Big News from Birthright Israel

This in from today’s eJewishPhilanthropy blog:

New research released this morning by researchers from The Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University backs up what many of us have known for years – Birthright participants return home with positive perceptions of their experience, increased connection to Israel, greater sense of connectedness to the Jewish people and increased interest in creating Jewish families.

The study, which has had the science behind it heavily vetted, is both the first to identify the Birthright experience as playing a part in marriage choices and the first to look at long-term impacts of participation.

Selecting both alumni and applicants who did not participate, the study focused on individuals from Birthright’s earliest years, 2001-2004.

Key highlights include:

• Among married respondents who were not raised Orthodox, participants were 57 percent more likely to be married to a Jew than non-participants. (Virtually all married respondents who were raised Orthodox were married to Jews.) Among unmarried respondents, participants were 46 percent more likely than non-participants to view marrying a Jewish person as “very important.”
• Participants were 30 percent more likely to view raising children as Jews as “very important.”
• Participants were 16 percent more likely than non-participants to report feeling “very much” connected to the worldwide Jewish community.
• Participants were 23 percent more likely than non-participants to report feeling “very much” connected to Israel.

As impressive as the present findings are, the study raises a number of unanswered questions. One is whether systematic follow-up efforts are necessary to sustain or even enhance the impact of the Birthright program.

The present study does not directly assess follow-up programs, such as those currently provided by Birthright Israel NEXT. [NEXT did not exist when the alumni who were the focus of the present study returned from their trips].

In addition, most participants from these early cohorts are now beyond the ages targeted by such programs.

Finally, and in contrast to the present situation, early participants returned to campuses and communities that had fewer Birthright alumni. The present evidence suggests that a high quality peer experience in Israel, even in the absence of such programs, produces significant long-term effects. However, the needs of more recent program alumni who, on average, have lower levels of prior Jewish education, may be different.

 

Letter to a Student About Writing on Shabbat

As I think I’ve written before, one of the books I want to write is called “Letters to a Jewish Twenty-something.” A recent conversation with a former student now studying in Jerusalem for the year prompted me to write the next entry.

Dear Alex,

You asked me for guidance about your desire to write on Shabbat. While writing on Shabbat is formally prohibited as one of the 39 acts of labor forbidden by Jewish law, you brought up a few very important rationales for wanting to write:

1. You want to write in order to capture and reflect on some of the very meaningful, thought- and feeling-provoking experiences you have on Shabbat, particularly this year as you study in Jerusalem;
2. While you appreciate living a halakhic lifestyle as a way of engaging with the rich tradition of the Jewish people, you don’t believe that halakha is actually the word of God as expressed through the Rabbis;
3. Given both of the previous points, it would seem to make a lot of sense to allow yourself to write on Shabbat as a means of deepening your spiritual experience–or, in a formulation I would prefer, deepen your dialogue with the enduring story of the Jewish people.

I responded in our conversation that you are asking a very powerful question, one that goes to the heart of the predicament of Orthodoxy and non-Orthodoxy today: Do you follow the formal letter of the law, even at the expense of deeper spiritual fulfillment and self-actualization? Or do you massage the contours of the law, in order to enable a more profound spirituality? Do you see the law as absolutely binding, even when it comes at the expense of a higher good? (Philosophers would call this a deontological position.) Or is the law only good when it fulfills the higher purpose in which you understand it is rooted, in which case your behavior should follow the purpose, and not the law? (A consequentialist approach.)

As I told you, my own feeling is that, though I have a great deal of sympathy for the consequentialist impulse–that is, to adjust our practice according to the purposes we understand it should be aligned with–and while I have a big problem the idea of deontological ethics–that is, behavior dicated solely by duty, and not by conscience–I still wouldn’t write on Shabbat, even if it was for your noble purpose of a greater sense of communion with the Holy One and Am Yisrael.

I can identify two main reasons for this. First, as I told you, one of the great advantages of halakha is that you don’t have to constantly evaluate your practice against your own subjective impulses. Halakha gives you a strong frame in which to live your life, and in giving over some of the decision-making to halakha, I think you ultimately create space in your life to be a better oved Hashem, a servant of God. The minute you start to cross that line, however well-intentioned the crossing, the frame ceases to be solid. Granted, one can reasonably argue that in our world of choice, every time one acts according to halakha, one is making an active choice. But in my experience, that’s not the case within a shomer mitzvot community. Yes, people frequently negotiate their observance, but there still remains an identifiable communal norm of behavior. Jews who keep halakha simply don’t write on Shabbos. When you begin to write, you may well be a very good Jew, but you have entered a space where you assume all responsibility for your halakhic decision-making, and I think that will lead to greater anxiety and difficulty down the road.

Second, and related to the first point, I don’t think one has to believe that halakha as codified in the Shulchan Arukh is dvar Hashem in order to be a God-fearing Orthodox Jew. One can approach halakha as what political philsophers might call a weak ontology–in the words of Stephen White, “Strong beliefs, weakly held.” The idea here is that halakha can be something we feel quite committed to, while still having a modern’s awareness that it may well not be the word of God, that it is the work of human beings. The community of people who live their lives in deep dialogue with halakha–the community of shomrei mitzvot throughout time–evolves and grows as an organism. We can argue about the pace of that change and whether the organism is healthy (I think it generally is), but the key point is that our relationship with the organism is paramount, not whether we believe that halakha comes from the mouth of God. In this respect, my approach has resonance with the idea of second naivete found in writers like Paul Ricouer–that is, we can approach our lives with a modern, self-critical, modest point of view, and yet still have deep commitments and a deep relationship with the Creator, which comes about through the awe and wonder we experience as briot, creations in the world, and in Torah, the ritual and ethical discipline we practice that connects us with God and one another in past, present and future.

What I am describing is essentially the project of modern or open Orthodoxy today, in my view. It is the attempt to live a life fully in dialogue with the enduring story of the people of Israel–Torah in its fullest understanding–in a post-modern age. It is a big project, and one that I myself am not sure I’m up to. I do not always rise to the level of these aspirations. But I try.

So finally, in answer to your question about writing on Shabbat, I would say that I think–I know–that God wants you to be struck with awe and wonder and gratitude at the world, and your life in it. I know God wants you to express that. And I also know that not writing on Shabbat is a discipline with ancient roots, that there have been spiritual seekers in every generation who have wrestled with how best to elaborate the memories of a Shabbat afternoon. My strong guess is that there are some deep spritual souls in the Holy City who can help you to find ways of remembering, rearticulating, and recreating your spiritual journey, and that those methods will be even more lasting and significant than writing. Before you take on the yoke of making your own halakha, I think you should explore all of the wisdom within it.

B’vracha,

Josh

 

The Masa ‘Lost’ Ad

There has been a lot of chatter over the last week about the new ad campaign in Israel for Masa, the cooperative venture that sponsors long-term programs in Israel for North Americans. The video is below. The Hebrew roughly translates as: “More than 50% of Jewish youth in the diaspora are assimilated, and will ultimately be lost to us. If you have a relative in North America, connect them with Masa. A year in Israel leads to love of life.”

So a lot of people have been offended. I get it. But the real issue here isn’t offense (which I find to be a useless emotion), but the chasm that exists between Israelis and American Jews. The makers of this ad, which evidently comes directly from the Prime Minister’s office, simply don’t get what being Jewish is about for the vast majority of American Jews. For that, they might want to read my friend David Bryfman’s piece in this morning’s eJewishPhilanthropy about his study of American Jewish teenagers. The ad conveys direct failure on almost all of David’s ten points.

What this perhaps mostly boils down to is this: American Jews are becoming ever more de-institutionalized (for better or worse) and the State of Israel is presenting itself–at least in this campaign–as the ultimate Jewish institution (which it is). Israel can be so many things, and it is the best resource we have for helping strengthen the Jewish identity of American young adults. What emerges from this for me is that we need to do a much better job of building real relatonships and understanding between the two cultures. Otherwise we will indeed become two peoples.

 

Bamidbar: The Violence of Emerging Adulthood

The Book of Numbers derives its name from multiple countings of the Israelites that occur in the book, which led the ancient rabbis to call it sefer pikudim or Book of Countings. In the first census, which comes at the very beginning of the book and this week’s Torah portion, God instructs Moses that only men age 20 and over are to be counted. According to the 13th century French commentator Hizkuni, this is because at age 20 “they are age-appropriate to go out in an army at war.” The simple explanation of the instruction is thus that the Israelites are preparing to enter the land of Canaan, and will likely have to fight, and therefore they need to know what forces they have.

But there is an additional dimension of the command that is particularly salient in the context of working with emerging adults. Why is age 20 appropriate? It is generally when human beings are at their physical peak–when they are full of energy and vitality, and when they have an adult mind to go along with their bodily attributes. Thus 20-year olds make ideal soldiers. But in peacetime, or when they are not compelled to go to war, 20-year olds must channel those same attributes into positive pursuits. And that isn’t necessarily simple.

In our culture, as to a lesser degree in the ancient world, being 20 years old means wrestling with one’s desires and one’s responsibilities, with working out what one’s life story has been and could be–what it means to be authentic to oneself. All of which can be a messy process. (In fact, I hope it is. As I tell my students, they are paying far too much money for college not to provoke at least one major identity crisis in four years.)

In 1970 the great (Jewish) literary critic Lionel Trilling delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard, which were published as a book called Sincerity and Authenticity. Among many fascinating points, Trilling reminds his listeners of “the violent meanings which are explicity in the Greek ancestry of the word ‘authentic.’ Authenteo: To have full power over; also, to commit a murder. Authentes: not only a master and a doer, but also a perpetrator, a murderer, even a self-murderer, a suicide.” Sometimes, says Trilling, we forget “how ruthless an act” it can be to assert one’s individuality in the face of a culture that requires obedience and conformity.

While one cannot equate military service with the life of a young adult in college, the Torah’s point, with an assist from Trilling, is deeply resonant. The work of authenticity can be violent and scary. Many students find this resonance when they encounter Israeli soldiers for the first time on Birthright Israel trips. “They’re just like me,” is a frequent reaction. Yes and no. Not in the outward sense. But the inward struggles, the work of integrating mind, body, and heart, are common to the life of a soldier and the life of a person emerging into the world of adulthood. The task of the older generations is to be hospitable, to usher these young people into the world of adult responsibilities and channel their energy and creativity into pursuits that enrich life on the planet.

Shabbat shalom.

 

Jewish Life on Campus Means…

Last night NU Hillel hosted a fantastic end-of-year appreciation reception. Four years ago I couldn’t have imagined it–well, I could have, but we were a long way from making it happen. 120 people, from an immense diversity of Jewish backgrounds, sharing stories, eating yummy treats, and enjoying Jewish life together. I am profoundly proud, and deeply grateful. Here are two videos from the event (which also represent my first foray into editing). Thanks to Shauna Perlman for shooting the footage.

 

TFA in Israel?

From MASA, the Israel experience people:

Last week, MASA and UJC launched Israel Teacher Corps (ITC), a 10-month program for North American college graduates to teach English in under-served Israeli public schools. Modeled after Teach for America, one of the largest recruitment organizations on college campuses that attracts young adults to the fields of education and service, ITC challenges Jewish college graduates to become part of the Israeli community by living in the peripheral communities in which they teach. Read more.

 

Shemini: Integrity and Adulthood

This Shabbat marks the bar mitzvah of my nephew, Yonatan Tal Feigelson. We are in Israel for the occasion, and the dvar Torah below is in his honor.

An interesting adjective used to describe the sacrifices at the beginning of Parshat Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47) is tamim. Aaron is instructed to bring a calf and a ram that are tamim, which we learn elsewhere means without blemish (see Ibn Ezra on Lev. 1:3). I do not necessarily want to go through an entire etymology of tamim in reference to the sacrificial system, as much as to point out its usage here and attempt to draw from it some additional significance.

The first instance of the word tamim in the Torah is in the introduction of Noah: “Noah was a righteous, whole (tamim) man in his generation.” (Gen. 6:9) We encounter the word again in the commandment to Abram to circumcise the male members of his household: “And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and God appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am El-Shaddai, walk before me and be whole (tamim).’” (Gen. 17:1) While the midrashic and medieval commentators ascribe a number of meanings to the word, the straightforward definition is whole or complete, as Rashi comments on the instance involving Abram: “Be complete (shalem) in all of my tests for you.” In this sense the use of tamim for both Noah and Abraham, and for the sacrifices in parshat Shemini, are the same: both the people and the animals are to be whole, complete.

I would propose that the word for us today connotes another translation: integrity. To have integrity is to be whole, complete, to be integrated. Yet when we introduce the idea of integrity, we assume in the background the possibility of dis-integration, the possibility of separate parts. In this sense the idea of tamim as applied to animals and people is different: An animal with a bodily defect cannot necessarily be repaired, but a person with a spiritual or ethical defect can repair him- or herself. Indeed, it is through the process of circumcision that Abram is understood to become tamim—that is, through changing an aspect of his person. He is not born complete. Thus, as applied to people, I would argue that integrity is a better translation of temimut, the state of being tamim. To be tamim is to live in wholeness with the possibility of being separated.

 

William Damon on Character Education

William Damon has been writing about character education for a long time. The current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education features an interview with him, which is worth reading (he talks about big questions, integrative educational experiences, and other stuff near and dear to me).  An excerpt:

Q: How do you see your work in the context of the school-reform movement?

The message of my work is that schools need to give students a better understanding of why they are in school in the first place — that is, how the skills students are learning can help them accomplish their life goals. That is the only way to really motivate students in a lasting way. And if you ask any teacher what the major problems in schooling these days are, I’m sure that student motivation will be at the top of the list.

Now in order to help students understand what schooling can help them accomplish, they must be given opportunities to reflect on what they want to do with their lives. What are their ultimate concerns, their highest purposes? What kinds of people do they want to be? Those questions should not be asked or answered in a vacuum. Good schools can provide students with rich historical and literary knowledge about how such questions have been addressed by thoughtful people throughout the ages.

Present-day school-reform movements tend to focus on basic skills, especially ones that can be measured by standardized tests. The skills are important, and the test scores can be useful as indicators of learning. But the skills and the scores are means to an end and not ends in themselves, and they should be presented to students in that way.

Students learn bits of knowledge that they may see little use for; and from time to time someone at a school assembly urges them to go and do great things in the world. When it comes to drawing connections between the two — that is, showing students how a math formula or a history lesson could be important for some purpose that a student may wish to pursue — schools too often leave their students flat.

If you visit a typical classroom and listen for the teacher’s reasons for why the students should do their schoolwork, you will hear a host of narrow, instrumental goals, such as doing well in the course, getting good grades, and avoiding failure, or perhaps — if the students are lucky — the value of learning a specific skill for its own sake. But rarely (if ever) will you hear the teacher discuss with students broader purposes that any of these goals might lead to. Why do people read or write poetry? Why do scientists split genes? Why did I work hard to become a teacher? How can schools expect that young people will find meaning in what they are doing if they so rarely draw their attention to considerations of the personal meaning and purpose of the work others do?