Is Judaism Unappealing?

Hello, friends.

Many times, when I speak to someone from Reform or Conservative Judaism or when I read comments made by Jewish celebrities, they describe themselves in one of these ways:

1. "I don't really practice, I'm more of a cultural/ethnic Jew."
2. "I was raised Jewish, but I don't really practice now."
3. "My family is Jewish, but I don't consider myself anything."
4. "I practice Buddhism now, you know, mindfulness and meditation."

Why are the liberal movements seemingly losing members? After the 20th time hearing comments like this, it really started distressing me. I do not blame someone who choose an alternative path, but I rather blame us liberal Jews as a group for not finding better ways to make people want to be Jewish. I now tend to think of liberal Judaism as a place that can serve as a "religion for secular-ish people," a kind of place where someone who follows a modern, secular society can still feel comfortable in a faith setting. We're really contemporary in a lot of ways, particularly Reform Judaism--people can think what they want, be Democrats of Republicans, support or oppose abortion, drink alcohol or abstain, support or oppose homosexuality, believe in and fight for those ideas that matter most to them, and still fit. Or you can practice Judaism more, attend services every week or pray every day even, but still hold these more "liberal" opinions. As long as you feel the need to believe in a Greater Power and want to pray to G-d and participate in some really exciting, meaningful ancient rituals, you can be part of the club. But then why do people keep leaving?

Is this only a problem in my head? I don't think so. The push in URJ (the Union for Reform Judaism) for a few months seems to be towards engaging the youth, those people between roughly ages 15-35 who might not be part of a Reform community as they move through college/grad school, etc. It seems like, somehow, something is not keeping people interested. After having a Bar/Bat Mitzvah class size of maybe 50, by the end of high school my Hebrew School was down to about 15.

I know  that when I was growing up I was always more interested in going to services and attending Hebrew School than were many of my peers. Maybe it was because I am a nerd and just love learning. Maybe there's something mystical in it--I once had a kind Orthodox woman shake her head in wonder when I explained that no, I am not a matrilineal bloodline Jew, though I am very involved in Judaism. She then said, "Well...you never know. Maybe somewhere back along the line you were. And maybe you'll even become Orthodox one day...you never know what could happen, what paths life will take you down." Misty concepts of my bloodline aside, I always loved learning about Judaism for some reason.

I do not really blame my peers who left after their bar mitzvahs. A large part of traditional Jewish learning involves looking backward at our history (pretty depressing), and at the history of antisemitism (even more depressing), and at texts written in Hebrew (a language that is not really taught to many outside of the Orthodox or rabbinic schools today). We learned how to pronounce the words, but not what most of them meant, which means that we can sit in a synagogue and make the right sounds on Friday nights, but would need to look to the English on the facing page of our prayer book to have any idea what it means. I have memorized the vague meaning of some of the standard prayers, but really I am just making strange sounds along with everybody else. I can see why people wouldn't love that, it really does not make sense. Is this like the change that came to the churches centuries ago? Is Hebrew our Latin? Should we move towards all English?

We can't necessarily force students to learn an entirely different language, with different grammar rules, different structures, and even a different alphabet, when already we are fighting to convince liberal Jewish parents that they should bring their kids to Hebrew School even just once a week. But I love Hebrew. Something about the sense of its ancient foundations, its beautiful script (everyone should try to view a Torah scroll up-close at some point in their lives, it is truly beautiful). I don't actually feel that comfortable in an all-English synagogue setting, it feels empty to me, though I imagine if I were raised in that atmosphere I might think Hebrew was outdated. But I love the language.

So how do we cope with this particular problem? I hypothesize that there must be some methods of teaching Hebrew that the liberal Jewish world has not tried yet. Maybe we could focus on teaching the sounds and word meanings and not some of the useless parts, like Hebrew script (which seemed pointless, since the prayerbooks use standard Hebrew, and I remember very little of the script form now anyway). Then we could teach what actual prayers mean, word for word. Kind of a "prayer conversational" Hebrew, like how you can take "conversational Italian" and learn how to say important things like "Mamma mia!" instead of sticky grammatical rules that you usually won't need (speaking of my Italian final on Friday...).

I tried to match the letters up (remember, Hebrew goes from right to left).

I have never claimed to like teaching, so this is really just brainstorming. What else might be keeping people away? I think parents definitely need to make Judaism more of a presence in the lives of their children. Shabbat dinners seem like an easy enough way to bring it in weekly, and maybe just making sure the family either has a traditional Friday night Shabbat dinner or a Saturday night havdallah dinner (marking the closing of Shabbat). Growing up, I only had one close friend who regularly did this, but her parents refused to let her do anything on Friday nights unless it was a big event like a one-time school dance or something. It felt restricting, and I could see someone getting resentful over that. Maybe instead having that flexibility to choose either Friday or Saturday--at the beginning of the week figuring out which would work best for the whole family--and then making it special, including prayers, not just take out food and the TV. In January, I committed to doing something Jewish at least once a month. I know, it sounds small, but I am trying to work up to doing more, and I actually have done more than that most months (I went to Friday night services three times in one month, which is a personal record).

One of the issues might be timing of Jewish religious services. Think about it: if you're Christian, you go on Sunday mornings. That works out pretty well, since secular people usually sleep in then so it's not like you would miss anything important or fun. But if you're Jewish, Friday nights in the secular world is a big night, one of only two worthwhile weekend nights to see friends. Many times freshman year, when I was just adjusting to being in Virginia, I would consider going to Shabbat services on Friday night, only to find out friends were gathering to watch a movie or something. It sounds trivial, but for me, the choice came down to sitting in an unfamiliar synagogue, with people I did not know, and chanting in a language I cannot understand...or trying to form friendships with people I would interact with for the next four years. It really didn't make sense to go to temple then. (I pray on my own every day, anyway.)

Could the problem have to do with the holidays? I don't think so. I think most Jewish people (even "non-religious" Jewish people) love the holidays. I mean, first of all, we have like a zillion. You can miss work or school, and spend time eating mostly yummy (kugel, hamantaschen) and occasionally strange (gefilte fish) foods. There's singing, sometimes dancing, some games, lots of sugar, and a lot of history. So we've got the holidays down pretty well.

I think it mostly comes back to making liberal Judaism a part of our week, and about figuring out how to deal with the Hebrew issue. If children were brought up knowing what the prayers meant, and with having Shabbat dinner every week, or going to synagogue the first Friday of every month, or even just volunteering with the social action committee regularly, maybe that would help show our potentially "Lost Generation," to borrow a historic term, that Judaism has a lot of great parts to it, and it would make it a routine. By the time I reached high school, once-a-month Hebrew School mostly dealt with discussing how Reform Judaism would view several contemporary issues, like abortion, but still I got the impression from those lessons that it is up to each individual to make a moral decision. That was pretty modern, and sometimes I even look back at those books to understand some of those topics. (Incidentally, this concept reflects a religious Zoroastrian principle my roommate mentions every so often, called the "good mind," aka learn what you can, then make the best moral decision you can make, something that will not hurt others. Sounds reasonable.)

Anyone have any possible ideas about why people might be leaving Reform Judaism? I will keep pondering the issue, because I think this loss is a big problem, and I want reasons to contradict the many people who point to interfaith marriage as the culprit.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson