Q: My husband and I are parents of a soon to be Bar Mitzvah. I have been shul-shopping to see what shul might give him the education I was hoping he would get — learning the service, learning Hebrew and helping him think about questions beyond himself. What I found instead were various rules and requirements to become a Bar Mitzvah. Some required attendance every shabbat for 2 years, some required tutoring sessions twice a week for a year. Some friends told me I could eschew a shul entirely and just hire a rabbi to officiate the service. On the one hand, I would like my child to be a part of a congregation, but if I’m being honest, I don’t feel very attached to any congregation around me right now. I wonder how you would advise me.
A: I think congregations are struggling with how to build community and how best to educate students. Childhood in America has changed, be it due to affluence or two-parent working families. Kids are busy. Sports, music lessons, after school activities, and so many other activities are vying for time in a child and family’s schedule. Gone are the days when the only claim on a child’s time other than Hebrew school was a pick-up ball game and a bike ride to the playground.
Many young families who do want their children to identify as Jews are having Bar or Bat Mitzvah preparation outside the synagogue. They and a group of friends are hiring private tutors to teach their children. The kids may find they get the camaraderie that the requirement of going to shul every week is meant to create. Depending on the tutor, they may find their learning is more expansive or less than those of their synagogue. You will need to thoroughly vet the tutor.
Many synagogues, particularly ones with many children, limit the B Mitzvah participation to learning a very brief section of the Torah portion and a brief d’var torah. Some parents may feel that their child, in order to feel comfortable at Hillel or Chabad when they start college, need to really feel comfortable knowing the whole service. Others just want a brief ceremony to honor the life cycle event. Still others might focus more on the party than the bar mitzvah process.
It is easy to be judgmental, or say that anyone who sees the B Mitzvah differently from the way I do is not a good Jew. But if we take a step back, what is really happening is that parents, children, and synagogues are asking how best to give the B Mitzvah kids, and by extension, their families, a worthwhile ceremony and make them part of the community. We see that many families are eschewing rigid structures in an attempt to create a more meaningful ceremony for their child. They are asking, “Do these rules about attendance have any meaning? Are they doing the job of making children part of the community or merely making them resentful?”
Learning isn’t always fun. I don’t think that parents who are trying new ways of educating their child are necessarily saying that it all must be “fun and games.” However, the portion of Jews who are non-congregational grow with each successive generation. People move around more, they go to college, and are less likely to spend most of their life in one place and with one synagogue. Younger parents who haven’t had a chance to take up roots in a community may not feel the same allegiance to the rules of a congregation when it comes time to educate their children. They aren’t necessarily looking for the easy way out, but they’re looking for something meaningful. A Jewish education is timeless and transportable. When rules seem to encourage loyalty to a congregation over religious learning, we run the risk of disaffecting younger parents who may expect to move again in the next decade.
Some congregations have changed their rules to focus on education over attendance, having them learn about Judaism outside of the shul. Maybe they learn about the process of burying holy books to show respect, it’s a process that some Jews don’t even know about, but it physically connects our religion to the material world. Some have students visit nursing homes and learn from Jewish elders, or have Holocaust education units and American Jewish History classes. The role of a congregation has always been to facilitate the practice and understanding of Judaism for a community by concentrating and providing resources. These education-focused requirements take that mission outside the walls of the shul.
In many ways the B Mitzvah is the beginning of a journey, the beginning of Jewish adulthood. The goal of the ceremony, hopefully, is to encourage people to continue the journey. Now more than ever, the B Mitzvah is a chance for the family to join the congregation just as much as it is for the child. We need to make sure that our processes are inviting families in, not creating needless hurdles. We should acknowledge that the fact that families are exploring alternatives means they are interested and engaged. They might not be getting what they want from their local congregation, but that doesn’t mean they are now unreachable.
You say you are not feeling very connected to any group right now, so I invite you to do some self-reflection. Do you have the energy and time to build a small group of friends who, together, would begin a journey of Jewish learning? Or, do you wish to invest yourself in the history and traditions of an existing group? Are you missing something from the congregations around you, or do you not know where to start? There are many ways to find meaning in Judaism and to pass what is sacred to you onto your children. Personally, I applaud any effort to educate our young. This is an important marker in both your life and the life of your child. Mark it in a way that encourages future learning for both your child and for you.