Commandments and Concerns: Jewish Religious Education in Secular Society

Conclusion

Conclusion Let us return briefly to the several religious and non-religious Jewish publics with whom we began. Does theoretical discussion characterizing the philosophy of religious Jewish education help them? Does it clarify areas of agreement and of controversy? Does it aid in establishing criteria for success and suggest ways of dealing with partial failures? Does it illuminate various conceptions of authority and community of freedom and the individual-and of nonnative or achievable relationships between them? By the answers to such questions, the value of theoretical discussions of this kind may be tested. Ifour theoretical examination oftheology and theory ofreJigious education is useful, it must raise questions for all of our Jewish publics. The Orthodox community must re-examine the question ofwhether Reform and Conservative education is legitimately excluded from the category of religious education. The Orthodox may, indeed, be expected to take issue with other groups when the non-Orthodox consider implicit religion as their starting point. whereas, they insist, with no little justice, that the Jewish religious tradition is founded on the principle that explicit precedes implicit religiosity. The non-Orthodox educators, in response, are likely to point out that Jewish religious education that does not begin with the implicit features ofJudaism will be incomprehensible to the modem Jew. And the Orthodox will complain that the Conservative and the Reform, usually lacking "normative communities," have no way of proceeding from the implicit to the explicit, whereas the Orthodox themselves may be charged with often ignoring religion's implicit dimensions. Yet, it appears that the discussion must be conducted on these grounds; the customary name-calling in which Jews are simply denounced as "deviationists" or Conclusion 27J "fundamentalists," as "irreligious" or "benighted," while emotionally satisfying , does little to clarify or to illuminate. The most consistently post-Emancipation "religiously" defined Jews, such as educators associated with radically Reform groups like the American Council for Judaism, may, in light of our discussion, better understand why they have trouble accepting even most Reform textbooks for use in their classrooms , and why their particular combination of thoroughly implicit religiosity and a denial of the national features of Judaism make most religious educational materials produced in the Jewish community unacceptable to them, 1 In re-examining their approach to Jewish religious education, they may come to re-evaluate their relationship to the Jewish community and people. The non-religious educators, in Israel especially, may ask themselves whether basic existential questions asked in the Israeli "general" school are not, in fact, intrinsically tied to implicit religious assumptions and goals, They may examine whether the national entity--<:ommunity, as it were-does not serve as a "non-religious" substitute for explicit religious normativeness. They may question whether it is fruitful to deny the religious dimension of existential issues and experiences because ofthe ideological axiom fostered by religious and anti-religious establishments and stereotypes that Jewish religion is almost exclusively implicit. These educators must confront the question of whether they have thrown out the baby with (what they consider) the bath water , thereby ironically leaving the responsibility for representing Jewish traditional spirituality to those whose theology they reject. As for the ultra-traditIonalists-who surely believe that implicit religion is part of Torah, since they never felt impelled to deal systematically with the problem ofmodernity and thus never had to be philosophically''consistent"they might ask themselves whether the consciousness of siege that besets their community of commitment has not made them too explicit, even by their own lights. Even more important, they must consider whether the refusal to deal with modernity can be justified in the name of Religious Truth. For aU these publics there are certain questions on the agenda of Jewish education that may be raised in common, however much the various groups will differ in resolving them, And theorists can be helpful in formulating these questions. Theories of religious Jewish education will not, of course, resolve all differences between Jews who categorize themselves as religious and non-religious , or among various groups of religiously defined Jews. But such educational theories may expose areas for discussion and fruitful controversy, And they are likely to disclose some commonalities that characterize diverse 272 Conclusion groups ofJews who are heirs to an acknowledged tradition and who are a community confronting a particular wodd-of culture and of nations. On the basis of theoretically founded discussion, many issues can be clarified in the relationship ofJewish education to the tradition and to the modem world. For example, a distinction may be drawn between Judaism's attitude toward a humanistic and enhancing secularity-which is not foreign to the Jewish religious tradition-and its attitude toward a pagan and self-aggrandizing secularism, which is.2 It is also important to examine the various "religious " and "national" viewpoints in contemporary Judaism and Jewish education and to disclose the "explicit" and "implicit" assumptions that inform them. Such discussions will indicate that some of the controversy has been misconstrued and that some philosophical and educational alliances are unfounded. If a theory of religious Jewish education will help us discover some unsuspected affinities between "religious" and "non-religious" Jews, it will not create artificial harmony; at times, itwill accentuate principled distinctions and disagreements. Yet, one must place near the top ofany agendafor educational deliberation the question of how we can learn from those with whom we disagree and live with those from whom we do not particularly desire to learn anything. while yet maintaining our principles and testifying to our truth as we have experienced it. To the very explicit-minded person the formulation of the issue is itself suspect; it sounds inconsistent or confused. To the very implicit-minded person ; the answer and the question seem far simpler than they are. But in the modem situation, it is imperative to love both truth and peace, no matter how "ironic" this seems or sounds. There are those who will say that such a "dialectical" approach to Torah and to modernity is impractical, for only a small, elite group can live with it. In fact, however, if there will be no "dialectics" in our education and lives, no commitment to both principle and pluralism, it is possible that there will soon be no human life on this threatened planet. If we cannot educate toward an existence in which there is ambiguity grounded in commitment to Transcendence , our species may soon cease to exist, or our children will witness the extinction ofconsciousness in a "brave new world." But even those who do not like their apocalypticism painted on such a broad canvas must agree that the much buffeted Jewish people cannot live as though the religious teachings ofJudaism have no message or as though the present makes no demands. For if we try to live that way we prejudice our survival in free societies and undermine , perhaps decisively. the State ofIsrael-which was envisioned to rep- Conclusion 273 resent both historical and spiritual continuity and modernity, and to construct a bridge between them. Saying how to be principled and pluralistic. orpious and open, in education is harder than saying that it must be done. No "movement" has the whole answer, though probably none completely lacks clues waiting to be picked up and deciphered. What is certain is that finding answers, however tentative, will require sensitivity, practical knowledge, and a believing good sense, on the one hand, and some theoretical grounding that generates insight and organizes rationality, on the other. I have tried to present some of the theory, in the hope that it will make a practical difference. ...