No, this is not a picture from the most recent Jaguar’s home game!
But there is a link between this picture, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and our school’s experience over Sukkot this past week…
I blogged about a year and a half ago about my observations of what happens when a Jewish day school closes for the explicit purpose of celebrating Jewish holidays and finds that a minority of families appears in synagogue.
I want to revisit that conversation, update it, and perhaps offer a provocative solution…
The Issue
I am going to inch close to a third rail during this conversation even though it is not at all my intention to do so. I am going to run the risk of appearing judgmental although I really do not hold families in judgement. I am going to name the elephant in the room and point out the obvious. I am going to ask some difficult questions. I am going to make some suggestions. And I will do all of this in the spirit of trying to spark a valuable conversation and furthering the mission of our school and community…and will hope that I have built up enough credibility so that because I believe it is part of my job to raise precisely these questions that the only outcome will be an honest exchange of ideas.
When Jewish day schools close for Jewish holidays they do so with the presumption that families need to be free to fulfill Jewish obligations and to celebrate the joy these holidays bring. Yet so often, our school closes for holidays such as Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, etc., and the synagogue remains remarkably free of our students and families.
Blaming families is easy.
The truth is, institutionally we have failed to bring the families of day school students along for the rides they have committed their children to, regardless of their motivations for doing so. Parents who themselves are unobservant and often Jewishly uneducated enroll their children in Jewish day schools for myriads of reasons – seeking their own Jewish journeys may be one them, but surely not always.
However, without the family – Judaism’s primary and preeminent educational institution – we are too often expecting too much of the children we are educating. It is not reasonable to expect children to be change agents for their parents. It is reasonable to use enrollment as the means to reach out to families and help move them with love along the path being carved out by their children.
What is being done?
Last year we launched an incentivization program that provided an extrinsic motivation designed to ensure sufficient attendance to allow for the much preferred intrinsic motivation of celebrating the joy of Jewish holidays with friends and community. I admit that I had – and have – reservations about this program. I worry that essentially bribing children to celebrate being Jewish is not a terrific message and in the long run may, in fact, be counterproductive. But we had to do something and something we did.
What happened?
Well we had more students last year for the first two days of Sukkot than in recent memory. And even if the momentum faded slightly for Passover and slightly more for Shavuot – last year’s “Journey Through The Jewish Holidays” was considered a success. We had more students than ever before AND we offered more programming than ever before. Lots of children got their Adventure Landing passes and their Jaguars tickets. And so we decided that we would do it again this year…
Well, now this year’s Sukkot has come and gone…and, although, we did have better turnout than we had two years ago, we did not match last year’s success, let alone build on it. And I would be naive to think that the fact that this year the holidays were connected to weekends did not contribute to this reduction in attendance…
Okay, so what else can we do?
Before I offer the provocative suggestion, I acknowledge the fatigue that comes with being in the same building day after day after day. And I am not immune to the ways in which life interferes in the best laid plans. I know how important extracurricular experiences and family vacations are. But I also know we can work together make Judaism come alive OUTSIDE the school – in shul and in homes – in powerful ways which only create more opportunities for sacred moments and lifelong memories.
And so I still believe that first and foremost, we can and must offer families compelling examples of synagogue life. Regardless of the age group being targeted, we have to provide appropriate, meaningful and spiritually satisfying experiences. I believe in Judaism and its ability to inspire. I believe if children and adults have an opportunity to learn and live Jewish lives, the positivity it generates becomes self-motivating. We have the responsibility to try to create those moments.
We also have a responsibility to ask for more and not settle for less.
I have been inspired by my colleague Stan Beiner, the Head of the Epstein School, in Atlanta who this year tried something bold. Despite the logistical challenges of not being housed or affiliated with any particular synagogue, he counted the first day of Sukkot as a day of school. He recently blogged about this experience and how positively it impacted his students, his parents, his school and his community.
And so I have charged our Day School Community to take on this question during our year of work together:
What would it mean for the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School to count the first two days of Sukkot as half-days of school that included appropriate celebration and programming?
Would we have more kids? Would we have more parents? Would we have more programming? Would it lead to the desired outcome – more families creating powerful Jewish memories?
I don’t know what we will decide. I do know it will be a conversation well worth having.
Feel free to begin now in the comments…
