Jewish education priorities
Your question:
Moshe, wouldn’t you agree that Jewish education for our youth should be the community’s highest priority?
My answer:
Actually, I do not agree with that. The highest
priority should be the continuing Jewish education of adults. That is
where the need is most critical, for the reasons given below.
- Jewish adults today are woefully undereducated
in history, laws, and philosophy. This has some really serious
consequences. For example:
- They don’t know much at all, are
confused by what little they have heard, and often carry a very
minimal and unsatisfying image of Judaism.
- They cannot instruct or answer the questions of their children.
- Their ignorance and lack of interest in
Jewish studies sets a bad example and conveys a destructive message
to the young. How can children conclude that Judaism is valuable if
their parents don’t spend any time studying it?
- Jewish education should start in the home
anyway and be primarily accomplished there by two knowledgeable
parents. It seems self-evident to me that if there is no Jewish life at
home, no amount of Hebrew school will do any good.
- The practice of dropping off the kids for an
hour or two of Jewish instruction, during which the parent goes off to
do a variety of chores, detracts from the education spirit and process.
The parents should set an example by also taking at least as many
hours of classes during the week and preferably during the same time
period. Also, how can the parent adequately evaluate the children’s
Jewish education if he or she is not in a position to discuss what has
been presented in the latter’s classes? In my opinion, the congregation
should look with some disapproval at parents who seek their children’s
Jewish education but not their own.
- I also need to mention that the love or fear of
G-d should not, in my opinion, be a major goal of children’s
instruction. Rather, ethical development, along Jewish lines, together
with history and culture, are the proper areas of emphasis. Discussions
of divinity should be left for later, maybe the teen years, early
adulthood, and for the more mature.
So, my first priority is adult Jewish
education. After that is adequately set up and running smoothly, with a
variety of classes and significant numbers of congregants enrolled,
should the attention be turned to the children. I would much prefer to
have precious resources allocated in this way.
It would be hard to imagine the loss of Jews,
young and old, to assimilation or miscellaneous competing spiritual
paths, if the community made sure that the parents, for starters, had a
non-trivial knowledge of, or were at least seriously interested in,
what Judaism has to offer.
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