Jewish Family Education: Jewish Family Rituals

Jewish Family Education: Jewish Family Rituals Description of the Student Body This lesson will take the form of a BBYO program. The students will be teenagers in grades 8-12 and likely members of BBYO as well as their parents. Objectives of the Class There are several objectives to the class both as a series and an individual unit. The series will try to create meaningful Jewish experiences, an interest in further Jewish learning, facilitate parent teen bonding and encourage Judaism to be a lens through which the family can experience life. The individual class will encourage families to gain a deeper understanding of Jewish family choices and practices. We often take the ritual objects and their presence in our home for granted and do not ask deeper questions about their purpose and use. This lesson aims to help families make intentional decisions about the Jewish character of their home together. Questions to be Asked: What makes a home Jewish? What makes our home Jewish? Is there a right answer, or a clearly more Jewish answer? What Jewish rituals and objects do me and my family connect to the most? What keeps us from connecting to other rituals and objects? What are some of the underlying values in these rituals and objects? How do mitzvot play a role in our lives? Are their alternative approaches to the traditional interaction with these rituals and objects and how can these help inform our family practice? How has the interaction as a family changed or remained the same as children have grown up (and potentially some have left the house)? Why do we personally participate in Jewish family rituals and practices? Timeline: 20 minutes Activity and Discussion of a Jewish Home 20 minutes Biblical Text Chevruta and Discussion of Holiness and Ethics behind ritual objects 20 minutes Two approaches to obligation 5 minutes Wrap Up

Activity: Create groups that do not include anyone else from your own family. Give 15 note cards to each group. Ask them to think about objects that make a home Jewish. List 5 Jewish things you think are most commonly found in a Jewish home. 5 Jewish things you would consider more obscure (might find in someone else s home, but don t necessarily have it in your homes.) and 5 cards for things you wouldn t expect to find in a Jewish house. Be Creative! Using the table, each group should present their cards and separate them into categories of Common, Obscure, and Not Jewish. What other categories could we create besides Common, Obscure and Not Jewish (ex. Must have, could have, shouldn t have. Holidays, secular/cultural, everyday ritual. Holiness, Ethical, Mitzvot ) People can move the cards around at this point. Of the objects in the not Jewish pile, how many of them do you think are found in Jewish homes? What does it mean to have a Jewish home with non-jewish objects? Does a home have to be exclusively Jewish? How could it be inclusively Jewish? (regardless of whether the occupants are all Jewish or not) If you could only have 5 of these things in your house, what would you choose and why? Why do we have Jewish ritual objects and practices? Action is important! Practice is huge in Judaism, for example there is a concept called Naaseh vnishmah. Who has heard of this before or knows what it means? At Sinai when the Jews accepted the Torah we said Naaseh v Nishmah. We will do and we will listen. Which is interpreted as first we will follow the commandments and then we ll understand or study why. There is another concept from a prayer that Talmud Torah Kneged Kulam. Torah study is equal to them all (deeds) because it leads to them all. It s important that Torah study leads to action and not just knowledge. I found a quote that states it perfectly from myjewishlearning.com "Judaism is about how to live, not just what to believe," writes one contemporary observer. Jewish daily life and practice is how Jews do things--day in and day out, and week after week--that embody the ideals and standards expressed in Judaism's sacred writings and its ancient (and modern) traditions. So how do the objects help us to live a Jewish life not just hold Jewish beliefs? Many of the reasons for the ritual objects (not cultural objects) are to fulfill Mitzvot. people observe the mitzvot because it helps them to identify and feel a part of the larger Jewish community, others because they believe themselves to be commanded to do so, and still others simply because it is pleasurable, a joy, to celebrate the Jewish holidays and home rituals. Some of the mitzvot reflect ethical ideals and some are just seemingly curious ways to connect to the divine. So now we are going to explore some text on Mitzvot. Chevruta Text: Chevruta is a common form of Jewish learning. It requires a partner/friend and consists of out loud study and analysis of text. The idea is to push your chevruta so that both participants can get the most out of the learning session, as well as vocalize your own thoughts. It might feel a little awkward

at first since classroom learning and study often happens in an independent environment, but I promise it will grow on you! Please read each text carefully and out loud with your chevruta. Think about how these biblical verses could relate to the Jewish rituals and objects your family currently connects with as well as rituals you feel less connected to. If you have any questions about the text, I will be walking around and happy to help. Please chevruta with a peer for this source sheet. After 10 minutes of chevruta and discussion has gone by, do a group summary and the following discussion questions. Group discussion questions for biblical texts: Anything answers from your chevruta you d like to share? Which objects or rituals can you relate to each of these texts? How do these verses change if you don t believe in God? How do commandments play a role in your life? Modern Philosopher s on Commandedness We have two more texts that are a little different. They are Jewish thinkers of the 20 th century with very different views on mitzvot and their purpose. Please read them again out loud with your chevruta. This time we will chevruta with a parent or a teen not from our own family. Summarize the main points of each. Have you heard of both approaches before? Which one do you agree with more? Name two valuable insights from the opposite approach. Which rituals would it seem more natural to practice with a Leibowitz approach, which ones with a Kaplan approach? Wrap Up: In family groups. How has your family changed its practice around Jewish rituals over the past 20 years? Stages in children s life effect how/when/why you participate in Jewish ritual? How would you like your family to participate in Jewish ritual in the next year, how about the next 5 years? What approach would your family like to take to these rituals? How has this session helped you clarify or reevaluate your family practice? Anyone want to share something from their family wrap up discussion?

Pre made cards for activity in case people forget something vital or interesting: Mezuzah Marc Chagall Painting Kiddush Cup Shabbat Candlesticks Separate Dishes for Meat and Milk Siddur (prayer book) Chumash (Bible) Talmud Jewish Philosophy Books Machsor (High holiday prayer book) Jewish joke book Jewish cook book Havdallah Set Seder Plate Challah Board Chanukiah Tzedekah Box Pomegranate Matzah Map of Israel Picture of the Rebbe Bar and Bat Mitzvah Pictures Tallit Tefillin Matzo Ball Mix Chai or Jewish Star Necklace Kippah Shofar Lulav Souvenirs from Israel Ketubah Fiddler on the Roof Jewish Children s Books Debbie Friedman CD Jewish Calendar Apples to Apples

Devarim 6:4-9 Mezuzah Devarim 11:13-21 Why does the text emphasize how you should love God in three different ways? What does it mean to talk about these words when you are sitting, walking lying down and rising up? How does the text of the Mezuzah teach us to live? Bamidbar 15:37-41 (Shema paragraph 3) Why do you think only the first two paragraphs of the Shema make it into the Mezuzah? Which parts of these texts specifically have to do with Holiness? Ethics? Obligation/Mitzvot? What is the connection between commandments and Egypt? Why are you obligated according to the texts that make up the Shema?

Devarim 15:7-8 Tzedakah Devarim 24:18-19 What does hardening your heart have to do with helping the needy? How would you determine an amount for sufficient for his need? Why are you obligated according to the texts on Tzedakah?

Commandedness: Two Modern Views Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Religion Is a Goal unto Itself Should we do mitzvot [commandments] because of some goal accomplished by their performance, or simply because God commands us to do them? Here are radically different answers to that question from two prominent 20th-century Jewish thinkers. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1904-1994), an influential Latvian-born Israeli Orthodox thinker, taught natural sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia Hebraica. The following is from his entry on Commandment in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, by A.A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr, 1986, Gale Group. Reprinted by permission of the Gale Group. Mitzvot as a way of life, as a fixed and permanent form of human existence, preserve religion as a goal in itself and prevent it from turning into a means for attaining a goal. Indeed, most of the mitzvot have no sense unless we regard them in this manner, as an expression of selfless divine service. Most of the mitzvot have no instrumental or utilitarian value and cannot be construed as helping a person fulfill his earthly or spiritual needs. A person would not undertake this way of life unless he sees divine service as a goal in itself, not as a means to achieve any other purpose. Therefore, the halakha directs its attention to one s duties and not to one s feelings. If mitzvot are service to God and not service to man, they do not have to be intended or directed to man s needs. Every reason given for the mitzvot that bases itself on human needs -- be they intellectual, ethical, social or national -- voids the mitzvot of all religious meaning. For if the mitzvot are the expression of philosophic knowledge, or if they have any ethical content, or if they are meant to benefit society, or if they are meant to maintain the Jewish people, then he who performs them serves not God but himself, his society or his people. He does not serve God but uses the Torah of God for human benefit and as a means to satisfy human needs. Therefore, the so-called reasons for the mitzvot are a theological construct and not a fact of religious faith. The only genuine reason for the mitzvot is the worship of God, and not the satisfaction of a human need or interest. If, for example, the meaning of Shabbat were social or national, it would be completely superfluous: The secretary of the labor union takes care of the workers need for rest. The Divine Presence did not descend upon Mount Sinai to fulfill that function. If Shabbat does not have the meaning of holiness -- and holiness is a concept utterly devoid of humanistic and anthropocentric meaning -- then it has no meaning at all.

Mordecai Kaplan: Mitzvot Embody Community and Individual Values Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of the Reconstructionist movement of Judaism, taught Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for over half a century. His non-supernatural theology and his willingness to alter aspects of Jewish practice in keeping with his outlook generated controversy throughout his adult life and beyond. The following is reprinted from his bookthe Future of the American Jew (Macmillan, 1948. (The italicized portion is italicized in the original.) In the matter of ritual observance, as in so many other phases of life, it is necessary to strike a balance between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual. This is implied in the fundamental principle that Judaism is a religious civilization. For a religious civilization is one which not only identifies the individual with his group, but makes the group responsible for the salvation of the individual, for helping him to experience life as supremely worthwhile or holy, and thus to commune with God. A satisfactory rationale for Jewish usage is one that would recognize in it both a method of group survival and a means to the personal selffulfillment, or salvation of the individual Jew. Through it, the individual Jew will know the exhilaration of fully identifying himself with his people and, thereby, saving his own life from dullness, drabness and triviality. Jewish tradition brings to the daily living of the Jew, to his holiday celebration, to the celebration of turning points in his life, a wealth of beautiful and meaningful symbols embodying the sancta of his people, expressive of its ideals and native to its culture. These should be retained and developed; for no creed, no value, no self-identification of the individual with his people is effective, unless it is translated into action of a systematic and habitual nature. If we accept this rationale of Jewish usage and recognize its dual function of contributing both to Jewish group survival and to the personal self-fulfillment of the individual, we must accept as a corollary the sanctioning by the group of variations in ritual usage. The circumstances of life are so different for different Jews, their economic needs and opportunities, their cultural background, their acquired skills and inherited capacities are so varied that is unreasonable to expect all of them to find self-fulfillment in the traditional rituals. That was possible only where the Jewish community lived a self-contained life and could make possible for all its members, without undue sacrifice on their part, the observance of all usages which were the norm in Jewish life. It is not possible when, as in democratic countries, the Jew has to live in two civilizations, and find his place in the economic and cultural life of the civic community as well as of the Jewish. Summarize the main points of each. Have you heard of either or both approaches before? Which one do you personally agree with more? Name two valuable insights from the opposite approach (the one you agree with less.) Which rituals would it seem more natural to practice with a Leibowitz approach, which ones with a Kaplan approach? How might your family or community be affected by individuals holding different approaches?