It’s Time To Change The Way We Deliver Judaism If We Want Judaism To Survive

(This is an updated version of an article that generated considerable feedback when I posted it several months ago.)

What now appeals to a niche market and has decreased in popularity over the last few generations, even with what used to be its core fans? If you guessed baseball and Judaism you win.

And Judaism loses if it continues to mirror baseball’s path.

A fast paced world no longer enjoys baseball’s slow and slower paced game, at least to the same extent it once did. And its players and fans, now largely devoid of African Americans, no longer mirror America’s demographics. Revenue may be up, but baseball is far from the game of choice among our youth, baseball’s future.

Football  has followed a different game plan. It frequently tweaks  its rules, all the better to adapt to its fans’ desire for higher scoring and a faster pace. And football only grows more popular in every demographic segment.

Yes, sports analogies don’t do justice to the challenge Judaism faces. But the Jewish brand, if one defines the brand to include anything other than the modern and ultra-Orthodox branches, is clearly in danger.

Like baseball’s brain trust, too many Jewish leaders remain largely fixated on the sanctity of following the traditional Jewish educational path, even though various surveys suggest that the overall number of  people who self-identify as Jewish has likely decreased as a percentage of the population and in pure numbers (although the methodologies of the surveys — what is the acceptable definition of Judaism? — would warrant several additional articles).

The majority of our Jewish educators  seem to be operating at dial-up speed, as they cling to their conventional lesson plans while the main Jewish fan base continues to disconnect and flee for parts known and unknown. Rabbi Irwin Kula, co-president of a Jewish think-tank called CLAL,  argued in a recent article in “Haaretz” that  Judaism will only survive if it  focuses on relevant present day instruction on  gaining and giving meaning to the lives we live today.

Rabbi Eric Yoffee, past President of the Union for Reform Judaism, says we need to start “listening to what our young adults are saying. They want a Jewish world constructed on positives not negatives…..built on vision, openness, inclusion, spirituality, and  a creative path to Torah. They want a vibrant, hopeful Judaism. And if we are to retain their loyalty this is what …Judaism must offer them.”

We also need to consider how to better teach our history.  ”Time Tunnel,” an old television show that featured two scientists traveling through time to various  historical events, wasn’t particularly well acted or logical — why would these two guys, accidentally caught in a “time tunnel” vortex, only travel to  historical events? — but it brought Masada and Jericho and other historical events alive.

We need to create our own time tunnel, and not only better connect our rich history to our present, but also better explain the relevancy.

Yes, we need to  to teach about Jewish historical figures, holidays and our moral and ethical foundation. But let’s also recognize that we have to find new ways to connect with Generation Twitter, a generation interested far less in where their parents and grandparents have been, than where the kids themselves are going today and later today.

Is it so strange to think we need to make Judaism more relevant? Teaching Hebrew isn’t necessarily a bad choice, but we need to recognize that it is a choice with consequences if the time spent is not carefully considered. Engaging young Jews can be a zero sum game. If we spend precious connection time focusing on language skills we lessen time we can spend connecting on more relevant values and ethics messages.

Focusing on making our youth feel more special and proud to be Jewish, instead of operating as if that is a given, as we push them through their educational training, is important. We have to get them to tune in now if we want them to care enough to make their own familial decisions to tune in tomorrow.

In a typical model, we start our Jewish educational training by taking our children directly from their public or private schooling to religious school. We focus on teaching the three h’s – Hebrew, history and holiday observance – but rarely address the seminal and prayerful question: Why on this day, unlike my friends’ other days, do we have to skip after school activities and start homework when they’re already finished?

How much time do we really spend teaching why it’s cool to be Jewish?

If your parents were like mine, they may have succeeded in getting you to believe that your friends were secretly jealous of your frequent absences from after school sports and other activities. (Trust me. They weren’t.) But it probably felt more like you were being punished.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Many Jewish leaders and educators point to Jewish youth activities, as part of a camping experience or JCC, AZA, BBYO (or similar organizational) function, as a way to help connect Jews to their Judaism and to other Jews. And Jewish youth functions are wonderful adjuncts to educational studies. But we need to do more to ensure an enduring and endearing connection. Camping, playing basketball at the J, or having BBYO or AZA parties are not good substitutes for a poor educational platform.

Teaching young Jewish adults only the Israeli narrative in an effort to help them better defend Israel’s actions to non-Jewish young adults, which now seems to be a core part of more educational programs, can be less an educational effort than a propaganda exercise. (” Selling” Israel to future Jewish leaders is important, but playing down or even omitting the Palestinian narrative provides more questions than answers. It leaves our kids less, not better prepared, to understand Israel’s complex challenges and the important role Israel has played and can play in Jewish lives.)

What’s most critical to teach is why it’s important to be, and to  continue to proudly choose to be, Jewish. But we have to first decide what “being Jewish” means and how to make Judaism and support of Israel more relevant and meaningful to the entire Jewish customer base, many of whom are  living comfortable assimilated lives, disconnected from any local religious or community affiliations.

When less than half of Jewish adults now say they believe in God, and even fewer regularly attend religious services, what does this tell us?  Is this something we should try to “fix”? Or is this something we just need to better understand and cater to?  Could it be a little of both?

One thing is certain: We need to recognize that the majority of Jews aren’t buying what’s being sold — the history and religion that we teach and the services we conduct aren’t as relevant as they could be.   Why should we continue to ignore this and operate as if this disqualifies these Jews — many of whom maintain a strong connection to Jewish culture, values and traditions — from the Judaism we want to survive?

Perhaps what this suggests is that at least some portion of the Jewish delivery mechanism needs to be repaired. Call it  a modern Tikkun Olam for the Jewish people.

We need to  realize where people are in their beliefs and lives and expand our focus to include those people if we want Judaism to develop into something future generations are excited to embrace.

Providing more present day Jewish role models can assist with that. Why not focus on the accomplishments of more modern day Jews that our kids may respect, relate to, or aspire to be like? The lesson plans don’t need to be long, but they can be part of a fun way to reel kids in and draw connections to historical figures.

There’s quite a diverse group of Jews to model lesson plans around: Kinky Friedman, Ryan Braun, Joaquin Phoenix, Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Henry Kissinger, Elena Kagan, Paul Krugman, Alan Greenspan, Alan Dershowitz, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Milton Friedman, Judith Resnik, Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer, Michael Dell,Sandra Bernhard, Jack Black, David Blaine, Kate Capshaw, Alan Dershowitz, Billy Joel, Howard Stern, Gene Simmons, Isaac Stern, Saul Bellow, Elie Wiesel, Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Steven Ballmer, Michael Dell and maybe even Captain Kirk, Spock and Adam Sandler. They are all part of our peoplehood. And there are countless others that educators can choose from.

Kids today want some fresh material with their Biblical stories. They want to know why Judaism is important to them in their lives today. Talking about today’s Jews and their values, beliefs, practices and accomplishments is one possible first step. Drawing connections to important historical figures can make a further connection. Once that connection is made, then more is possible.

But that’s not all.

Religious services and sermons focusing on what happened B.C.E., with rabbis making little attempt to explain prayers or Biblical stories in terms of a relevant present day message, could be considered to be a form of religious educational malpractice. Sermons are a teaching opportunity. To be most meaningful, they need to more strongly connect to present day lives.

Those lives now live on-line. More of our educational programming needs to go there, with thoughtful consideration of how much “in school” religious school time is really needed. Make Judaism and Jewish education more accessible. Go where our young Jewish customers are.

Judaism has wonderful messages, but they need to be delivered. The dots have to be connected.

We can all be like Tveye and continue to dance around singing, “T-R-A-D-I-T-I-O-N, TRADITION!”   But, if we continue to make that decision, if we continue to deliver the same educational approach, we will be dancing around a declining, moribund Jewish population.

The shifting Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox sands are not good for Judaism writ large or for Israel. Let’s hope, unlike baseball, we begin to recognize and deal with our problems while we still have time to change.