January 25, 2025
Author(s):
Parshat Vaera
Upon 3 Pillars The Teen’s World Stands
January 25, 2025 – 25 Tevet 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Shimon The Righteous would say that the world stands upon three things: upon Torah, upon Avodah – the Temple Service, and upon G’milut Hasadim – acts of loving kindness. Since I am finishing my fifth month working with the teen community here at Temple Emanuel I thought that I would humbly reflect upon three stories that illustrate these three pillars of Jewish life, which point our compass as we continue to establish our teen community.
The first pillar that holds up the world, and our teen community is Torah. We try to connect everything we do to Torah, and some of my favorite shabbatot so far have been when the teens engage deeply in our textual tradition. Our teens are incredibly deep thinkers. One weekend in November, we had 8 teens come to learn together during kiddish luncheon, and it was the weekend we read Parshat Chayyei Sara. We had an amazing conversation together about Abraham’s servant Elizer, who the Rabbis of The Talmud imagine as experiencing “a shortening of the path” – K’fitzat Ha Derekh. The Rabbis say that Elizer made a 3 week journey in three hours to find Isaac a wife; but for our teens, I was really impressed by how they wrestled with the idea of condensing their own life path. Some were ready to skip high school, and others, wise beyond their years, argued that each of their experiences in life make them who they are, so they wanted to have life’s ups and downs. Beyond this, I have found that our teens are curious scholars and deep thinkers. They are interested in what our tradition has to say, and they are also ready to question it. Most impressively, they are particularly great at opening up the wisdom of our tradition and applying it to their own lives. I find pretty consistently that our teens are whip-smart, and want to be challenged intellectually about the world around them, and Torah is one important way they are able to strive to better themselves.
The second pillar is Avodah, or temple service. Our teens haven’t done animal sacrifice, thank G!D, but the essence of the temple service is about drawing closer to the Divine, often Torah teaches about sacrifice using the Hebrew root kuf-resh-bet meaning to come close. For our teens, they really value the closeness of connection through quality time with one another. Our teens are so busy! We have teens who are committed to their schools drama clubs in the cast & crew of shows, we have varsity basketball and track athletes, we have editors of the school paper, we have Israeli dancers, and we have serious Torah scholars – just to give you a sample of what our teens do outside of academics. Even though they have limited time they can spend with us in their busy lives, the moments we do have together are truly transcendent. Many of our teens will even tell us, they’re really at capacity in life, and they don’t have space for more. However, the reason they value Temple Emanuel is because it brings them closer to their Jewish friends and community.
We have a group of 9th grade girls who mostly go to separate high schools, but all met here in religious school at Temple Emanuel. One weekend in November, I took 5 of our 9th grade teen girls out to Ice Cream at JP Licks. This afternoon was amazing because it highlights just how much Temple Emanuel serves as a hub for our teens Jewish social lives. These girls met at Religious School, and while they go to different high schools, Emanuel is the place where they come together for Torah learning, Jewish baking classes, and of course catching up on all the gossip.