Our Jewish Future - Reason for Optimism
Kol Nidre
October 5, 2003
Aftzelookhes, the Eagles Redskins game started at 4:15pm. You
know what aftzelookhes means? I thankfully did not get a call
like this today but it once happened that a world series game
took place on Kol Nidre and Gottleib called the rabbi to say
Rabbi, I know tonight is Kol Nidre but I've been a Yankees fan
my whole life, can I watch the game. The rabbi said listen
Gotleib that's what VCRs are for. Gotleib can't believe his
ears, Rabbi he says, you mean I can tape Kol Nidre.
Well, I don't plan to talk about VCRs or the World Series but
something that is most serious in the Jewish world, the state
of Jewish Community in America today. Every ten years we
undergo a National Jewish Population Study. The last one was
the National Jewish Population Study of 2000 which was
released just a few weeks ago on September 9 only three years
late in keeping with the best tradition of Jewish time.
Usually when any results of past studies have been released,
it has been another opportunity for us to shrai gevult, wring
our hands and lamentably wonder if there will be a Jewish
community in America in 50 years or if we are doomed to
extinction. In one of our High Holy Day services held under a
tent which had to be either 1979, 80 or 81, I asked just that
question. I had a teacher in rabbinical school, a pessimist by
nature, who described his work as a rabbi as a captain of a
sinking ship. He was a great inspiration to all of us
planning to enter the rabbinate. Well, here we are some 20
years later. Is our ship afloat? Can we make it another
thirty? What do the most recent numbers say?
I have read through the report of the most recent Jewish
Population Study and I am not wringing my hands. On the
contrary, I'm clapping my hands, I think. Many of the results
are positive and encouraging and there is reason, I believe,
to feel optimistic about the future of the American Jewish
community. As I share the numbers with you, you may have less
optimism than I and may think the numbers don't warrant such
optimism. I confess that my optimism is my personal choice. We
can choose whether we are going to be the optimist or
pessimist given the same reality. I think the numbers can
warrant my optimism and its with that feeling I choose to
enter the new year and continue my work with you, seeing our
cup as half full.
I wonder if other groups in America, religious or ethnic take
numbers with the same concern that we do. We are concerned if
not obsessed with how many Jews we are in America today. How
many of us belong to synagogues? How many are fasting today
and how many light Hanukkah candles? We are concerned with
how many of those getting married marry in meaning to another
Jewish person and how many marry out and its impact on the
Jewish future. We are concerned with how many of our children
are getting a Jewish education and what kind of Jewish
education they are receiving. How many Jews light Shabbes
candles as the sun sets on Friday, have taken an adult
education course in the past year and how many attend
religious services an average of once a month. I suspect we
are more concerned than other groups because our numbers are
small to begin with and as I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah, we
don't missionize to add to our numbers. In fact they are still
missionizing for us. When will they stop? Marv Wilenzik just
gave me an article that appeared yesterday in The Reporter
"Presbyterians establish Messianic Jewish congregation in
Plymouth Meeting." The Presbytery of Philadelphia has pledged
$145,000 to support Congregation Avodat Yisrael for five years
- that sounds very Jewish, the Presbyterian church should be
ashamed. The Pennsylvania Synod kicked in $75,000 and the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA promised
$125,000. One might think, hope we are past this but we are
evidently not. But, as I discussed on Rosh Hashanah, we have
a different way and so we can only count on ourselves for our
future. Either we sustain ourselves or we are that sinking
ship. I referred to us as a quantitatively small and
qualitatively great people yet we have to maintain a certain
critical mass in order for us to maintain that qualitative
greatness.
The findings of the 2000 National Jewish Population Study
reports that there are 5.2 million Jews in the United States
which is down from 5.5 million 10 years ago. Others say that
the numbers have not dropped, that we are holding our own and
there may be as many as 6.7 million Jews in America today.
Whether we are 5.2 or 6.7, we are less than 2% of the
population of this country. We must truly have a qualitative
greatness that we attract the attention that we do.
In general, we American Jews are doing well. Lets talk first
about education. A Jewish mother is walking down the street
with her two young sons. A passerby asks her how old the boys
are. She says "The doctor is three and the lawyer is two. We
have set high standards for ourselves educationally. 52% of us
are college graduates as compared to 25% of the general
American population and one in four of us have a graduate
degree. At a symposium on when new life truly is human and
endowed with a soul one religious voice said without question
at the very moment of conception.
Another said at the moment of birth and the Jewish participant
said when he gets his MD or MBA. We continue to value
education and academic achievement.
How about our Jewish education? As recently as Selihot
evening, our guest speaker said that we are the best secularly
educated Jewish community and the most Jewishly illiterate
community in Jewish history. In ways that may be true and it
may be a bit harsh on us. What percentage of adult Jews report
having been involved in some Adult Jewish education this past
year? The results of the population study show 24%. Given our
population at Ohev Shalom, 24% of us would involve well over
300 of us involved in our Beyt Midrash and taking one or more
of our ten course offerings. Does one of these appeal to
you, Monthly Shabbat Luncheon and Torah learning, Rabbinics-Health
and Healing in Traditional Judaic Texts with Rabbi Paula
Goldberg, Hebrew Language Ulpan for Conversational Hebrew and
Yiddish: Returning to the World of our Bubbies and Zeydes.
What Groise Nachas they would have knowing their kinderlach
are learning a bissel Yiddish. If you understand none of those
words, you really need this class. Jewish Thought - Great
Debates in Jewish History with Rabbi Dan Aaronson, Liturgy,
the Meaning of the Amidah with the Cantor, In December I will
be offering A Jewish View of Jesus, Barbara Kind Berman will
be offering an Intro. to Hebrew Reading and I'll be teaching a
new Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah Class. Susan Levin will be offering
a class in Jewish Art . I hope you can appreciate the
seriousness of this program. I want to ask you to join me in
making this our goal, 300 of us involved in some type of adult
Judaic learning this year. Either wait for the brochure to
arrive or go on line tomorrow night
www.ohev.org and sign up
for one or more of our Beyt Midrash Classes this semester.
There is much regarding education that gives us reason to be
optimistic. We often wonder what happens to our kids when they
leave us and go off to college. What happens to their Jewish
connections? We have long thought this may be at the heart of
our assimilation but there may be a different reality. Of Jews
55 and older who attended college, 11% report having taken a
Jewish studies course. Of those 35-54 it goes up to 28% and
amongst current college and graduate students 41% report
taking at least one Jewish studies class. The trend is
positive, the numbers are growing. There are more Jewish
studies courses offered today in colleges and universities
throughout the country and more of our kids are taking
advantage of these college level Jewish learning
opportunities.
80% of our kids between the ages of 6 and 17 are getting some
type of Jewish education today ranging from Jewish Day School
to a one day a week program. The trend in the type of Jewish
education is fascinating. In my age cohort which means people
45-54, 8% of kids my age had a Jewish day school education.
40% had a Hebrew School type of Jewish education as I did.
There's been a vast shift. Today almost 30% of our kids
receive a Jewish Day school education, 24% a Hebrew School
equation and 25% are enrolled in a one day a week program.
Jewish education is at the core of our future and this is at
the core of my optimism. We take Jewish education very
seriously here at Ohev Shalom. We are committed to the best
quality preschool, kindergarten, Hebrew school and High School
we can offer. A great deal of energy has been expended by our
Education Director to institute a whole new curriculum in our
Dalet Class this year for which we are one of the pilot
schools in the country. We have reason to be proud of our
schools and proud that we also house the Bucks County Branch
of the Perelman Jewish Day School in our Rothman Family School
Building. We are part of this growing trend in American Jewish
life of Jewish Day School education. Our branch now goes
through 4th grade and next year we will have our first
graduating fifth grade class.
I was encouraged by many of the statistics. The percentage of
Jews fasting today is 59%. If not great, not bad. Light
Hanukkah candles 72%, Hold or attend a Passover Seder whatever
their self definition of a Seder is 77%. The percentage that
belong to synagogues 46%. I wish that number were higher, it
would be good for business. Visited Israel 35%. That number
should be higher, much higher. Light Shabbes candles 28%. A
strong minority and Keep Kosher at home, another strong
minority of 21%. The number who attend religious services once
a month 27%. Could we possibly make a pledge to attend at
least one service a month for this Jewish calendar year? I'll
begin. I promise to attend at least one service a month. It
could be Shabbat morning for 3 full hours or the Monday
evening Minyan for 15 minutes beginning at 7:15pm. On this
night of sacred vows, I think that's a realistic vow to make
tonight. From this Yom Kippur to next Yom Kippur next year to
find ourselves in shul at least once a month. 65% of the
American Jewish community read a Jewish newspaper or magazine.
That's good. When the last population study was released in
1990, the most quoted and remembered figure was the shocking
number of 52% intermarriage. The phrase Jewish continuity was
coined at that time out of a concern for our future. A major
part of this study deals with this topic. It is of prime
concern to those concerned with the future of the American
Jewish community. The numbers have grown from 13% before 1970,
to 28% during that decade, 38 and 43% the following decade and
then we were told 52%. For a host of complicated reasons, it
never was 52% but 43%. The numbers are now leveling off at
47%. There are pages and pages devoted to this serious issue
and you can find the report at
www.ujc.org, United Jewish
Communities. Again, I am choosing to be optimistic. I
believe the numbers have peaked and we are going to see a
decrease in this percentage in the years to come and I
believe there are indicators that point to this.
Over the summer I wrote about JDate.com in our Dove Tale. The
article produced one of the greatest amount of responses. One
read, "I showed it to my child and she said she already had
used it." Another was "Rabbi, my mother showed me your
article. I went on JDate last year and am in a relationship
now more than a year. If we get married, you can definitely
mention it." And just this week, I got a note "I don't know
whether you are aware but I am currently going out with
someone that I met on jdate. We have been going out since mid
April and neither of us hesitate to say that we met on jdate.
I have also seen a rise in weddings from couples that have met
on jdate. I again look forward to seeing you next weekend."
And I look forward to seeing you under the Huppah!
The truth is that so much more important than numbers are the
feelings and the thoughts behind all of these percentages. At
a conference this past spring when leaders of the Jewish
community came together to discuss these numbers from other
studies, Rabbi David Gordis stopped everything in its tracks
and raised the question "why is it important to sustain Jewish
life." There is even a question behind this question. Drop
the first word. Is it important to sustain Jewish life? And
while I'm on a roll with questions, I'll ask some more, Is it
important to you to sustain Jewish life? O.K. Why is it
important to you to sustain Jewish life? Does it really
matter? Because for us to survive it has to really matter to
us. We are less than 2% of the population in America and our
kids are part of a Jewish population that's often between
10-20% on campus. We no longer live in ghettos or exclusively
Jewish enclaves. The world has opened up to us and we have
embraced the world. Somehow in our heads and in our guts and
in our hearts we have to feel how important it is to us in
order to sustain Jewish life. We have to feel that Judaism is
sufficiently important, joyful, meaningful, beautiful, that
its future is important to us. I want to read to you one
possible response to does it matter, why does it matter. As
I read it, some may recognize who wrote it. At the end, I'll
tell you. "If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute
but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim
puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. (No it
is not Carl Sagan) Properly, the Jew ought hardly be heard of,
but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as
prominent on the planet as any other people and his commercial
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness
of his build. His contributions to the world's list of great
names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine,
and obtuse learning are also way out of proportion to the
weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this
world in all the ages and had done it with his hands tied
behind him. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch
high for a time but it burned out and they sit in the twilight
now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all. Beat them all and
is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no
infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts no slowing of
his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All
things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass but he
remains. This was written in 1899 by Samuel Clemens, Mark
Twain.
For this and many other reasons, it matters how many of us
fast today, light Shabbes candles, get a Jewish education,
attend day school, how many of us read a Jewish paper, visit
Israel, marry in, take an adult education class, attend
services monthly and are committed to a Jewish future. So, I
choose to be optimistic and pray that my optimism be realized
in the next Jewish population study of 2010 which we should
receive in about 2014. Until then, together with me, enjoy,
appreciate, love every thing that it means to live a Jewish
life in America today. Let your life and how you live be an
answer in the affirmative to the question, Does it matter that
Judaism survive. Does it matter that Judaism survive? Why does
it matter that Judaism and the Jewish community in America
survive? Those are the question and it is for each of us this
coming year and in years to come, to provide our answer.
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