We began with the curriculum from our prior congregation. It focused on comparative Judaism and comparative religion. I started with the continuum of Judaism. I took kids to Shabbat services at reform, conservative, reconstructing, and orthodox synagogues –and asked them to come to one of our Friday night services. Of course, high school students (and their parents) have many other things happening on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. And many students had been going to their friends’ mitzvahs at the very same congregations we were visiting. We had some very interesting conversations.
I told students to dress nicely for these visits as they would for a B Mitzvah. When we visited a conservative synagogue for a Friday night service, one of my students arrived in a very short skirt and a bare midriff. I took off my coat as I saw her come into the sanctuary and said to her, “Put this on, you must be freezing!” I learned to be much more clear about my dress expectations.
We also studied world religions and visited a Catholic Church and a nearby mosque. Through these seven field trips, the connections between all the religions were increasingly clear to the kids and me – and we were exhausted. It was too many field trips!
In the third year, I decided to do a little of each: we studied some comparative Judaism and some comparative religion. I organized the years around the structures of the religions – and scheduled all field trips on Sunday mornings! One year, we went to an Orthodox Jewish shul, the Catholic church nearby, an Evangelical megachurch, the local mosque, and a Hindu mandir. The other year, we went to the Unitarian church, a United Church of Christ church, the Buddhist temple, the Bahai House of Worship, and a “classical reform” Jewish congregation that still had Sunday morning services. Five field trips a year was much more reasonable.
It has been a fantastic twenty-one years. I have learned with outstanding students. I have worked with fantastic colleagues and parents. I have talked with remarkable clergy. It has been joyous!
In the beginning, my own children came to Sunday school with me. They would help set up my classroom and then run off to their own. We rejoined each other for the last half-hour, when the entire school gathered to sing. My parents would come to these music sessions, as would the parents (and often grandparents) of many of the students. It was a gathering of the congregation and a highlight of my week.
I knew almost all of the families well. Once, as class came to an end, I joked with a student, telling him, “I’m going to tell your parents about this.” He looked at me and replied, “I’m going to tell your parents!” What a beautiful thing that he could!
Every time we would study a religion or visit a different house of worship, I would learn with the kids. The first time we drove up to the huge megachurch, one of my students leaned over and said, “Oh, Mr. Hirsch, you’ve made a mistake. This is a mall!” Nope. It was a church – and it was bigger than a mall.
I loved the moment that we drove through the gate at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Bartlet. I showed the kids photos. We had read about Hinduism. But nothing could adequately prepare them for the first sight of that magnificent structure. The collective gasp as we arrived more than made up for the long journey to get there.
There have been challenging and memorable moments, too: the student who asked our host at the megachurch, “So, are we all going to hell?” The time a guide compared homosexuality to heroin addiction and my students were so flabbergasted that they literally began to move toward her. The pastor who was so approachable that one of my students whispered to me, “These are the coolest Christians I have ever met.” The charming and affable host at the mosque who just didn’t sit down, so we had our half-hour discussion standing (and swaying) on our feet. The host who thought, since he had grown up Jewish, that he was knowledgeable about our religion and made assumptions that were increasingly uncomfortable. The wonderful shofar-making activity at the orthodox shul – and the stuffed goat, and bumping into friends and neighbors at the Catholic church.
One big issue we discussed a great deal is god. It is a very popular and important topic. We explore different ideas about god and different ways to conceptualize theism. I even show the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Who Watches The Watchers” to help us articulate questions and answers about the concept of an anthropomorphic god.
We didn’t study religion purely academically. The point was to think critically about our own beliefs. We learned about how others answered important religious questions so that we could explore them ourselves. We wrestled with moral dilemmas, talked about what it meant to proselytize, and discussed the line between belief and behavior. The test of belief is how it shows up in our daily lives. How do we walk our talk? How do our beliefs shape our identities and decisions?
At the conclusion of the two-year class, students get a chance to talk about what they believe. At our confirmation service, they focus on one part of their journey they want to share. Some students talk about god. Some talk about different views of Judaism. Other students focus on some of the questions we asked on our field trips, ethical issues, or their own stories. One young woman started out by telling us that, to her, her mother was god. A young man described his ethical code simply by saying he did his best to “not be an asshole.” Another explored the difference between confirming and conforming. Students sometimes challenged or questioned things they had learned. They wrestled with the concept of what makes something a religion. They described how they navigated conversations about religion with their friends. Year after year, their reflections made me think about my own philosophy and how I could better guide the next group of students.
It has been a privilege to learn at Kol Hadash’s Sunday School. It has been an honor to study with these students, teachers, and parents. I often said that I am the lucky teacher at the end of the line. I benefited from all the magnificent learning that happened in the classes before Confirmation. From our youngest students learning songs and holidays to studying lifecycle events, heroes, Israel, and wrestling with the Holocaust, students are well prepared for Confirmation Class. I can’t take credit for their brilliance. They have been primed by their families and their earlier classes. I am very proud of them when they stand before the congregation and share their wisdom.
I am grateful to students with whom I have learned – and their families. Their commitment to Jewish learning is inspiring. I am grateful for the incredible teachers and education directors with whom I have worked – and our outstanding rabbi. For the last three years, I have co-taught Confirmation Class with a teacher who is one of the most able, empathetic, and perceptive educators I have ever met. She will take over Confirmation Class next year. It will be a big upgrade.
I am only retiring from teaching. I am still very involved in our congregation. I chair our fundraising committee, sing in the choir, and do a variety of other tasks. And if someone needs some help on Sunday morning, I am happy to assist. I live next door, after all.
When I was a young child, my parents never expected to find a congregation at which they would feel comfortable. When they found Humanistic Judaism, it matched their philosophy and the way they lived their lives. There are so many families like us out there. It gives me such nachas that our congregation and school continues to be a warm and welcoming place for anyone who wants to confirm that Judaism can be celebrated culturally, secularly, non-theistically, and joyfully!
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