Just in Case Jewish Education

Jewish Learning – Just in time or Just in case?
Just how relevant is Jewish Education? One of the solutions advanced to solve the Jewish Diaspora’s continuity crisis, is the strengthening and improvement of Jewish Education. While it is true that the quality of Jewish Education can stand improvement, focusing on the pedagogical quality alone will not be sufficient. Even the best teachers, with the best resources, and the best schools are not able to answer, “Why is this relevant to me?”

As Jewish Educators I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, “Why are our students learning this material?” If the students become stars at Hebrew school, what happens? Sadly, the answer all too often is not much. Families rarely attend services. When they do, the services are hard to follow. The new prayer books with their alternate readings mean that no matter how educated a congregant is, they are still going to be dependent on the Rabbi or Cantor to announce the pages.
Once the congregation turns to the right page what happens? The high water mark for Jewish Supplementary School education is decoding. The ability to mumble along incomprehensible syllables is the sole goal for Jewish education. One masters decoding to perform adequately at a Bnei Mitzah. Afterwards, that information can be forgotten. And, If you think those schools that ignore decoding actually focus on real content you are sorely mistaken. The Bnei Mizvot without skills do not suddenly bloom with meaning and spiritual content. The quality of Jewish education barely qualifies as a third grade level experience.

On Birthright this past winter, one of our staff rabbis threw out all of the great theme material we prepared for him. The reason? The student’s had no foundational knowledge. The Rabbi reported,“I asked on the first day, who know’s Abraham? Who is familiar with his story? Not one student answered.”

We could wring our hands and say, “How can someone go through Hebrew school and not know who Abraham was?” But, the real problem is that there is no relevance. Why be Jewish? Why master the skills of prayer and knowledge of ritual? If no one does these things any more, doesn’t studying Judasim become like studying Assyrian culture? Ok, there is some vague value to ethnic identification and nostalgia. But, how many Huguenots are present in America? Should the Judaism that America has created and espoused cause a child to actually care? Why should the student’s care when no one else does.

This is not to say that the Jewish endeavor should be forsaken. There are very important relevant questions that religion can answer in a person’s life. “Why am I here?”, “What is life’s purpose?”, How do I decide what to do?”, “Is there a right and wrong?”.

There are hard questions. “Does G-d exist?”, “Does prayer work?”, “Do we have free choice?”, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”. These questions are hard, but, meaningful. Unless we are prepared to answer these questions, we should stay home. Today’s Jewish students do not need more drills in Adon Olam just in case they ever go to services. Let’s forget ‘Just in case’ and bring some real relevance to the classroom.