficial to the students through the parents’ example.

Script writing

I am going to make a radical suggestion: don't teach printing. It takes up far too much time, it's tedious and laborious for the students, and the students will never have any occasion to use it.

The truth is that there is so little Hebrew writing to be done at all in our schools that time spent learning to print block is wasted. This is particularly true if we introduce it in kindergarten or pre-K, where the children haven't yet developed fine motor skills and it's harder to learn, but it applies in any and all grades.

On the other hand, I am in favor of teaching script writing in the elementary grades. Not because we have always done it that way – I didn't learn it until I was over the age of 40 – or because it is allegedly a hallmark of Conservative education – it's really school-specific.

I'm in favor of it because I believe that our job is to educate students for Jewish life, and in particularly for lifelong Jewish learning. We all face pressures to emphasize what is strictly pragmatic and utilitarian, to the point that anything else is completely excluded, but we are supposed to be educators, and that includes advocacy for what is in the best interests of our students. It also includes educating parents and lay leaders about what that means.

So here is why I support teaching script writing.

In the mid-1990s, Professor Sherry Israel at Brandeis University did a study for the Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, which had established a Commission on Jewish Continuity. By that time everyone knew that the Jewish population study of 1990 had found three factors that contributed markedly to adult Jewish identification: day school, summer camp, and peer-group tours to Israel. (By the way, these results have often been misused to claim that Hebrew school had no effect, but if they show anything of the kind, it's that Hebrew school doesn't have *enough* effect.)

Students in our religious schools generally aren't attending day school (not an option at all in this community), but we all know that we should do everything possible to get students into Jewish summer camp and then into USY (or other) tours to Israel.

Israel's study found one additional factor that was as powerful as the other three: taking Judaic studies or Hebrew courses in college. That makes a great deal of sense in developmental terms, because college students are beginning the process of choosing adult values and self-definition, and voluntarily enrolling in a Judaic studies course represents a big positive step in that.

So I believe that we should also try to position our students to take Hebrew and/or Judaic studies in college (and, therefore, encourage them to choose colleges that have such courses). Above all, that means including enough intellectual content for students to see that there is something worth studying at a higher level – sometimes we focus so much on skills that ideas get short shrift. But if we hope that students will study Hebrew in college, we should teach them script writing in the elementary grades.

Now, I worked for 20 years in secular higher education, the greater part in colleges with Judaic studies programs and substantial Jewish enrollments. In college Hebrew courses, even Hebrew 101, script writing is required from the first day of class (well, maybe the second). I saw a lot of Jewish students who were afraid to enroll in Hebrew courses because of that – they had developed a mental block about it.

This wasn't a realistic attitude, because no background in Hebrew is required for Hebrew 101 and the classes almost always include non-Jewish students, but college students aren't always realistic.

In our school we teach script writing even though we know that the students won't really master it in the time we allocate to it. We require the (rather small) amount of written work that students do in Hebrew to be written in script. We don't try to achieve good handwriting - recognizable is enough. I'm not so sanguine as to believe that most students will retain script writing very well through high school, but it's sufficient that they have become comfortable enough to know that they can re-learn it easily.

And we don't teach printing at all. In pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade, we don't have the students do any writing at all. We start to introduce script writing in second grade, but it's in third grade that the students really start to practice writing.

The Force of a Promise

This posting is based on a presentation given at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Big Flats on October 12, 2008.

Kol Nidre is chanted at the beginning of the evening service for Yom Kippur. It is high drama: Torah scrolls are removed from the ark and held by three or more worthy people, the entire congregation stands, and in a traditional congregation the hazzan (cantor) chants the full text three times.

For many Jews, Kol Nidre is Yom Kippur, and almost everyone refers to the entire evening service as "Kol Nidre" even though the actual chanting of it, even three times, lasts only a few minutes.

This is partly because of the affecting melody. It is almost certainly not because of the text alone, which is largely in Aramaic and which few of us understand.

The text, in fact, is troublesome. Kol Nidre means "all vows," and while people often refer to it as a prayer, it is actually a legal formulation. In short, it annuls whatever vows a person might make. Its legal function is highlighted by having three righteous people hold Torah scrolls, forming a bet din (religious court), and by requiring that it be chanted before sunset (because legal business could not be carried out once the holiday day began).

Beginning the day that is considered the holiest of the year by prospectively annulling vows has caused problems for many centuries, because it led to the conclusion that the word of a Jew could not be trusted. As a result, at times in various countries, a Jew's word was only relied on in an important matter if accompanied by the infamous, and sometimes painful, Jew's oath.

Modern liturgists have been equally troubled by the Kol Nidre text. The Reform movement attempted, unsuccessfully, to omit it, but in at least one Reform machzor (prayerbook for the High Holy Days) it was printed without translation. Some current machzorim state that it was the prayer of people not free, in other words, that it applies to vows made under duress, or that it applies only to vows that, after sincere effort, a person cannot fulfill.

The reason that Kol Nidre offends our modern sensibilities, however, is that we no longer take vows and oaths as seriously as our ancestors did. By definition, an oath is a promise made in the name of God. Our forebears understood such a promise as one that must be fulfilled, with no exceptions; probably they believed that if they failed to keep such an oath, they would die before the next Yom Kippur.

In contrast, although people frequently conclude modern legal oaths (e.g., in a secular court of law) with the phrase, "so help me God," the frequency with which oaths are broken in our society suggests that the fear of God is not a powerful motivator, even among those who invoke God freely.

The full seriousness with which our ancestors took any oath is apparent in the story of Yiftach (Jeptha) in the book of Judges. Yiftach is a military commander who swears an oath that, if he is successful in battle against the Ammonites, "then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering" (Judges 11:31).

Yiftach defeatrs the Ammonites and returns home. His daughter -- his only child -- is the first to come out to meet him. She says, "Father, you have uttered a vow to the Lord; do to me as you have vowed" (11:36) -- and he does.

Rabbinic tradition does not approve of Yiftach's fulfillment of his vow. It holds that he should have gone to the High Priest and sought the annulment of his vow. Kol Nidre seems to have assumed its importance because we no longer have a High Priest to annul vows that should never have been made.

And, because we take the making of vows less seriously than did our ancestors, we probably make improper vows far more often. How often have we, as parents or teachers, said in a moment of exasperation to a child, "If you do that one more time, I swear to God I'll kill you"? The child probably will "do that" one more time, and in the logic of Jewish tradition, that would constitute a vow that had to be carried out. So we need to annul all our foolish and mistaken oaths.

I want to suggest that, instead of downplaying Kol Nidre, we take speech -- all speech, not just oaths that invoke God -- more seriously. A sign of how little trust we have in one another's words today is that, during this election campaign season, we often find that, even when we agree with what a candidate says, we do not entirely believe it.

Although our theology may not lead us to expect a bolt of lightning to strike us every time we break an oath, we would all do better to speak more carefully: to say only what we genuinely mean, to promise only what we will will really do, to say what is true rather than what is expedient.

A number of years ago the philosopher Sissela Bok wrote Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. In it, she strongly endorsed the principle of veracity, although she also found instances in which lying might be excused.

Jewish tradition identifies two such instances. One is telling a bride that she is beautiful -- but the rabbis of old did not consider this untrue. They held that every bride is beautiful, because of inner joy, on her wedding day. The other is misleading a rodef -- a pursuer who chases after another person with the intention of murdering him. In that case, lying is not only permitted but, because of the commandment to preserve life, mandatory.