I meet with every Bar/Bat Mitzvah student before their big moment on the bimah. We talk about all kinds of things. I ask them a variety of questions. What’s their favorite sport? Do they dance or do gymnastics? What music do they enjoy? How involved are they on social media? These questions enable me to see my students more clearly so that by their service, we’ve built a bond of support and confidence.
Of course, a discussion of their assigned Torah portion is included in our conversations. It’s often lots of fun engaging in text study with 6th-7th graders. They seek to make sense of material that is sometimes so disconnected and unrelated to their lives. There’s the wrestling with leprosy, skin disease, and black mold. They often understand this as how people deal with things they fear. Sacrificing animals as an exercise in humility and submission to God is always challenging. Kids think bringing a lamb to be slaughtered, skinned, and cooked on an altar at the Temple in Jerusalem is somehow approachable from their experiences today: “I’m sacrificing my time studying for my Bar Mitzvah instead of playing Minecraft.” When I gently suggest that this is not sacrifice as understood by our ancestors, it gets quiet in the room.
It is not unusual in the midst of these sessions that a child will state with apodeictic confidence, “Well, I don’t believe in God.” I love how certain they are, so clear and unbothered by their conviction. They are sometimes surprised that I am not scandalized. And I’m not. Because the young are so confident about so many things. The boundary between what’s right and wrong and who really knows. What decisions they have and their capacity to make the right call.
At the same time they tell me that they don’t believe in God, many kids, without a shred of irony, will answer affirmatively when I ask them if they’ve ever experienced the presence of God. They don’t see the logical inconsistency in this equation of theirs. They still need to work out the essential inconsistency of life. And they shouldn’t! After all, they’re too young to be forced to see the tragic limitations of life or the need for faith in God or peoplehood. They have to cram as much into their frontal cortex as possible. It’s necessary to build a solid emotional foundation to support the weight of personality and social interactions so that they can tolerate the disappointment as they age and experience the randomness of the Universe.
The notion of absolute certainty in the world and our experience of it and in it is a somewhat brittle worldview that hopefully begins to crumble under the weight of our trials and tribulations. Becoming a mature adult starts with acknowledging that there’s very little we can be sure of. Growing up is being able to shake our heads when asked specific critical questions about existence and saying, “I really don’t know.” It’s about embracing a set of truths we try to live by.
Faith is all about holding tightly to a series of hopes and dreams based on a sense of love and commitment while having no “proof” that it is so. It’s about choosing to believe that certain ideas are ultimately meaningful, enlightening, and occasionally transcendent. Faith is about acknowledging life has meaning, even in the face of brutality and evil. It is about finding one’s tribe and feeling known and acknowledged.
We are entering a time when, more than ever, we need to cultivate faith in our community, our ethical foundation, and our love of freedom for all. I’m not sure about much – this gets more true with each birthday. But I do know that I need my people and my community, that I have faith in our capacity to live proud Jewish lives. I believe in God, and I think God believes in us. But more importantly, we must believe in each other. We must keep the faith.
Before Shabbat 