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And the Youth Shall See Visions: Empowering our Teens by Empowering Ourselves

02/06/2015 08:52:00 AM

Feb6

Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur 5764 – 2003 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

We must make our sanctuary, our community a place for dreaming, a place where children's visions can be actualized.

The scene opens, and we look upon a typical day in the life of a young teenager. A girl named Tracy walks down the halls saying hello to friends and is keenly aware of the other students walking around her. She notices the clothes her classmates are wearing, the amount of makeup on one girl, the new ear piercing of a one boy, the bleached, spiky hair of another. She approaches the common area on her way to lunch and she sees some boys ogling a group of girls approaching from the other side of the grassy area. This group of girls is standing toget-her - their shirts exposing their midriffs, the waistline of their hip hugging jeans exposing more skin than a crowded day at the beach. It is the glistening reflection of a belly-button ring on one girl standing among the group that catches the boys' attention. The boys begin to laugh and say to each other, "Man, Evie sure looks good this year!" Tracy observes this and we notice her expression is somewhat uncomfortable, somewhat out of place. The attention shifts toward Tracy in this moment, and when the other girls measure her up and take notice of her playfully colorful socks, they giggle with disdain, "Nice socks!" In shame and embarrassment, this young girl walks away from the group, the feeling of dejection looming largely over her whole demeanor.

Scene 2: She runs home, takes her old clothes, her old stuffed animals, and her beloved Mickey Mouse toys and she shoves them into the trash can, as if to signify her childhood is over and her path toward adulthood has begun. Her mother, upon hearing the harsh sounds of the objects striking the edges of the trash can, enters her room and begins to help her throw her stuffed animals in the direction of the trashcan. The mother and daughter exchange words, and Tracy bursts into tears as she explains that she can no longer be a child. She must dress and act like the other girls of the eighth grade. And so "mom" is determined to help her. Together, they set out to buy the coolest clothes for one another.

Epilogue: She eventually makes friends with those girls, and Tracy not only begins to dress like them, but she eventually begins to steal like them - to smoke and drink like them - to have sex like them - to lie like them.

Sadly, this story is not uncommon. The beginning of this story only sets the stage for the rapid descent of this one young girl into a dark world. As she grapples with her coming of age, we catch a glimpse into a world of the pressure all of us wish to forget. This is the beginning of the story in the shocking drama, "Thirteen" a movie released this year. It is the story of one girl who stands on the edge. By her decisions, she falls deep into a spiral of stealing, drug-use, and of premature sexual exploration and exploitation. This movie depicts a teenage girl's life at the extreme. While we watch this movie, it is easy to think that this world is not what our children are subject to, until the camera focuses on the outside of the school she attends. Portola Middle School Tarzana, CA - the name glaringly calls us to wake up. This story doesn't take place in some rural town of the Midwest, nor is it a story of adolescence from the suburbs of New York. This fictionalized story based on the truth takes place here, in the Valley, and the life of the children depicted in this movie can be our children and our children's friends.

The truth is most of our children will thankfully not end up like the young girl in the movie. The extent of the problem the movie depicts is over the edge - beyond our wildest imaginations. Tracy's initial conflict is actually a quite endearing and a welcomed struggle in the process of winning independence we expect for our children. Our children will confront peer pressure, they too will have to make choices about who they are and who they want to be by the way they dress, they way they eat, and with whom they associate. Our children will also stand on the precipice of this unrestrained freedom, and through our guidance and support they will hopefully make decisions which will turn them away from a life of drugs, away from a life of petty theft and juvenile vandalism - a life where their choices can lead to their disaster. But we cannot be sure. 

Being a teenager in today's world is scary. We are shocked by the stories of gang-related shootings at Taft High School. We are shocked by a group of teens who engaged in a brutal hazing ceremony in an Illinois high school causing harm and humiliation to the underclassmen. We are shocked by a movie like "Thirteen," where teenage life is exactly the horror we feared it might be. This is not yesterday's news we saw another shooting in Minnesota just this week! We know this to be our world - and these isolated incidents are illustrative of what is subtly taking place every day. We can raise our hands in the air and proclaim, "I did not contribute to this! These are not our children who are involved with these socially reprehensible behaviors!" Yet, we must be aware of the increasing numbers of Jewish teenagers at Beit Teshuvah - a Jewish recovery house for people who could not choose to turn the other way. 

Our children are subject to these realities. They know what is going 
on in their schools better than we ever will. Are we doing our part to teach them differently? Every time we see a movie like, "Thirteen," every time we hear about a shooting at a high school where our children attend or could have attended, we are scared, and we feel helpless and subject to world that is unrestrained, and unguided. Every time we hear about the travails of teen life, the question "Are we doing our part to teach them differently?" resonates within us.

The message we learn from the movie "Thirteen" is not about the girl's catastrophic choices, it is about the mother. In that critical moment in Tracy's room, the mother had the opportunity to sit with her child. The mother had the chance to help her daughter see that she can live in a world where she does not have to define herself by others. The mother did not see that she was enabling her daughter to enter into a part of our culture that seems to be micro on the morals and mini on the skirts. Instead, the mother gives in [PAUSE] - she opts to be her friend, when she needed a parent. The mother tries to help her daughter by dressing like her, by taking on her slang, by conforming to her teenage life without providing her with a healthy vision of her own adult life. This mother was a single mother. She tirelessly worked out of her home to provide a comfortable life for her children. She did not have any parents to support her. She did not have a community to call upon when she probably needed it the most. And when we look at the mother with sadness and anger, we should also be asking, "Where was the father?" Where was her support?

Like Billy Joel sang, "We didn't start the fire!" This problem was not started by us. But, we are implicated. Their world is in our protective custody and we have become too dulled to see that what we possess is grim. We are the generation that grew up with all these changes, and the more we see our teenagers subject to the gross behaviors of a few, the more we may be looking the other way, without teaching them a better way. 

How do parents get to this point? There is no doubt that parents are trying their very hardest to raise their children with values, to teach our children to stay away from the lures of drugs and sex - to be good people. But let's face it - it's tough out there. There are times when we give in to the conveniences, to the barrage of a world of "Now" because we can't always handle our lives by ourselves. 

Take, for example, a place like McDonald's. McDonald's is the place where, "They love to see you smile." After a busy day of work, after attending to all the needs we have just to make it through each day, McDonald's is a place where you can feed yourself and your children inexpensively and certainly more quickly than if you made a meal for them at home. We can even drive up in our cars and check off one more of the tasks on our incredibly long list of things to do without even stepping off the gas pedal. What we don't consider is what we're actually doing to our children every time we go to McDonalds, or Burger King. We don't consider the hundreds of grams of fat we're potentially giving to our children. And, what we don't realize is that beyond the fast food, we have given in to an entire lifestyle that may be poisonous to our kids. What we think is the remedy for our overburdened lives, is really another example of the fast food life we've been living for some time. 

We have become a Fast Food Nation. With the advent of McDonalds, Carl's Jr., and a way of living life that is surrounded by fast food culture, our lives have become mechanized, standardized, industrialized and conveniently packaged to live with everything on the run - food, clothing, spirituality, even education all devoid of nutritional value. We want now we can have now and we can have our way. We don't even have turn off the keys in the ignition to receive it.

We know this to be our world. It even leaks into our sanctuary our respite from the constant barrage of a life that lives only in the now. Despite what you see here, Judaism was never set up to run more efficiently or to accommodate the masses of people by moving them through a synagogue experience. We've built ourselves a community that delivers the hot new "product" these days - the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or even the High Holiday experience I'd like to order one Torah portion and a side of fries, please. Would I like that Super Sized? Sure, why not?! 

But, Jewish life is not like a Big Mac, or a Fed-Ex overnight letter. Jewish life cannot be transmitted through an Instant Message with icons and shortcuts to express our feelings. Jewish life cannot be mass produced at an affordable cost for a greater profit margin. True, we are trying to create a community that grows and changes with the outside world, but is this what we have in mind? 

Eric Schlosser, author of the 2002 book, Fast Food Nation surmises that the greatest challenge to stop the continual barrage of advertising - of promoting this destructive way of life - upon our children. One survey shows that our young children recognize Ronald McDonald more easily than any other character, or any other personality. [As a side note - I personally tested this by having a conversation with a four year old that has never eaten in a McDonald's. I asked him if he knew what it was and who the character of McDonald's was, and he identified that red headed clown without hesitation].

Our children are exposed to this every moment of every day and if we think they can make an informed, self-generated choice on what to eat, or what to wear or who to hang out with by themselves, we will lose we have already lost some. Without our help, it is impossible for them to choose wisely.

The rabbis imagined that the Yetzer haRa - the inclination for evil was an animate being who could be stopped. The people were tired of constantly fighting against the desires the Yezter HaRa could inspire within us so they captured him and threw him into jail. A prophet among the people comes along and warns, "Consider carefully, for if you slay the evil impulse, the world will be destroyed." (If you slay the evil impulse the world will be destroyed. "How can that be?" Is it not the evil impulse that destroys the world itself? )

The next day, the rabbis went out and saw that people stopped working, stopped having children. There were no desires no struggling. They even saw that there wasn't even one fresh egg to be found in the world. In wonder they ask themselves, "What shall we do now? Like the prophet said, if we slay the impulse permanently, the entire world will be destroyed!" In a calculated analysis of this precarious situation, the people realized the evil impulse must exist for the world to exist. To resolve this conflict, the people painted the eyes of the evil impulse (thereby blinding it) and then let it back out into the world. We learn that what they did helped weaken its strength, but they did not destroy it. 

We cannot destroy the Yetzer haRa, but we must weaken it in order for the world to exist. The conveniences of the world are a necessary sometimes even a blessing. But left unrestrained, left without a context in which to place them, they take us over, we become ruled by them we gain nothing from them.

Such a move begs of us to look at ourselves, and to begin modeling a world we want to see our children live in. We cannot subject our children to this world without giving them the tools for coping the way to blind the Yetzer haRa. In order to empower our teenagers, our youth, we have to begin by empowering ourselves. Where shall we find such tools? Here, in a community of people who care about the future and who will model for others an ethic they value themselves. 

A recent study was published by Dartmouth University found that children are "Hardwired to Connect." Children and adolescents have neurological and physiological needs for connection. Ironically, we think being a teenager is precisely the time when they want to disconnect - to become independent. This study shows that their need for connection - their biological need to feel a part of something is just as strong as ever. When a teenager tries to break their hardwired connection with a parent, she or he searches for a connection somewhere else. And today, we should be concerned about who and what our children are choosing to connect with.

The commission recommends and has shown that it takes an "Authoritative Community" enables children to feel connected and empowers teens to create those connections themselves. What would an "Authoritative Community," look like at Valley Beth Shalom?

An "Authoritative Community" is defined as being first and foremost a social institution that includes children and youth.
It is a place that treats children as ends in themselves. 

An "Authoritative Community" establishes clear boundaries and limits.

An "Authoritative Community" is defined and guided at least partly by non-specialists; it is multi-generational; it has a long-term focus. It is a place where the professional educator and each member of the community have something to offer our teenagers. 

Above all, authoritative communities are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who exhibit and are able to pass on what it means to be a good person. That's what children need more than anything else not fast food or more programming but to learn how to be a good person.

I suggest it is time to invite the kids to come up from the basement and join us in the sanctuary. We must help them to connect to us by inviting them to share in the responsibilities of supporting this community. This can take place at special synagogue events or every Shabbat when we hold religious services. By giving them the opportunities to fully participate in this community, we are giving them a place to connect. 

As a member of this community, you could share your experience - your dream - by making an internship for a teen. I'd like you to help me create internships to make connections with teenagers who are looking for role models. You don't have to merely be a high-powered attorney or a specialized doctor to mentor a teen your life experience is a teaching model you can share with them what you believe to be the most important qualities to have in life. On this Yom Kippur evening when we focus on turning and renewal search inside yourself to find those qualities inside of you that you believe are important to pass on to the next generation. If you have something you think they need to know to be a productive, caring individual - set it up. We'll make the connections together. 

We send our children to Day schools, to Religious schools, to Youth programs like USY and over time these institutions cultivate our children's spiritual and religious development. But, if a child sits in class and learns how to say the Shema all day or learns the Ashrei and has no place to see it being modeled, no place to learn why what she or he is learning is important, we have wasted our time. An authoritative community keeps children at the focus - we're committed to anyone who wants to learn how to model their dream of a vibrant Jewish life for their child or for the children of this community. 

Here, we want to see our teenagers taking the lead modeling for the younger children what it means to be a good person to them to connect with younger people more powerfully than a teacher, a rabbi, sometimes even a parent. We committed to training our teens to be mentors for the younger generation.

We cannot merely stand where we are and raise our children in a world we don't live in. We must model for them the world we would like to see them live in, and an authoritative community, a community like this one, is where it begins and where it ends.

We read a famous line in the prophet Joel, "And the old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions." (Joel 3:2-3) These are the words that have sparked inspiration in music, to be written on the sides of our buildings, and vision of hope for a world torn asunder. These words hearken to an era of heightened understanding at a time when the will of God and the spirit of humanity are synchronized. This wisdom has much to teach us about the ability to help our teens. 

"The old shall dream dreams." We have the ability to think of a world that does not give in to the pressures of a culture of now. 

By giving teenagers a dream of a world laden with the values of responsibility and self-worth, they can begin to envision a world where they can live with those values. But without helping them to connect, to us and to each other, these words and thoughts are empty and meaningless. "WHEN the old dream dreams, THEN the youth will see visions." Internships and mentorships are one way we can do this together.

We have a blessing for our children that summarize our dreams. We say to our children every Friday evening, "Y'simcha Elohim K'Efraim u'Kmanashe" or "Yisimech Elohim K'Sarah Rivka Rachel v'Leah" May God make you, our children, like our ancestors - May we be privileged to raise you to have the eternally noble qualities of our ancestors live through you.

We dream that our children will be blessed and protected. "Yivarechecha HaShem V'Yishmarecha." We dream that our children will help us find the sparks of holiness in the world and construct them together to blind the evil impulse. "Ya'ehr HaShem Panav Elecha v'Chuneka." We dream that our children will come to find their vision in a community that strives to build strong identities - that their vision is unified with all Jews - that of Shalom "Yisah Hashem Panav Elecha, V'Yasem L'cha Shalom"

When we dream for our children - and when we act for our children - they will envision Shalom.

Shanah Tovah


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Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784