Will Jewish Teens Find Answers Here?
Hebrew School may answer questions like “what do I need to know for my Bar/Bat Mitvah” but there are many questions Jewish pre-teens have about Judaism that most schools just don’t have the opportunity to answer.
I was teaching a class to eighth graders called “What Makes Me Jewish?” and for an opening ice breaker, I asked them (95% of whom ‘graduated’ a typical Hebrew school, 100% had become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah) to respond to “A question I have about Judaism is…..” with one of their most pressing questions.
This exercise is interesting on two levels. One, it lets us know what students of this age wonder about. On another level, it demonstrates quite candidly, though from a very small sample, what Hebrew School can and can’t accomplish. It does help make the case for continued Jewish education.
The questions ranged from the very general to the very specific. Some are humorous, some reflective, some painfully poignant.
All are worth noting.
I have not left any question out. Here are their questions:
What does Judaism think about Heaven and Hell?
What is mysticism?
Why are tattoos bad (sic) in Judaism?
Why do we bow to the ark/G-d, if we aren’t supposed to worship idols?
How does the Jewish calendar work? When is the leap year and why?
Why are the jews (sic) always the scapegoat?
If we believe in G-d, why does the beginning of B’reisheet (Genesis) use the plural form of G-d? (this questioner clearly has done some studying of the Bible to ask this question)
What are the different values or points of view between the different types (sic) of Judaism?
Why do we have kashrut rules? (yes, this student wrote ‘kashrut’ instead of kosher!)
What is it like to be a teen in Israel? (interesting, this student’s question was not exactly about Judaism, but an inference made about Israeli teens).
How do we know that everything in the Torah is true? (notice that the questioner doesn’t write “if everything” but “that everything”)
How many religious Jews are there in Israel?
How many rules of the 613 do we actually follow these days? (immense credit is given for knowing the number of mitzvot – commandments!).
Why are we looked down upon as Jews?
What do kosher Jews (sic) think about Jews who don’t keep kosher?
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What do you think of these questions? As an adult, how similar or different are the questions you have? Did you have these questions as a teenager?
Photo Credit: Flickr JP
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