22. Religious Development, Focus on Torah, Empowering Our Children

Part 2 of practical ideas to apply the Battalion perspective

Religious Development

Last week, we noted the practical application of the perspective we have been developing as it relates to community involvement and career choice. We also need people to dedicate themselves to the religious development of our communities, whether professionally or as volunteers:

We need people passionate about Torah for all sectors and ages of the community:

• Children:

  • Youth directors

  • Rebbeim who don’t get the razzle-dazzle of a nuanced chiddush or the meaningful relationships which are only relevant at older ages, but can have the satisfaction of knowing that they are laying the foundations for a lifetime of ahavas haTorah and asikah b’Torah

  • After-school learning programs

  • Working with the creatives (above) to develop meaningful interactions between creative outlets and Torah — art for the home, woodworking projects, etc.

• Teenagers:

  • Positive, inspired role models (both college-aged and adults)

  • Rebbeim who can convey both the depth of Torah, the guidance Torah has to offer for navigating the current challenges of modern society as well as the timeless questions of developing a meaningful life.

  • Chavrusas

  • Teen group leaders and program directors who can provide a frum setting and social context for teens to start channeling their talents towards impacting those around them

  • Camp directors and staff members; there is nothing like a camp setting to give kids a fresh context to develop themselves and connect with Hashem in a real way

• Adults:

  • Rabbanim who can provide pastoral guidance and suggest guidance in challenging situations and refer people for the services they need

  • Teachers who can give high-level, nuanced shiurim to professionals who are used to thoughtful engagement with ideas

  • People to lead chaburos for groups of professional groups bringing Torah to bear on those unique areas: Doctors studying topics relating to medical ethics, lawyers developing mehalchim across Seder Nezikin, authors, students of literature, and historians plumbing the depths of Nach

  • Women who have invested time and effort in learning who can teach and inspire other women to develop their relationships with Hashem

• On all levels, we need people who are able to convey Torah ideas to the broader community:

  • Writers, illustrators, editors, and publishers of sefarim, novels, and books for children

  • Creators of kosher media and news outlets

This is of course a partial and fairly narrow list; there are so many more opportunities than what is listed here. It should hopefully convey the basic point that there are many opportunities for members of every community to find some way to contribute to the community’s religious growth, ideally in a way which is personally meaningful.

Torah

Our community must also reflect our general commitment to talmud Torah. This can only develop by practically strengthening our connection with learning at all levels, with the most impactful step being adults taking on small learning programs with their own children. Just learning a perek a day of Nach with one’s children, starting around the age of five, as Chazal recommend in Avos, has innumerable benefits: the parent and child begin to develop a bond built on Torah, there are opportunities to discuss basic questions of worldview and values, there are frequent opportunities to celebrate the learning with siyumim after each sefer, and the child begins to develop his self-image as a “learner.”

One way to highlight our connection to talmud Torah is by celebrating it; it would send a strong message to our families and communities if a significant number of sponsored kiddushim over the course of the year, for example, were in honor of siyumei masechtos and other accomplishments in learning. As of now, siyumim in many of our communities happen most often and with the most fanfare twice a year: erev Pesach and during the Nine Days. This unintentionally transforms Torah from a kli chemdah, an object of pride,¹ into a kardom lachpor bah,² a tool that allows us to get the food we want to eat when it would otherwise be assur. We are meant to appreciate and celebrate all mitzvos,³ but especially Torah,⁴ which is so fundamental to who we are and the reason we exist; celebrating our accomplishments in learning is a powerful way of highlighting its value to us.

Children

What about the children in our ideal community? It is worthwhile to focus on them, as they represent the future of the community and can be easier directed than adults, who have so many more concerns and pressures taking their time and attention.⁵ As much as possible, they should be directed to spend much of their time outside of school developing interests and hobbies as opposed to wasting their time on (often detrimental) media. The more they are able to invest in these unique abilities, the easier time they will later have in identifying their area of impact, the reason they were potentially brought into the world. In addition to learning Torah with them and encouraging them to set goals in talmud Torah, it would be very powerful to create interactions between a child’s hobbies and interests and different areas of learning, allowing for their excitement about the hobby to spread to the related Torah topic.

As children grow up and become independent, they can become a powerful source of energy and action within the community. Teens naturally have energy and excitement — the question is what it’s channeled into. If left uncultivated, it will be wasted on pursuits of little value. If they’ve spent a good part of their childhood cultivating their unique interests, they will be able to start making contributions in areas they care about.

More outgoing teens will dedicate time to working with younger kids as camp counselors or Shabbos group leaders; others will use musical talents to inject energy and excitement into parties, Shabbatonim, and school events; those blessed with artistic ability can use it to beautify schools, shuls, homes, and more. Parents and teachers can direct them to invest in these tangible pursuits, while also helping them set goals in pure learning. Familiarity with all of Tanach before graduating high school is totally doable, as is learning through a number of masechtos. For the more learning-oriented, entire Sedarim — and more — is achievable before the end of high school; such an accomplishment is not uncommon in Israeli high schools, and is within reach for teens in our communities as well.

This chapter is meant to illustrate ways our communities can come closer to living our ideals. Every person has the capacity to make a significant, real impact in at least one area; their unique interests, abilities, and experiences, together with and filtered through their investment in Torah and its values, yields a unique combination ready to move the community forward. When a person understands what they, and only they, can contribute towards solving a problem, how can they help but dedicate themselves towards addressing it, embracing the identity of a soldier in the Great Battalion accepting his mission in life? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks describes this in A Letter in the Scroll:  

We can see life as a succession of moments spent, like coins, in return for pleasures of various kinds. Or we can see our life as though it were a letter of the alphabet. A letter on its own has no meaning, yet when letters are joined to others they make a word, words combine with others to make a sentence, sentences connect to make a paragraph, and paragraphs join to make a story. That is how the Baal Shem Tov understood life. Every Jew is a letter. Each Jewish family is a word, a community a sentence, and the Jewish people at any one time are a paragraph. The Jewish people through time constitute a story…

Every individual is a letter — and without him, the word meant to include him is left incomplete, leaving the sentence senseless and the paragraph unclear. Without the unique contributions of every individual, the story breaks down. We need every person; we need every letter.

1. Avos 3:14.

2. Avos 4:5.

3. Bava Basra 121b, Nimukei Yosef 53b, Devarim 28:47.

4. Shabbos 118b.

5. For example, see Rabbi Chiya’s declaration in Kesubos 103b that he would save the Torah from being forgotten by teaching it to groups of children.