What is wrong with this picture?

What is wrong with this picture?

From the Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

From the dawn of my religious awakening in fourth grade when I began “Hebrew” school, I have lived my life inside Conservative synagogues. I grew up in USY and the short lived college program ATID, worked in Camp Ramah at different locations on the east coast, served as a USY advisor and youth director at Conservative synagogues. My education was centered at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Since 1974 I have been a Rabbi of six United Synagogue affiliated synagogues. I have spent a lifetime dedicated to facing the dynamics that confront us in the open society and to strengthening Jewish identity qualitatively and quantitatively.

There is nothing in the recent Pew report about the American Jewish community that surprises me.

There has been the long-running mantra that “being” “Jewish” is more than just being “religious.” Some offered “culture” referring to cuisine, arts, music, literature that are “Jewish” but not “religious.” Others turned to campaigns to create or fulfill their definition of “being” “Jewish,” such as the campaign to free Soviet Jewry and then the resettlement programs. The Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 made Israel a major focus of “Jewish” “identity” and activity. And certainly philanthropy for Jewish/Israel causes filled the “Jewish” “identity” quota by the amount of activity enjoined and the sense of doing good (which it certainly is). These were and are good and worthy endeavors for and the Jewish people.

And certainly there were and are many Jews, however self-identified, who are not attracted to Judaism or any of the above. To some degree, that could be the easiest to expect and anticipate.

So what is wrong with this picture?

The answer is that, while valuable, unto themselves these are not sustainable, transmittable nor transformable. They have no internal compelling force. In a world of infinite possibilities, many have answered: “Who cares?”

These are really just derivatives of the eternal, nuclear core which is Judaism: is a faith that believes in a God who chose Abraham and his descendants to be His representatives and exemplars in the world for all time, standing in a covenantal relationship with God expressed through rituals and prayers that refer to our sacred history; lead to holy living; and, creates a community of those who share the faith.

After all is said and done, adults need to determine:                         do they have the faith?

                                          Adults need to determine:            will they transmit the faith?

                                          Adults need to determine:            will they live the faith?

                                          Adults need to determine:            will they make communities of faith?

This is not a question about children, the old Yiddish quote: “Alle fun de kinder”-“everything for the children.” Faith is an adult issue. One has to look inside themselves for that answer. The future of Judaism rests on the answer to these questions. That is what the Pew report tells us.