The majority of people in the world are born into their religion. It is the religion that their parents practice and those parents probably got their religion from their parents. It is a cycle that has been going on for centuries all over the world.
But religion is not something that people can genetically inherit in order to have a deep understanding of the belief system associated with it. One resource for this education has been family members. But it is almost impossible for one generation to teach the next one all that they have learned about their family’s religion.
This is where religious school steps in to fill the void. But what if the quality of education at these schools is low and students feel like they lack an understanding of their religion? The resulting religious emptiness may not be discovered until many years later.
Growing up Jewish for me meant going to Sunday school once a week for three hours. I go to Congregation Beth Am, the same Reform temple my mother went to as a child. What this meant for me was very little. I thought that all Jews were the same in the United States and that there were “super Jews” in Israel, who dressed differently and wore their hair strangely in order to feel more Jewish.
My Jewish identity was not primarily established until I was 16 and decided to question my rabbi about what Judaism really is and followed that discussion up with reading many texts on Judaism. My self-discovery ultimately helped me define who I am as a Jew, but I did not start thinking about my religious identity until my teenage years, which for many is too late.
Many times I wonder what my life would be like if my temple did a better job educating me at a young age on the various components of Judaism. Reading biblical stories and celebrating the various Jewish holidays for about eight years is not enough to develop a complete understanding of the religion. The only difference over the years was that in kindergarten we made biblical character facemasks and in sixth grade, we were privileged enough to make challah from scratch.
To get an unbiased perspective of my temple’s education, I questioned 10 other people who went through the same system, but throughout different periods of time over the last four decades. I got the same response across the board. In general, these “educated Jews” do not know what the main beliefs of Reform Judaism are and nobody knows a chronological history of the Jewish people.
I am still a member of Beth Am. The temple teaches and practices religion from a hybrid of a substantive and functional definition. Substantively, there is an overpowering emphasis on the Jewish community. The beginning of Beth Am’s mission statement is, “The primary goal of our lifelong learning program is to create a community at Beth Am in which our congregants will value Jewish education highly and engage in it regularly so that they may become committed, knowledgeable, participating, Reform Jews.”
The temple is located in Los Altos Hills, and the majority of the congregation is quite wealthy and money is of great consequence to their daily lives. I have witnessed many instances when people have come to holy services and ended up making business deals, found a new doctor or lawyer or accountant or even got a date. The impact of money at our temple has almost made it less holy and more political.
From a functional perspective, the temple succeeds with its weekly Shabbat services, when the rabbi addresses the congregation to discuss the week’s Torah portion in relation to current events. In the temple’s mission statement, this is addressed after the importance of community. “They [Jewish congregants] will be able to make informed Jewish choices and will live up to the highest ideals of our tradition.”
From my personal religious perspective, I think Beth Am does not put enough effort into providing youth the knowledge to make “Jewish choices.” At this point I would put more importance on being able to incorporate Jewish beliefs and ideals into everyday life issues and decisions. I must recognize that this may be the case for me because I lacked this knowledge when I was younger and I had to actively seek it out on my own. Evaluating community versus living up to Jewish ideals, in relationship to religion as a whole, I can see how both elements can be derived from one another. If you have a strong community, the members will feel more comfortable living up to their ideals. If you have a group of people with similar ideals, then they will develop into a community based on their common bond.
Beth Am’s core fundamentals of fostering community and understanding Jewish ideals can only be accomplished through proper education. The religious education system has the potential to create a set of morals for youngsters, while educating them on the beliefs, traditions, and history of the religion. Though my temple requests membership dues of a percentage of overall household income and the members are mostly wealthy Bay Area residents, they are not allocating the time, resources and energy to providing Jewish children with an education system that will prepare them for religious life.
The overall attitude toward religion could be improved if the education system is changed. This change could possibly encourage the Reform community to come to temple on days other than High Holy Days.
Jesse Brooks is an undergraduate student at Santa Clara University, majoring in business marketing.
TWO VIEWS:
Does Jewish education pass the test?