Path to Confirmation

Dear parents of Path to Confirmation teens:

Last night we began CJL with an exercise designed to teach the students the concepts of Am Yisrael (Jewish peoplehood), Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), and Medinat Yisrael (the political state). We took some random terms (like Gaga, ShopRite, etc.) and associated them with one of these above concepts, trying to find similarities. The exercise went pretty well, but in my opinion, the conversation that came out of it--about what makes us Jewish--was even more important.

So, what makes us Jewish? Is it that we were born to a Jewish parent or converted? Or is it that we “do Jewish:” attend services at temple, keep kosher, attend CJL, have Jewish friends, attend a Passover seder, keep Shabbat, do mitzvot? Is someone who lives in Boro Park more “Jewish” than someone who lives in Croton? So I tried to distinguish between “more or less Jewish” versus “level of observance,” which some of the students were conflating. But then I sort of held back and let them share their thoughts. We didn’t end up resolving this issue, but it really made for an interesting conversation. What do you think about this, and do you know what your teens think? It might be something interesting to discuss with them.

After partaking in Chinese food in honor of the Kitah Vav presentations of Jewish communities around the world, we presented our results of the first exercise and started to do some research on our chosen topics for our final project. We then visited the Kitah Vav presentations and then discussed our plans for next week, which include making matzah pizza and chocolate caramel matzah and then participating in a Passover activity with the rest of the CJL. I hope that your teens will do some cooking during the holiday as a result of our class next week.

Kol tuv, Judy

P.S. The reason that I was thinking about Boro Park is that I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the film “93 Queen,” an amazing documentary about a group of ultra-orthodox women creating their own EMT unit in their town. https://www.93queen.com/about1 It is playing now at the Burns in Pleasantville as part of the Jewish Film Festival, and I recommend it highly.