Confirmation Remarks

Rabbi Melanie Aron

May 27, 2001

This year we began most of our class sessions with a little exercise- called "What's Your Jewish IQ?" Prepared by the American Jewish Committee for college students, it first appeared in the New York Jewish Week and became so popular that it was expanded into four editions. Looking over the questions at the beginning of class each week as we waited for a quorum, we became acquainted with Jewish contributions to the world throughout history and in contemporary times. The great number of Jews who are prominent in a variety of fields, music and medicine, public life, entertainment, and even more recently sports, is something that is often commented upon. It is certainly disproportionate to the percentage of Jews in the general population. Among the various explanations for this discrepancy, the one I like best is the explanation that focuses on Jews being of two cultures. Being part of an alternative culture gives us an edge, something a little different in our way of looking at life. Some believe that it is this extra perspective, along with Jewish culture's stress on study and argumentation, that has been a source of creativity and drive.

This year in Confirmation we have tried to expose the class to Jewish culture, going beyond the holiday practices and Bible stories that were so central to religious school in the younger grades. Participants in the full year's activities were exposed to a variety of ways of expressing one's Judaism. They heard from elderly Holocaust survivors and a young Iraqi Jewish activist, an Orthodox rabbi stand up comic wannabee, and a Jewish physician who struggles with Jewish ethical teachings in the face of the pain and suffering of his terminal patients. We saw a contemporary presentation on Jewish art, and an avant-garde Israeli play, dispelling the stereotype that all Jewish theatre is Fiddler on the Roof. Some students fed the hungry, others attended the regional Union Of American Hebrew Congregation's biennial, or witnessed fourteen of our adult members in the culmination of a year's voluntary intensive preparation for Adult Bar and Bat Mitzvah. In our class discussion we stressed that sometimes Judaism adds a perspective that is different than that of our surrounding American culture. For example, in our ethics unit we contrasted the Jewish teaching: "Thou shalt not stand idly by" with American law. By American law it is sufficient not to have done wrong, but we learned that Judaism holds us to a higher standard, requiring positive action to prevent hurt.

As these Confirmands go on to finish high school and begin their independent Jewish lives as college students, I hope that the sense of there being a Jewish perspective will remain with them. I hope that they will be motivated to figure out what Judaism has to offer them, and to continue to seek a Jewish way of looking at the world. I have confidence that this will enrich their lives and propel them into service to the communities in which they will be living, thus they will fulfill their potential as individuals able to contribute to the Tikkun of our world.

Our tradition calls Shavuot, zman matan torateinu, "the time of the giving of the Torah." Others have asked, why isn't the holiday known as zman kabbalat torateinu, "the time of the acceptance of the Torah"? The reason is that the act of accepting the Torah is a personal act that takes place in the lifetime of an individual. It cannot be celebrated as a communal holiday.

I recognize tonight that each of you is in a different place regarding Kabbalat Torah, the acceptance of the Torah. In just a moment you will be receiving a certificate of Confirmation that requires your signature. For some of you it will be easy to sign the certificate right away, others may be more comfortable signing it in a more expanded time frame, a year from now, 5 years, even 10 years from now. This certificate and this gift is our way of acknowledging your participation in the Confirmation and opening yourself to its possibilities.