Rabbi Judy made a powerful argument in her Rosh Hashanah morning sermon about how important memory is to the Jewish people. It’s how we build our identity. It’s how we know who we are. It’s how we know how to act in the world.
As a parent, I think about this idea often. I think about my desire for my children to learn Judaism as a “native language”, that they should always feel authentic, empowered, and rooted deeply to the memory and stories of their people. I know that there are big ways that we impart such native fluency, like at holidays: seders, services, and family gatherings.
Our children become experts in who we are and what we believe at these times most readily. They see our adult relationships with our cousins and aunts. They learn to help pitch in or to sit idly by. They learn what’s important to us by how we prioritize our time – how we rush through or skip over things and they note where we linger. We as their parents and close loved ones are the ones who impart the deepest and most lasting pieces of their own memory, identity, and story.
I remember the excitement I felt to wear new fall clothes and walk or drive with my grandparents to our little temple on the High Holy Days. I remember what it felt like to sit in the goldenrod, mustardy upholstery of mid-century pews. I remember the skylight that seemed a bit International, I remember the parochet and the ark doors, and the red books, and I remember my grandmother handing me tic-tacs one at a time when I started to get antsy. I also remember when I was old enough to take breaks and walk to the bathroom by myself, but how excited I was to go back in and sit next to her again.
By the time of my bat mitzvah, I was a seasoned synagogue goer, not because I had a card that needed to be signed as part of the “bat mitzvah program”, but because my family – and my grandparents in particular – taught me the value of going to temple and having a communal prayer life. It was something that we did together. It was who we were. (An aside – my mother was my primary early musical influence. My grandparents laid the Jewish tracks in my personality and my mother, the musical ones.)
To model Judaism – from praying to giving to learning to connecting – is our job as parents, grandparents, and close loved ones. We hold the keys to providing meaningful experiences for our children; these memories will make them who they will be. This is why we think it’s important for families to pray together on the High Holy Days and all year long.
Over 300 adults and children attended our first-ever Rosh Hashanah Family Service at 8:30am this year and we look forward to seeing many faces next week at the Yom Kippur Family Service in Gorelick Hall. The services are designed for families with children from babies through elementary school to be able to pray together without some of the constraints of our larger, sanctuary services. They are shorter and maximally participatory, yet they still contain Hebrew and the real theological ideas of the holidays expressed in ways that might empower parents and children to talk about them when they leave.
Families with children on the older range of our spectrum, beginning in 3rd grade, might be very successful in the TBE Traditional 8:30 Service in the Blumenthal Sanctuary. The ideas are a little more abstract, the music is more grand, and the appropriate decorum, more formal. The most appropriate place for your family is very dependent on your own children and your own preferences. But you have options and opportunities – they are yours for the taking.
Temple Beth El is committed to creating many pathways and opportunities for families to build Jewish lives together, from Religious School (starting September 27th) to Youth Group to Family Havdalah and Holiday celebrations (October 3rd!) to Tot Shabbat (October 10th) and First Friday Family Services (October 2nd with Cornhole Oneg!) and Family Education programs. The opportunities are here and we are honored to get to walk beside you as you build identity, meaning, and memories for you and your family.
Wishing you g’mar chatimah tovah – may you be inscribed for a good year.
