Shabbat Shalom

As the proud Cantor of Temple Beth Am, I am pleased to make available, on-line, my thoughts which were shared with the congregation during services.

These sermons are readily available for viewing or downloading and reading at your convenience.

Cantor’s Sabbath Message
Shabbat Service
October 14, 2005

All I Got Was Words
We have just spent many hours over these days of awe looking inward, coming face to face with our sins, and trying to improve our behavior in the coming year.  We have made amends with family and friends and with God, and we begin this new year of 5766 with a clean slate.

But what have our children gotten out of these holidays?  Were the prayers of any meaning to them?  Did any of the messages of introspection get through to our young people?  What is it that we want our young people to take away from the high holy days?

In most cases, our children and grandchildren have much more than we had growing up.  They are not only well-fed, well-clothed and well-loved, but they have bedrooms and playrooms filled to the brim with toys, computers, stereos, Ipods, Gameboys, Blackberries, PlayStations, DVD players, and other electronic equipment that we didn’t even dream of when we were growing up.

We have spent countless hours driving them to and from a myriad of planned activities inlcuding soccer, football, basketball, dancing, gymnastics, play practice, band, ice skating, piano lessons and Hebrew school, just to name a few..

All of this time and expense will help our kids become better rounded people, get into better colleges and be more successful adults.  But what about their moral behavior?

Our public schools and our religious schools are struggling with kids whose behavior is not only abominable, but destructive to the entire educational process.  And these are not necessarily kids from “the other side of the tracks” or from “families at risk”.  These are kids from middle and upper-middle class homes who have, in between the trumpet lessons and the football practice, missed the lessons on how to treat our fellow human beings.

I am constantly amazed at the way some of our kids speak, not only to each other, but to their teachers and to me!  I hear from the public school educators that lack of respect for any authority figure is the number one problem plaguing the suburban public schools.  So how did we get here?  How is it that otherwise stand-up citizens have raised a generation of kids, some of whom have so little regard for the feelings of others and who can be downright fresh to anyone who represents authority?

The generation of baby-boomer parents looked at the authoritarian way that their parents and some of them had been raised and said that their children’s lives would be different.  Gone were the days of “children should be seen and not heard” and in came the new methods of parenting which included empowering infants and toddlers, not telling children “no” so as not to bruise their psyches, and in essence, creating families where children’s wishes and desires run the household.

Now I am not for a moment suggesting that we go back to the days of corporal punishment and forced labor, but perhaps this generation of baby boomer parents missed the middle ground in all of this.  Children can be loved and cherished and nurtured without parents surrendering all of their authority to them. 

Children MUST be taught, lovingly, that respect for parents, teachers and other adult figures is a requirement, NOT an option, and that treating peers appropriately is a way of life.  This needs to be taught through discussion and by example.  Our classrooms must be places of learning for all, not dumping grounds for kids whose prime purpose is to prevent that learning from going on.  And our parents need to be accountable.  The “not my child” syndrome has to stop.  Not only does a persistently disruptive child destroy the education process for his/her peers, but his/her own self-esteem is being destroyed.  If that child is not held accountable by his/her parents while he/she is in school, then the behavior is perceived as acceptable and carried on into adulthood.  What happens when that behavior is repeated in the workplace?  Can mom and dad bail “poopie” out then?

Most of our children and grandchildren are wonderful.  They all have their moments, but in the long run, they are growing into responsible, caring young adults.  But there are a good number of kids out there who come from seemingly good families, and yet their behavior is anything but good.  It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes strong parents who hold their ground to raise children with morals, ethics and integrity.  In this ever-changing world, we need every young person out there to hold their moral ground, to grow into kind, caring adults who will take on the world, not only with their computer skills and their athletic prowess, but with their kindness and their menschlichkeit.

A colleague of mine sent me the following poem, and I must share these words with you.

When I was young and fancy free

My folks had no fine clothes for me

All I got was words.

Got zu danken (Thank God for our riches)

Got vet geben (God will take care of us)

Zol mir leven unzein gezunt (We should live a full and healthy life)

When I was wont to travel far

They didn’t provide me with a car

All I got was words.

Geh gezunt (Go in good health)

Geh pamelech (Go carefully)

Hub a glickliche reise (Have a wonderful trip)

I wanted to increase my knowledge

But they couldn’t send me to college

All I got was words.

Hub saychel (Be wise and sensible)

Zei nischt kein narr (Don’t be foolish)

Torah is di beste schorah (The best source of learning is the Torah)

The years have flown – the world has turned

Things I’ve gotten, things I’ve learned

Yet I remember:

Zog dem emes (Be truthful)

Gib tzedakah (Be charitable)

Hub rachmones (Be compassionate)

Zei a mensch (Be a caring human being)

All I got was words.

Amen.

Cantor Jodi Schechtman