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January 22, 1999/5 Shevat 5759, Vol. 51, No. 17
Teach your children well
Young people learn ethics from parents' example
DANE D'ANTUONO
Staff Writer
Micah Caplan (center) is joined by other young people involved in United Synagogue Youth through Beth El Congregation at a fund-raising car wash that generated $400.
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Asked what should be done to help young people fend off worldly temptations and strengthen their religious resolve, experts agree that adults should practice what they preach and teach by example.
Rabbi Chaim Silver at Young Israel in Phoenix believes the energy of youth can be channeled away from temptations when adults model ethical behavior.
"If we do it, our kids will look up to us and say, 'Why can't I do it?'" Silver theorizes. "If we are not going to be more committed about our lifestyles, then we will have no chance at all to affect our children."
He also adds that parents must take a positive role in actively educating children from a very young age in God-given Torah principles and in the ways of being a Jew.
Parents go about doing that "by not accepting any alternative behavior," Silver says. "Arm them with the beauty and meaning of life in a religious lifestyle. And then, hopefully, they will have what it takes to withstand external pressures."
At a conference in New York last month, the National Council of Young Israel discussed those pressures with youth directors. The council acknowledged that teens confront issues of drugs, alcohol, gangs and more.
Silver says there is a definite need for parents and their children to talk of such things.
"The need becomes greater and greater with each passing day. The Jewish community, however religious or Torah-observant, does not live in a vacuum, and we are very influenced by our surroundings," Silver observes. "There is a breakdown of our moral fiber and the foundation of what is true and holy in society in general, and unfortunately, it is very, very appealing."
According to Silver, there are two basic struggles teens face: One is to remain religiously observant in a secular world.
"For example, if a Jewish boy wants to wear his kippah (skullcap) in school, he (may be concerned about) any outward signs of being Jewish in an environment that scorns religious expression."
The second challenge is being cool. "What's cool today is 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.' You do it because everybody else is doing it," notes the rabbi. "You do it because it gives you standing, and gives you credibility, and immediate physical gratification."
Trying to combat the appeal of unethical or immoral choices, Reform movement leaders, meeting at a conference last year, called for a code of ethics to be developed and taught to children.
At the conference, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, pointed out incidents of downtown Toronto hotels refusing to book bar and bat mitzvah receptions unless private security guards were hired, because the kids attending these celebrations were destroying the premises.
"There's an ethical crisis in our society. Jews are an integral part of that society, and we have not escaped all of those difficult ethical issues," Yoffie said. "Jewish tradition has strong things to say about what's ethically right and wrong. We have a firm obligation through our camps, Israel programs, youth groups and religious schools to provide guidance for studying what Judaism has to say and to make appropriate ethical decisions."
Since the conference, a task force has been created - involving UAHC professionals, parents, rabbis and youth leaders - to develop programs for teacher and counselor training, as well as parent-child programs, by the summer of 2000.
Communicating moral guidance to youth is not an easy task, but the executive director of the Mitzvah Corps Foundation in Phoenix, Bob Liebman, has been dishing it out in a soft-handed way.
Since 1979, the foundation has run an annual camp for economically disadvantaged youth between the ages of 8 and 11, at which local teens from Temple Solel and other area synagogues are the camp counselors.
"Things like the Mitzvah Corps provide opportunities for teens to be role models, and it brings an appreciation of faith and values.
"Are we our brother's keeper? Yes. Should we be doing tzedakah (charity)? Yes. Are we helping those less fortunate than us? Yes," Liebman says. "These are Jewish ideals."
Barbara Gereboff, principal of the Solomon Schechter Day School, agrees that community service is important, but says "no one thing can shape someone's behavior."
However, reaching out and helping others does provide a healthy alternative to other choices that may be out there for teens.
When young people help those less fortunate, they get "a connection to other people that have a different kind of life, and they get a sense of an obligation to take care of these things," Gereboff said. "You can't just sit back and scratch your head and say, 'Oh, it's terrible.' You have to say, 'I have a role in making our world better.' "
Her own 16-year-old daughter, Arielle, recently participated in the 48th Annual United Synagogue Youth International Convention, at which almost 1,000 teens hit the streets of Chicago, serving hot meals to the homeless and smiles to the elderly. Arielle said in a telephone interview the night before flying to Chicago that she thinks serving others helps her to make better choices.
"People still do what they want to do, but community service gives us a ground of knowing what is right," says the ambitious young woman, who desires someday to be a rabbi.
She says the biggest challenges faced by teens are drugs and sex. For her, remaining observant is not hard because she occupies much of her time doing service work.
"It's harder for my friends, especially at public schools, because they have more of a desire to fit in."
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