Shabbat Shalom December 17-18, 2010

Endings and Beginnings – A Conclusion to the Book of Genesis
Rabbi Joshua Hoffman


This past Monday evening, our community was given the opportunity to view an advanced screening of the movie Race to Nowhere, a film by Vicki Abeles and graciously sponsored by the Gold and Tajkef families.

(Read on! There’s no need for a spoiler alert for what comes next!)

The central message of the movie is a heartfelt call for dialogue around the ongoing pressures our children face when preparing for college. Cast in the shadow of a thirteen year old girl’s surprising suicide, the movie uncovers the layers of stress and anxiety children increasingly face today. The question the movie asks is, “Why isn’t anyone talking about this?”

I was left with so many more questions, and those who will have the chance to see the movie soon will too, I believe. Looming above all my questions is the question of our day, “Where to begin?”

Where to begin addressing the concerns of our children who are quietly suffering? They’re suffering not only because there is too much pressure to perform, but also because they are (not-so) subconsciously absorbing a model from parents, communities, and the world that measures success with quantity and not quality.

Where to begin assuaging the anxiety today’s parents feel in their quest to provide the best possible life for their children, and the even deeper fear that if they don’t do for their children what others are doing they are unfairly depriving them of an opportunity to self-actualize?

So many questions from one movie. Living in the era of movies like this or, “An Inconvenient Truth” means we are becoming more and more sensitive to gigantic global issues. It doesn’t mean we are predicting the future, though.

First and foremost, I post this as an invitation to an open and sustained exchange about some real issues, such as:
-Defining models of success within the current educational framework,
-Addressing the genuine and abiding concern for today’s parents and tomorrow's teenagers leading frantic lifestyles, and
-The challenge of the Jewish tradition to continue to speak with relevance to our lives and the world around us.

I offer this humbly as one among many concerned educators, parents, and community leaders. I hope they and you will lend your voice and share the conversation.

*****

While there is much to discover in this conversation, we can look to our Torah this week for insight and perspective, especially as we try to connect to a bunch of stressed out people.

“And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: 'Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the end of days.” (Gen. 49:1)

Rashi comments on this verse, he notes,

Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you... (49:1)”Jacob wished to reveal the end (that they will become enslaved and eventually redeemed in Egypt), but the Divine Presence departed from him.”

We don’t need deathbeds to inspire prophetic visions, each and every day we may feel a little like Jacob. We see the struggles of others and we want so badly to make it easier and better and painless for them, all the more so for our own precious children. But as our great patriarch Jacob, was prevented from acting on his impulse, perhaps we too must not strive so hard to make our children into something they ought not to be – hyper-performing students who are prepared to run for Congress and lead a team of doctors into earthquake ravaged Haiti all before they turn 18.

What Jacob did do was to highlight the qualities of each of his children and focus on character rather than accomplishments. Besides, if Jacob had told his children that they would become slaves and eventually be redeemed, perhaps they wouldn’t have taken the steps to act on their own behalf to bring redemption. Painful as it may be, the best gift parents, educators, and communities can give our children is the courage to face the future, however it comes, with hope and determination. And as Jacob teaches us, it is the quality of their character that will ultimately define them.

Shabbat Shalom