From the Director--

Decisions, Decisions...

Published in Koach on Campus, Fall 2000

By Richard S. Moline

Decisions are a part of everyday life. From the simple (or not so simple!) act of deciding what clothes to put on in the morning to the complexities of interpersonal relationships, we are perpetually in the process of choosing. We like to think our choices reflect our personalities and our lifestyles, even our dreams and aspirations.

Certainly, when we exercise our right (and obligation) to vote, we express our own philosophies as best we can. Even more so, when we eventually choose our career paths, we subtly tell ourselves and others something about ourselves. When we settle into a career, how we conduct ourselves and how we use our abilities for tikkun olam (world improvement) can speak volumes.

And when we do determine our path, we don't simply dive in head first. We learn, we study. To enter into almost any profession, we must incorporate our life experience with a predetermined course of study. We learn from exceptional teachers, we read stimulating books, we commit ideas and thoughts to memory. We filter ideas, form convictions and ideologies and try to see how beliefs become realities and how concepts can be put to practical use.

This isn't anything you don't really know. You may not have seen it expressed this way before, but from the time you filled out those college applications and possibly even earlier, you've started to think about this in one way or another. Which brings me to a question I've been pondering. I could use your help in obtaining some answers.

Jewish Population Study

In several months, a new population study of the American Jewish Community will be released. My guess is that we won't find too many surprises, although a pleasant surprise here and there would be nice. We'll probably find generally low Jewish affiliation rates, a waning concern for Israel, patterns of tzedakah (which in spite of our relatively prosperous times and the largest transfer of wealth to a new generation we have ever seen) which indicate that we aren't as generous as we could be and a still troubling rate of intermarriage. I hope I'm wrong.

All the while, there will continue to be creative and exciting Jewish activities happening on campuses and in communities throughout North America. More learning, more connection to things spiritual and a greater pride in being Jewish. A different kind of philanthropy, to enhance, but not replace our synagogues and Federations. So if things can be on the decline, how can they be on the rise?

I have no empirical data to suggest the following, only anecdotal information. Those of us who are connected in some way are choosing to intensify our commitment. Those who are outside the periphery are being lost. And the chasm which exists between the two is becoming wider and wider all the time. You probably have friends or know people on campus who fall into either category.

We need your help and ideas

Where I need your help is in developing additional strategies in reaching out to those in our community who are on the outside. How can we create a passion within them? How can we let them understand that just as to be a professional one needs to study, to apprentice, to experience--and to be Jewish, something that is part of our every fiber (maybe more to the outside world then even to us!), minimally requires that same intensity. 

We would be loathe to seek medical advice from one who, at best, went to medical school for six hours per week for five years. Yet that's the entire course of Jewish study for so many. And now, as adults, when we decide for ourselves how to live our lives and continue and begin our education in so many areas, being Jewish simply isn't even on the radar screen for so many in our North American Jewish community.

Regardless of the path we choose to take, those who join me in this concern need to become shlihim (emissaries). Join this quest; help us find other means and other strategies. Let's not simply shrug our shoulders and let out a collective "oy." E-mail me, write me or any of our staff. Let's see how we can make the Chosen People the Choosing People, as well.