It’s All Kosher (No. 6): The Second Generation
The Unpious Posek2011The Unpious Posek
Dear Posek,
My 3-year-old daughter is almost ready for school. I’m not religious anymore. I can’t decide if I should enroll her in a Jewish school. What about my Chasidish heritage do I pass on to her?
Mod-Mommy
Dear Mod-Mommy,
Some parents who immigrate from one culture to another have an extreme attitude towards assimilation, insisting on speaking the new language at home and embracing all aspects of the new culture, replacing the culture they came from. But this attitude can be driven more by the parent’s need to protect themselves from their past, than to shield their child, because introducing a child to a parent’s history does not have to mean sharing trauma. For you, sharing your history can mean creating a solid sense of identity in your daughter about where she and her most important family come from, and teaching her about the choices her parents made to help her have the best quality of life.
“The more that children have a solid grounding and understanding about who they are and where they came from, the more they learn to move with grace and confidence among communities different from their own, and the closer we get to building a world of respect, curiosity, sharing, and humanity… Some people fear that by affirming children’s identities in terms of home cultures and traditions, we may be promoting separatism. That is not the case,” writes Dora Pulido-Tobiassen, Director of Early Childhood for California Tomorrow in Oakland in A Place to Begin: Working With Parents on Issues of Diversity, an article published in the magazine, Early Childhood Today.
Mod-Mommy, you need to find a balance between assimilating effectively and acknowledging your past. This may mean raising a bicultural child. Remember: exposing your child to a lifestyle is not the same as imposing a lifestyle on your child. The former will empower and educate your child to make her own life choices (we all know the potential consequences of the latter).
Here are four important ways to impart culture, that you might find helpful:
Education
Raising a bicultural child can be achieved by sending your child to educational institutions that will teach about your heritage. This doesn’t have to mean sending your daughter to the local Bais Yaakov. There are many options within Jewish education that represent many diverse views on Judaism.
If you send your child to public or secular school, your child’s Jewish education can come from you directly. You can educate your daughter yourself – formally through “home schooling”-style lessons, or informally through discussion and life events.
Language
You may be tempted to replace Yiddish with English, to make sure that your child can speak English well. But English proficiency does not need to come at the price of Yiddish fluency. Younger children are very adept at picking up several languages. Your child will probably want to know Yiddish as an adult. Speak to your child in Yiddish and teach your child special words, especially those that were an important part of your youth. You may also want to consider a bilingual school, especially for the preschool years.
Family
Keeping in touch with your family may not be possible. Even if your frum family welcomes you and your child, your child may feel rejected and distanced. Try to find a relative from the community you come from— a sibling, aunt or grandparent – who will be gentle and kind regardless of your situation. Make an effort to maintain a relationship with these relatives. Precede these visits with talks with your child about their lifestyle, your memories as a member of the community and why you chose a different life. Refrain from glorifying or bashing your frum heritage, but remain truthful about your differing personal opinions.
Tradition
Tradition is a wonderful way to bond with family and connect with the sweeter experiences of your past. Consider becoming a member of a Jewish community and congregation. Jewish communities that will accept you span from the liberal orthodox to the atheistic Zionists, and everything in between. Choose holidays, dishes and clothing you enjoyed as a child and introduce them into your family life. You can buy tights for your daughter and explain to her how you experienced turning three as a little girl, or you can cook a cholent and tell your child about the memories you associate with it, or you can celebrate Passover by cleaning toys together and explaining the concept of freedom.
It can be frightening to reengage with traditions that were so overpowering in your youth. But remember, teaching your daughter about the culture you grew up in will not make her become frum. Traditions that you modify and make personal can become a powerful method of imparting a piece of your identity, that will give your child a connection to her past – and with that, to you.
Signed,
Posek
The Unpious Posek welcomes your queries on all matters of impiety. Send your questions to posek@unpious.com.
9 Responses
Because I am very likely older, fatter, uglier, and more despairing than just about everyone else who participates in this forum, I can speak to this subject with some authority.
The majority of people in the Western World have no idea where they came from or where they’re going.
As far as they can tell, they were simply thrown into this world, like Heidegger’s Geworfenheit — no past, no present, no future. They just appeared. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
I think the state of Geworfenheit is what distinguishes non-Jews in the Western World from Jews in the Western World.
Like it or not, if you acknowledge yourself as a Jew, you are acknowledging that you weren’t just “thrown into the world,” that you didn’t just appear out of nowhere.
If you’re a Jew, like it or not, you are located on a timeline. There is a distinct story, a narrative, albeit a long and complicated one, that explains how you appeared out of the mysts of time and found yourself in a ridiculously overpriced 2-bedroom/1 bath remodel in a post-War building in Sheepshead Bay that’s been bankrolled by the Russian mob and and is a twenty-minute walk from the train station and the laminate floors are already buckling and the radiator is in a weird, inconvenient place in the dining room. (And let’s not even get started about the mildew in bathroom with the faux-marble tiles that are already loose and with the black mold growing between the cheap grout.)
If you’re smart, you will embrace the fact that you, as a Jew, are not Geworfenheit and you will make your separate peace with being someone who belongs IN history, and you WILL teach your kids Yiddish, because there’s no such thing as knowing TOO MANY languages.
And, besides, Yiddish comes in VERY HANDY in many surprising places. I was once able to enjoy quite a fine holiday in Turkey, of all places, because so many Turks have worked in Turkey that they speak excellent German, or at least enough German to understand basic Yiddish. I’ve got plenty of other examples. But. Trust me. Teach your kids Yiddish. It’s fun. Also, it has a lot of interesting borrow words from French, etc., to make it a worthwhile introduction to European history.
Der Bik I understand the value of being part of a “timeline” (recognizing my roots etc) but it is quite difficult to focus on a timeline , if you broke from the traditions which were followed through that timeline. In other words whilst everyone else is continuing the heritage of the timeline, you (in a general sense) are breaking it. So I am not so sure how wise it is , for everyone to recognize “the timeline”.
Thanks Posek for another great piece. Although I want to point out all direction penned by this Posek is just their opinion. His/her views have value, are well thought out and are explained, but I’m sure many of us have different viewpoints…
I personally disagree with many of Posek’s eitzes. Or maybe its just the trucelent rebel acting up in me that used to question every time a “rebbe” passed down judgement.
Well, here’s my 2 cents. I’ve been enjoying reading this website for 2 weeks now, ever since I heard Luzer Twersky’s story “Breaking Away” on NPR. I find everyone’s posts here utterly fascinating. They have provided a new perspective to my own sometimes romanticized view of Judaism. I converted To Judaism in 2005 within a liberal framework sponsored by a conservative rabbi who presided over a congregation where women are welcome to the Bimah, Kosher eating habits vary widely, etc. Only recently (within the last year) my middle child, a 3 year old boy, started attending a local Chabad-run preschool. The Chabad couple who run it are raising their own 7 children, yet they are the calmest parents I’ve seen in my life. All of us frazzled parents of 1,2 or 3 kids are constantly asking them questions about everything from potty training to how to deal with picky eaters and they always answer without reservation, whether sharing their own trials and tribulations on parenting or actually providing super helpful suggestions. They are constantly inviting families over to their house for a Shabbat meal or some other holiday celebration. They’ve whipped up meals for over 20 families, more than once!
I respect everyone’s view on this website, specially since I didn’t grow up in an ultra-religious hyper restrictive environment, and so now I do wonder when I see this nice Chabad family if their burdens weigh heavily on them, and if their children feel stifled like some of the writers on this website.
But I wanted to share with Mod-Mommy that a few of the families on this Chabad preschool are not even Jewish, and my family for example, who is very lax in observance, and me being a “liberal convert” to boot (which I am sure for Chabad means no convert at all, so my kids are not Jewish at all in their eyes) has always been welcome just as much as the “true-blue” Jewish families and non-Jewish families. No one has ever been quizzed or drilled on their level of observance, or lack of observance. But I am not in New York, I am on the West Coast, perhaps this nice Chabad couple are secret rebels and moved far away to live their own lives. Yet, they do dress frum and their kids do attend the local Chabad school. In my area there are also 2 Reform Jewish preschools that are popular in the neighborhood. So I just wanted to share with Mod-Mommy that there are many options out there that are still Jewish but may be completely different from the restrictive, oppressive environment often described in this website and which perhaps is the kind of environment she left behind (the question posted does not specify).
My eldest son (now 5 and entering public school for kinder) attended a secular preschool, and I wanted to warn Mod-Mommy that religion finds its way into secular schools as well. His school, run by 2 wonderful, experienced teachers with no religious affiliation, celebrated with Christmas songs and Christmas arts and crafts, and the same went for Easter and Halloween. My atheist friend sent her kid to another secular preschool nearby that prides itself with being culturally diverse, and their main motto was something along the lines of promoting world peace. Well, this school created something called Chrismukah, which was a holiday celebration in December that blended both Christmas and Hannukah. ?!?!
So as you visit preschools, ask the questions you need to ask to be sure you are comfortable with what they present to your child in the name of “cultural awareness.” Perhaps you can find a preschool where they specifically steer clear from religious celebration, or perhaps you decide to go with a Jewish preschool. Either way, at the ages of 3,4,5 the kids are just having fun. It’s all about eating, singing, dancing, coloring etc. Only very recently, after turning 5 did my eldest child actually ask, who is God? and I honestly responded: “I really don’t know! Since the earth is so so big some people think someone named God must have created it, but there are also scientists who try to investigate and find out how the earth actually came about. Other people read Torah and try to study God and creation that way. Me, personally, I am not sure, but I very much like science and I very much like the books of Torah.” He was satisfied with that for now. We read books about science before bed (the series I Wonder Why? is awesome for 5 year olds) and then we say the Shema before lights out. It works for him and it works for us. So far. In 20 years we’ll find out how it pans out.
Best of Luck to you.
Der Bik-
This former Jew would like to point out that Geworfenheit has its own merits, and they lie in exactly what all this talk of heritage is meant to stifle.
To acknowledge your heritage is to shut the door on all the identities you were free to make for yourself, and settle for life as the product of a historical accident. True, if you’re a Jew, that’s quite a history you’re given. Some of it has to do with truth, beauty, courage–the stuff everyone wants to inherit because it’s cheaper that way. But much of that history is dismal. And I’ve found that most of it is utterly pointless for a 21st century American whose own mind and conscience are in working order.
Because I will never be old enough to despair as Der Blik does, I chose to disown my heritage and embrace Geworfenheit. If the OP
Der Bik-
This former Jew would like to point out that Geworfenheit has its own merits, and they lie in exactly what all this talk of heritage is meant to stifle.
To acknowledge your heritage is to shut the door on all the identities you were free to make for yourself, and settle for life as the product of a historical accident. True, if you’re a Jew, that’s quite a history you’re given. Some of it has to do with truth, beauty, courage–the stuff everyone wants to inherit because it’s cheaper that way. But much of that history is dismal. And I’ve found that most of it is utterly pointless for a 21st century American whose own mind and conscience are in working order.
Because I will never be old enough to despair as Der Blik does, I chose to disown my heritage and embrace Geworfenheit. The letter writer would be doing right by her kids if she offered them a chance to do the same. Let them know their origins once they’re grown and secure in who they are. Any earlier and it’s like blurting out the end of the story while they’re still writing it.
Sorry for double post…stupid cell phone keyboard.
As the child of someone who left the Chassidish world, I can say that this is really good advice — my mom basically did all this with me, except the teaching Yiddish part, and I think I turned out well. I do wish she’d taught me Yiddish, though.
Oh, and another thing — at some point, your child will no longer be three, and will want a detailed, personal explanation of your thought process and why you left. As painful as it will be, you should give this to her; it will strengthen your bond, help her better understand you and the world, and help her with the difficult decisions she’ll make in her life. If you don’t, she’ll feel blocked off from one of the most important events of your life, and feel that you don’t trust her enough to share it with her.