The Darndest Things

To the best of my memory, the first book I ever read cover to cover must have been Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things.  I was a new reader, probably in second grade exiled to a school annex at the local Firehouse, as my district could not keep up with new construction that suburban migration to my district required.  TVs showed images in Black & White at the time.  Art Linkletter's House Party had considerable popularity.  It ran in the afternoons.  My mother wouldn't miss it.  When I returned home from school it would be airing.  At the end, Art Linkletter added a signature segment.  Each day he would interview children about my age selected from the local schools.  He asked each a question or two, presumably unrehearsed.  And those kids responded in the darndest ways.  He compiled favorite responses to create a short book, which I read in paperback.  YouTube has captured some of those sessions for anyone with cyberspace access who might like a chuckle, long after this classic has faced into the history of American public media.  I've never forgotten those sessions or those kids or that book.

Without knowing it, being much too young, one of our Chabad Rabbis recreated a version of this, which is why I earmark every Simchat Torah evening to attend there in lieu of my own shul which essentially has no children.  Simchat Torah and Purim evenings depend on children for the vitality of the festivities.  In the evenings, we got flags to wave and engage in minor sword fights with the sticks.  For those who returned the next morning, and a many did even when it meant missing school, hijinx continued.  Friends would bring squirt guns.  The Cantor could expect some kids to tie his shoelaces to his tzitzis.  He could be a good sport in different ways, adapting prayer melodies to what the DJ's then played on the Top 40 or the sounds that introduced our favorite TV shows.  Congregations of 70-somethings, mine and too many others across the USA, cannot generate that controlled irreverence which Simchat Torah and Purim require.  We are scripted to decorum.

Chabad seems to attract children who attend on Simchat Torah with their parents or grandparents.  A few Lubavitchers have large families, but most in attendance seem to be Jews attracted to the Chabad environment without adapting its Orthodox observance stringencies.  Each year about thirty pre-Bar Mitzvah children attend.  There seem to be some women nominally in charge of the group, maybe volunteer parents, maybe teachers in their Hebrew school.  They assemble in the sukkah for the last time, that repast between Mincha of Shemini Atzeret and the onset of Simchat Torah.  Some cake, some salads and spreads with crackers but never bread to put them on, liquid refreshments adult and pediatric.  The Rabbi has prepped the children in advance.  They will each be asked, one at a time, as they sit in chairs lining the front of the sanctuary what they will pursue in the New Year to enhance their Jewishness.  

Their two minutes in the spotlight arrives as they parade in with flags, taking their seats in roughly size order.  While adult women and men take seats on different sides of the sanctuary, the physical barrier known as a mechitza is temporarily removed, largely to enable dancing with the Torah Scrolls that will be taken out of the Ark at the front of the sanctuary when the children's interviews conclude.  

Each child has his or her prepared answer.  They will give a coin each day into a tzedakah box.  Some will recite the Modeh Ani prayer on arising or the Shema on going to bed, almost never both.  Some will begin lighting candles every Friday night with their mothers.  Some of the older ones will add the Psalm of the Day.  Other's will begin making Challah at home.

While all seem laudable, all seem to miss some of the essence of what being an optimal Jew entails.  Nobody over several years has ever committed himself to having lunch at school with the classmate who always seems to be alone.  They put coins in the tzedakah container's slot, but never consider where the accumulated money is best donated, let alone why.  Some might be old enough to have cell phones.  Nobody has ever committed to leaving it off from candle lighting Friday evening through Havdalah on Saturday night.  And if anyone ever announced that he would not join his father at the Pornhub screen until after Havdalah, the Rabbi would be able to begin his sequel to Art Linkletter's best seller of the 1950s.

Judaism has its identifiable trappings.  Observances of all types. Who has the most stringent standards for Kosher, Shabbos, Study?  Mezuzot on all doors.  Coins in the tzedakah box.  Who puts on their tefillin every day and wears tzitzis under their shirt?  Just what the kids pledged themselves to do.  But it's not only kids.  Reddit as its r/Judaism has many participants, primarily young adults of secular Jewish background, who seek to strengthen their Jewish identities.  They pose to the more experienced Jews how they should go about it.  What books might they read, what videos would enhance their quest, maybe pledging to read the weekly Torah portion in translation each week as primary text.  Should they buy tefillin, or maybe put a mezuzah on all the doors of their apartments. Those elements particular to Jews.  What too often bypasses them may be the realization that many people across the globe do things that are honorable but no longer uniquely Jewish because we have succeeded in bringing to the world standards of conduct, days of respite to our calendars, advocacy for ourselves and for others who we can help move forward.  Those are missing from the r/Judaism requests, as they were from the kids as they announced to their adult audience what they might like to pursue.

When I respond to the r/Judaism seekers, I will recommend written resources for their learning, while discouraging primary Bible readings.  From our earliest reading years, we learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before us.  We read physics texts, not the lab notebooks or research papers of the people who wrote those texts.  The seekers need to read commentary of people before them who have proficiency to share.  The primary Bible sources are not ignored but put in context.  That is Chochma, or Wisdom, one of Judaism's pillars.  We have Tzedek or Righteousness expressed in many ways.  As Kindness.  As Generosity.  As Respect for boundaries of our traditions, whether in our diets or our calendars.  So turn off the cell phones, designate an empty jar to put spare coins into so they can be donated periodically, don't demean people, be a friend when friends are scarce.  Not overtly ritual but Jewish.  The Chabad kids sort of have Kehillah or Community, the r/Judaism seekers understand they need to be part of one.  But methinks they are too quick to gravitate to a synagogue.  Jewish gatherings are sometimes social, sometimes for advocacy, sometimes for communal learning.  The r/Judaism adults have much too restricted a view, the Chabad kids have exposures directed by parents.  Chochma, Tzedek, and Kehilah have a common destination.  We recognize the intersection of these as Kedusha or Sanctity.  Making Kiddush on Friday night contributes to sanctity, but Holiness is never stand-alone.  It is mindset, communal, behavioral, sometimes avoidance of immediate druthers.  The kids at the Rabbi's House Party interview may get there.  So might the Reddit explorers.  But they will have to think about what to strive to become Jewishly in a more expansive way than I heard at Erev Simchat Torah or read on the Reddit app.