“American history is often driven by passionate outsiders who force themselves into the center of American life.” David Brooks – NYT 1/5/10

Jewish religious leaders constantly ask their congregants to live a religiously observant Jewish life. That’s how they were trained. That’s what they think they were hired to do. However, most rabbis never bother to either ask or educate their congregants regarding the beneficial effects of living this type of life. They seem to assume that the benefits to be derived from living a religiously observant life are self-evident. In making this assumption, they utterly fail to give their congregants a context for living this type of life. They never explain why this is desirable. Thus, they fail to articulate what they claim are the goals and benefits that their congregants will experience if the advice is followed.

What are we trying to achieve? What is our goal when we ask people to be observant Jews? Is it to adhere to God’s law? Is it to adhere to a comprehensive set of ethics, values, norms and a code for living? Is it to achieve a level of deep spirituality? Is it connection with other like-minded individuals? Is it to build an intimate spiritual community? All of these are acceptable and even laudatory goals. However, the means for achieving the goals will vary widely. That’s one of the reasons why it’s imperative that we strive to identify in a positive, affirmative manner what we’re trying to achieve or “sell” to our constituents by asking them to live and worship Jewishly.

Let’s first agree on what are our goals before we tell people what they should do. Jews will no longer blindly follow a code, a set of instructions or a set of laws. While guilt may have worked for earlier generations, it clearly won’t work today for modern North American Jews. Instead, today’s Jews must be shown in an affirmative manner what the benefits, the positive outcomes and indeed what the payoffs will be by living a committed and observant Jewish life. Let’s not assume that people automatically understand what these benefits are without ever being taught about them. Take the time to start at the beginning again and not put the cart before the horse. In short, let’s begin the conversation.