USCJ Review - Fall 2003
"Inreach-Outreach" and The Jew By Choice
I frequently have demographic discussions with the president of my congregation, who sizes up the attendance in the synagogue and at lectures and counts the house. The president asks me, "How many people do you think there are here?" "Six hundred," I say. "No," says the president, "it's closer to three hundred." I have, after many years, figured out the nature of this disparity. The president counts heads. I count the feet. It's all a matter of perspective. People vote with their feet.
Surveys, statistics, demography are useful, but we are not demographers. Demographers deal with quantitative symptoms: fertility rates, diminishing synagogue attendance, rising rate of intermarriage. But to treat symptoms alone is to mask the causes of the malaise. Something more is asked of us: How are we to live and to affect the changed world around us?
We are not demographers. We have a moral duty to deal with the retention of self-identified Jews and the attraction of potential Jews. Before us is a diverse constituency that includes "interfaithless" couples, i.e., he is not that Jewish, she is not all Christian. Of these, a significant number say they would raise their children as Jews. But left adrift, without the synagogue's active intervention, their children melt into the anonymity of a religiously neutral society. We cannot afford that hemorrhaging.
We cannot ignore potential Jews, seekers, who have emerged in recent times. As Peter Berger astutely reminds us, "The modern consciousness entails a movement from fate to choice." We have seen that psyche-social shift to choice not only among our own people but also among an increasing number of non-Jews. They are less interested in matrimony than in Jewish theology and a Jewish way of life which promises moral stability, a realistic appreciation of this world along with the warmth and wisdom of an old-new people.
What troubles me is what many of these seekers tell us when we engage in conversation. They approach us with apprehension. They stand at the gates of the sanctuary, so to speak, as if they are allowed to come only so far. When they move toward conversion, they recount the emotional obstacles surface in their path; as Jews by choice, they are perceived as different forever from born Jews. Some hear this verbalized; some sense it as an unspoken aura.
They report that they are not regarded with joy as potential Jews. Neither the seekers nor the converted are fully encouraged or fully regarded as authentic Jews. Is this perception a distortion, a shadow side of a life-altering change?
I have heard from the mouths of affiliated and unaffiliated Jews, from the mouths of believing and non-believing Jews: a shikse bleibt a shikse; a goy bleibt a goy, meaning they are and will forever remain foreign. I fear this derision, this distortion of Jewish moral theology, is not merely limited to the "hoi polloi." I have heard it and read it in elevated Jewish theological literature. I fear what this alienation does internally to the character of Judaism and of the Jewish people and its relations to the nations of the world. It is an attitude that flirts precariously on the boundaries of racism.
We are a major national and international theological, moral movement. We are mandated to be a teaching movement. In our teaching and practice, we shape the noblest character of Judaism. The people in our movement, the world, must be aware of the theological sensitivity of the Talmud Baba Metzia (59b), toward the ger (stranger/convert), which itself points out that, more than any other verse in the Bible, the root verse that calls upon us to love and understand the heart of the ger is cited no fewer than 36 times.
They must hear from synagogue and seminary the moving tshuvah of Maimonides to the convert Obadiah who asks whether, as a Jew by choice, he may recite the liturgy that makes reference to the ancestors and fathers who are Jewish. Can he, in all honesty, recite a prayer like "Our God and the God of our fathers"? Maimonides answers: "Let not your lineage be base in your eyes. For if we link our lineage to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you link your lineage to He who spoke and the world came into being."
They must be reminded that it is not Ezra's harsh dismissal of foreign wives that the Rabbis chose to be studied on Shavuot, but the book of Ruth. Accepted, integrated, celebrated, elevated as a progenitor, Ruth teaches us that a Jew is not a Jew by virtue of genes, chromosomes or blood type. We embrace those who have come to us with heart, mind and soul.
At stake is the future of our people and the character of Judaism. Our congregants have or know of families who live the statistics, who are challenged by the open society and the new and inevitable association of our children with the gentile majority. They seek guidance and leadership. What can we do as a responsive, responsible movement?
I respectfully propose that we, as a national and international movement, turn the demographic challenge into a spiritual opportunity both for Jews and for seekers; that we turn our attention to instituting an inreach-outreach project. Its aim requires turning a cadre of our congregants from passive Jews into active "madrikhei," mentors of potential Jews.
"Lilmod u'lilamed," we need to learn and to teach. We know there is no better way to learn than to teach, no better way to teach than with a great purpose. What possibilities could be spawned from a core group of inreach-outreach mentors who confirm through their lives the ahavah rabbah oath which introduces the Sh'ma: "Imbue us with the will to understand, to discern, to hearken and to learn, to teach and to obey, to practice and to fulfill in love all the teachings of the Torah."
Inreach-outreach involves bringing the seeker into the Jewish home, into the shul, into the Jewish lecture, the Jewish concert, the Jewish camp. To do so means the mentor must be taught to "understand and discern." Inreach-outreach: the two are not bifurcated into teacher and taught. Inreach-outreach are complementary, two sides of the same coin. They are self-educating and other-educating, twin ambitions.
Jews need Jews in order to be Jewish. Potential Jews need Jews in order to become Jewish. Looking at the ger, we see reflected our own inner lives. As a former president of my synagogue told me, "I would verymuch want to join such a project not only so that I can reach out to the potential Jew but because I want to know how to speak to my grown daughters who have gone through our schools and still want to know 'why be Jewish?'"
Of course, he's on to something. Inevitably mentors will have to confront the persistent questions of our times. What is there in Judaism of such superordinate value that calls for our heroic fidelity and the loyalty of our children, something so shining for a life well-lived that it draws potential Jews towards its light? The motivation and focus of this project is to enable the choosing Jew to complete the sentence: "I believe in the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people because..."
We need allies to help turn the synagogue into a warm, welcoming, inclusive sanctuary. It is a mitzvah to help a potential Jew become a Jew by choice. Lay mentors must be taught to see the seekers, the potential Jews, not as surrogates to replace our Holocaustal losses or as a substitute for our low fertility rates but to see those on the threshold of the synagogue as children of God created in His image who can contribute to the advancement of Judaism and the strengthening of their families and of the community.
It is not for us to reject the inquiry of potential Jews three times but to enthusiastically encourage the courage of their search. We need to reach out to the other with hesed, with kindness and patience. Becoming a Jew is a process. There is no cut-off date for conversion; neither the wedding nor the birth of children preclude a faithful choice at another time.
Our congregants understand that there are thousands of children, the progeny of mixed marriages, who can be saved for Jewish life and Judaism. Here again, we must not lose an opportunity. There are mixed marrieds who wish to raise their children as Jews but are put off. They infer from the obstacles that we are indifferent to their serious, difficult choice.
I am convinced that inreach-outreach will infuse the congregation with a sense of Jewish purpose that will affect its educational and liturgical life. Outreach without inreach lacks the vitality and the engagement of a living community. Inreach without outreach misses the opportunity to excite the congregation with the passion of purpose, the excitement of sharing with others the joy, wisdom and beauty of Judaism.
These times call for Jewish mission. Our people are waiting.
