Never Again, Orlando
I grew up in the generation following the Holocaust and its legacy was built into the DNA of my Jewish education - first in a day school through grade 8, then later in Midrasha, where I continued my Jewish through high school. We were taught that by remembering the Holocaust we would prevent it. While I believe that remembering is important, I now believe that it is not enough. The horrific events in Orlando this week prove that.
So what to do? The Golden Rule appears in one form or another in all major religions which suggests that understanding, appreciating and loving each other - as thyself - is foundational to having a peaceful and just society. If this is true, then we need to radically rethink the way we educate our children in a school that combines rigorous education, empathy, and religious teaching from all major faith traditions.
To understand how I arrived at this conclusion, I need to walk you through my own journey.
Over the past year, I have been reconnecting with Judaism through a series of discussions with my rabbis, Elan Babchuck and Irwin Kula. They have offered new lenses to think about the role of religion in my life - in fact, after my first lesson from Irwin last year, I wrote Social Entrepreneurship is Halacha for Tikun Olam. Irwin brought a unique view of religion that I’d never considered before - that it was created to fulfill important needs in our lives - and that these needs might be satisfied in ways the rabbis, our traditions, and our institutions have not considered valid. It seems from the data, however, that we are finding our own ways to meet these needs albeit outside of organized and traditional religious models.
Many of the ideas we’ve discussed emerge from Irwin’s passionate belief (and those developed and actualized by CLAL, the organization he co-leads) in pluralism. Pluralism is an ideology that honors what’s best in all of us - and invites us to connect and celebrate our lives through the beliefs and values that unite us rather than our differences.
These ideas are quite inspiring and begin to provide answers to an ongoing discussion that Bari and I have been having for many years. If we accept that many of the world’s greatest conflicts and horrors (including the recent tragic events in Orlando) are perpetrated in the name of religion then we would naturally argue that society would be better off without it. In fact, when I told my Mom about this essay when we spoke this morning, she told me about Steven Anderson, a pastor in Arizona who recorded this message to update his followers about the “good news and the bad news” about the massacre in Orlando. Words cannot describe the horror I felt when I listened to his words … in the name of religion!
Pluralism imagines a world where we can all live with deep respect for one another - which might be easier if we weren’t carrying the legacy of our religious faith traditions that have led to so much conflict. If we follow the story, we may end up in a place where we are guiding our lives by values rather than our faith traditions, do we need the traditions or will we continue to see them as divisive forces.
Let’s explore cuisine as an illustration? Many of us hold a passion for food’s ability to nourish us, to excite us through all of our senses, or to help us connect with our family and friends. But food comes in various forms, styles and traditions which enrich the experience. In fact, our enjoyment and impact from food transcends its forms and flavors and our individual preferences enrich the entire experience. We can have our own preferred cuisine that performs the functions without any conflict when others choose different forms.
What does this have to do with Jewish education? I think everything.
Bari and I chose a Jewish education for our children because we felt it was a better education. It created literacy in our ritual and tradition that we hoped would provide the ingredients for a fulfilling and enduring connection to their religion. We also believed that a curriculum built on values would help them become “good people”. Finally, we were convinced that the learning goals and skills we wanted them to develop would be strengthened through a rigorous education that challenged them to learn in multiple languages.
As our children progressed through the Schechter school, Bari and I served on their Board - and witnessed the decline in enrollment as fewer families bought into the value of religious education. Many worried that the school’s values were “more Jewish” than what they practiced in their home. But most families probably rejected a day school education without even exploring it.
Perhaps this was caused by demographics where many families continue to value their Jewish identity but don’t affiliate with existing structures and institutions. We know from extensive surveys and polling about religion (most notably from Pew Foundation) that 81% report that religion plays an important role in their lives even though 19% reflect this importance via routine (weekly) attendance to a service. But the study identifies some areas where “religious” practice may be increasing for example 36% report that they are meditating more than once a month.
Others who know this data better than I do will show you many more compelling data points - but the evidence is clear (at least to me) that the decline in participation in existing institutions including synagogues and jewish day school education is not reflected by a similar decline in importance - or even pursuit of the goals / functions of religion in our lives.
Perhaps we can build a better world by designing an educational philosophy that is designed around The Golden Rule and the principles of pluralism. To fully embrace the idea that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we need to make our neighbors our friends… our family - and break the barriers that separate us. We need design our schools like culinary institutes - where we work toward the ultimate goal of diner experience but celebrate the diversity of cuisines that achieve the same goals.
This model of education would prepare our children to navigate diverse communities and a globalizing society and would build deep love and connection with the teachings and traditions of our individual faith traditions. This value proposition might also resonate more strongly for people who are currently seeking spirituality outside organized religious institutions.
This is already happening in a small way in our community. Adam Tilove, the principal at the Jewish Community Day School (JCDS) was horrified when the Islamic School of RI was vandalized. JCDS students wrote cards of solidarity and support that sparked a collaboration over the past years that built relationships between the students that demonstrated how “diversity can be a point of power, not weakness” according to ISRI principal Abdelnasser Hussein.
It turns out that the Islamic community is facing the same demographic trends that we see in the Jewish community with 88% of respondents indicating that being Muslim is important to them with only 45% attending services weekly. Actually, these trends are impacting all faith traditions. So this new model actually might solve a problem that is being faced by all organized religions.
What if we built on this small collaboration and go even further to reimagine how religion is passed on to our children? What if we react together to the challenges we are facing together and create a new form of education that inclusively embeds religious teaching within the curriculum - that helps individual students develop a love of their own traditions and also an appreciation for other traditions?
This model would go beyond pluralism as I learned it within a Jewish context and extend to its natural conclusion - that we have far more in common than differences. Relinquishing “control” over the narrative would feel risky to the systems of religious education that exist in our institutions - but I’d remind them that their current strategies to reverse enrollment trends are not working which suggests a new approach might be needed.
This inclusive design would also challenge us to operate differently in our community. To make this model work would require an incredible commitment to collaboration - to redefine the narrative for educating our children around the goals and outcomes of religion rather than the particular path chosen.