"Would You See a Physician With a Seventh Grade Education?"

By Richard S. Moline
Director of College Outreach (KOACH)
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

As summer wanes and our minds reluctantly drift back to school and work, we are again confronted with that cyclical reality which manages to invade our personal space this time of year. Before we know it, the days will get shorter, we’ll be spending more time with our books than our Frisbees and summer will become yet another memory.

WAIT! Don’t get so depressed! While summer’s change of pace is certainly wonderful, the year presents us with challenges and opportunities not so readily available during the summer months.

For starters, the fall cycle of holidays is just around the corner. While some may view the festivals as burdensome or intrusive, others approach them with great excitement and anticipation. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur give us a chance to look in the mirror. No, not a tangible mirror, but the mirror of our inner selves. The High Holy Days provide us with opportunities to examine relationships, to evaluate and to plan for the future. Sounds like something your academic advisor might say in a different context, no? Just as one makes an academic plan for the year, so too can we make our own spiritual plan during this wonderful season.

Then, after this powerful introspection, we’re provided with the opportunity to simply celebrate. We build and sit inside a sukkah, stimulate our senses with lulav and etrog and experience incredible joy on Simhat Torah. After all of the intensity, it’s almost like having a party after finals.

So now that we know it’s available, how do we take advantage of this amazing opportunity? Start the year out knowing that you’re going to find your community. Find out where like-minded people are hanging out. Most likely, it may be at Hillel. For some, it may be a particular fraternity or sorority, for others, a Hebrew or Jewish Studies class. It’s not always easy to follow this path alone. If you need help, be in touch (moline@uscj.org) and I’ll be thrilled to help you out.

Finally, a word about this issue of our KOACH ON CAMPUS E-Zine. The issue is dedicated to Jewish education. For college students, and for the Jewish community in particular, education has always been a top priority. Yet, for lots of reasons, Jewish education seems to stop at adolescence.

There’s an old story about three members of the clergy who are all having a problem with mice invading their sanctuaries. The first, a priest, comments that he’s tried to set traps, but the mice have all avoided them. The second, a minister, tells the others that he’s had pest control companies out, all to no avail. The third, a rabbi (you knew I’d get there), tells the others that he’s solved the problem in his synagogue.

“No kidding,” the others respond, “how’d you do that?” “Easy,” says the rabbi. “I gathered all of the mice together in the sanctuary and gave them a Bar-Mitzvah. They haven’t come back since!”

We laugh, but we cry at the same time. Nobody would think that to become a professional – whatever the occupation – one could go to school until the age of 13 and then begin a business or a professional life. Would you see a physician with a seventh-grade education? Would you trust a lawyer (no jokes, please!) who last looked at a law book when he was thirteen?

Then why do we shrug our shoulders when Jewish education stops at Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Yes, there are many paths to God and many legitimate forms of Jewish living. Yet how do we make informed choices with a junior high school education (at best) - when we literally have no frame of reference?

Here’s where you come in. By my count, there are well over 100 institutions of higher learning in North America where once can, at the very least, minor in Jewish Studies. That’s not to say you should switch gears and start all over. What it does say is that opportunity abounds. LEARN! You have liberal arts requirements - - take a Jewish Studies course. If that doesn’t work at the moment, find a class at Hillel that meets once a week - with no books and no exams (and maybe even some free food!).

OK – enough preaching. Here’s my wish:

May it be a year of personal fulfillment, a year of communal contentment and a year of joy and shalom for you, your family and all of humanity. Shanah Tovah U’metukah – a good, sweet year to all.

[Posted 8/26/03]