Teens and Tikkun Olam

RABBI SID SCHWARZ

 

Watch out! There is a tidal wave of Jewish teens coming in our direction. They are the children of the baby boomers. The demographics indicate that over the next decade there will be some 20-30 percent more teens in our communal pool than ever before.

This tidal wave offers a unique opportunity to instill a strong sense of Jewish identity in the next generation of American Jews. With enough creativity, we can begin to reverse the trend of the past few decades during which the number of identifying Jewish households has continued to decline. The question is: "do we know how to capture the imagination of today's Jewish teens?"

There is overwhelming evidence that one of the surest ways to engage Jewish teens is through social action projects, or what the Jewish tradition calls tikkun olam work. Combining the mandate to "fix the world" with a deeper appreciation for the Jewish texts and values that inform that work is our primary mission at The Washington Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values. Our experience with thousands of Jewish teens over the past eleven years has yielded five critical principles that should inform attempts to get Jewish teens to engage in tikkun olam.

1. Inform

The great irony of this generation is that with all the access they have to information through the media and the Internet, their worlds are incredibly small and narrow. The alien species that we call "teenager" has a thick crust of self-centeredness covering a deep well of idealism. The trick is to pierce through that tough outer crust.

Brief encounters with knowledgeable experts in a variety of fields can do just that. To learn that the wealthiest 1percent of American control over 20 percent of the income in America while a single parent working full-time at minimum wage still needs food stamps to feed her children, or that our generation has been responsible for the most selfish abuse of the ecosystem in the history of civilization, evokes appropriate moral outrage among teens.

Suddenly, it strikes teens as inappropriate to stay in the cocoons that they have built for themselves.

2. Empower

Moral outrage is a good start but it can't end there. Teens must learn about how social change takes place. Americans today have a cynicism about the political process and teens share that bias. Yet despite the examples of abuses that the media so loves to expose, politics is also the process through which one can change the world for the better. Teens are amazed to discover how open the political process is at the local, state and national level. "Carpe Diem", "seize the day," said Robin Williams in the film, The Dead Poets Society. It is a powerful message to teens who, with a little direction, can find dozens of vehicles to channel their moral outrage into constructive engagement.

Community service offers another avenue for teens. Increasing numbers of high schools are requiring community service for graduation, and the Clinton Administration has also come up with several post-high school initiatives. Jewish organizations should take advantage of this environment and create contexts in which Jewish teens can engage in community service under Jewish auspices even as they reach out to help those beyond the borders of the Jewish community.

We must counter the message teens receive that they are "just kids"‹which is. understood by them as "we don't matter" or "we are powerless." No wonder they log hundreds of hours in front of the T.V. and the computer. Tell them instead that they can make a difference in society or in the life of someone less fortunate than themselves and you won't be able to contain their energies!

3. Inspire

Teens respond to passion and to role models. The adults in their lives need to speak from the heart and tell them why it is important to help alleviate some of the pain in the world. They also have to serve as role models.

A couple of years ago I took my three children, then ages twelve, ten and eight, to South Carolina to help rebuild a black church that had been burned in a string of arson fires. Living together for that week, sleeping on the floor of the half- constructed church, meant more than all the parental lectures that I had foisted on them through their lives.

Because adults will often do things for their kids that they would not otherwise do on their own‹such as get involved in community service programs as role models for their children--perhaps the expansion of such parent-teen social action projects could lead to a renaissance in the Jewish community's commitment to social justice. It would be a welcome development and one that would pay handsome dividends.

4. Motivate

Teens need to know that they are needed. In the summer before my senior year of high school I went with USY to Eastern Europe and Russia. I remember meeting a young Soviet Jewish woman in her twenties who desperately wanted to emigrate to Israel. We spent the better part of the evening talking and, as we took our leave, she looked me in the eyes and said, "don't forget us; we need your help." My life was never the same after that moment. I became a Soviet Jewry activist and that led me to innumerable other causes, a path that eventually came to define both my Judaism and my sense of what I must do with my life.

I have seen hundreds of teens similarly transformed as they look into the eyes of a homeless person and learn the true meaning of tzelem elohim, that every human being is created in God's image. Moreover, they start trying to live out the implications of that truth.

We must create such encounters for our teens.

5. Contextualize

All of the above must be linked to Judaism. Teens must be helped to understand how the values of Judaism inform tikkun olam work. Furthermore, they should come to appreciate that the Jewish community has been in the forefront of most of the leading social justice causes of the last half-century.

For too many Jewish adults, doing good works became a substitute for Judaism. It became their religion. The result is that hundreds of thousands of Jews are devoting tremendous amounts of time and resources to many worthy causes, yet they don't have any tie to the Jewish community. This represents the most tragic "brain drain" in Jewish history. We have lost many of our best and brightest.

We can't afford to make the same mistake with the current generation of teens. They must come to appreciate that Judaism is the religion of which they are part; tikkun olam work is one of the noblest expressions of that Judaism.

If we transmit that lesson well, we may just find that the next generation of American Jews will have a lot to teach us.