God Never Came To Hebrew School

By Jodi Schwartz
KOACH Intern
University of Washington

Torah stories can be taught through writing, acting and songs; Tefillah (prayer) can be passed on through reading, singing and repetition; Jewish culture and traditions are internalized through celebrations, year after year. Our current system of Jewish Education is heavily reliant on supplementary or day school programs. Within these programs, there are pretty simple ways of passing on mainstays in Jewish practice—traditions—that some might argue are what keep our religion intact. However, there is one important subject that is a bit more difficult to teach: belief in God.

From the Ten Commandments to Shema Yisrael, there is no doubt that God plays a huge role in the forming of Jewish history and the resulting traditions. However, as individuals reflect on their own experiences, many are faced with conflicts between their lives and a Jewish representation of God. Perhaps family tragedy, the Holocaust, or general world suffering has deeply affected them to the point where they just can’t believe that God could have the power to free them from a modern day Egypt as God is supposed to have done for their ancestors. Personal grievances turn people away from God, while personal experiences of positivity may strengthen a person’s relationship with God. The nature of a modern day relationship with God is very different than what it was historically.

In the Tanakh, the Jewish People’s relationship with God was very much collective and intertwined with their prosperity in Eretz Yisrael. If the Jewish People were acting faithfully, God would bless them with timely rain and abundant crops, via the land; If the Jewish People were sinning against each other, God would punish them and cause them to experience figurative and eventually literal exile and rejection from the land. This experience was much less open to interpretation than personal successes or experiences of pain, and presented a tangible relationship between man and God.

Today, in the world of the Diaspora, collective consequences are impossible to pinpoint and many Jews scattered across the world feel perhaps that God has forsaken them. This poses a great challenge for God’s place in the modern Jewish world.

In an educational setting, the problems extend beyond just losing a connection to what once was an essential pillar of our faith. What do stories in the Torah teach kids if the divine origin is rewritten as legend? How do we teach about communicating with or praising God through Tefillah if they do not understand how God fits into their lives? Can we teach about sustaining traditions and halakhot (laws) that were based upon a God that to many, doesn’t seem to hold anyone accountable for their actions? Although for now these basic areas of Jewish education are surviving without a concrete hold on where God fits in, it seems that without God, these roots will slowly wither leaving an unstable skeleton of a religion once survived despite a lifetime of struggle. As we are said to be God’s Chosen people, God made us a great nation. Now, what are we to become without God?

Jodi Schwartz is currently a senior at the University of Washington, where she is a Hillel Student Leader and KOACH Intern. Jodi loves cooking, painting and rewriting pop-songs to advertise for KOACH. Come meet her at KOACH Kallah at Boston U in February!

[Posted 12/26/11]