The Cantor’s Notes

You can “be” Jewish but it is also important to “know” Jewish. It makes you a better individual. The Importance of Knowing

Dear TCS Families,

Here at TCS we offer many opportunities to learn. Besides the very successful and educational community-wide lectures, last May we celebrated the conclusion of a three-year journey of the adult B’not Mitzvah class, and they worked hard into paying it forward by recruiting a new cohort of adult learners who will be starting in December. The sessions will be on Judaism’s fundamentals. “Scouting the Sources,” so to speak.

Our society has always viewed education as learning for material gain, for practical and utilitarian reasons. This is one way of looking at learning. We want to learn in order to achieve a certain degree of literacy to get credentials to improve our material world, either by getting better jobs, or promotions. The Jewish concept of learning also includes learning for the sake of learning itself. Our Jewish tradition highlights the importance of studying for no material gain. Edgar Bronfman Sr. once mentioned that the most important change in his life that made him the philanthropist he was, was learning. He felt it important to understand Jewish history and Jewish traditions, to go beyond just feeling Jewish. That thought resonated with me because I always like to tell my students that you can “be” Jewish but it is also important to “know” Jewish. It makes you a better individual. It provides you with the tools to better understand your identity, and to learn what are the tools that Judaism provide for the betterment of our daily lives.

Judaism is like an operational system that offers a multiplicity of applications based on your interests and needs. They’re all based on the same premises, and they all address different needs. What they provide are the tools for improving our spiritual life, our relationship with God, and with other human beings. Many of them are truly unknown to the vast majority of the Jewish community because we have been prioritizing rituals and traditions over learning and teaching. Sometimes even reducing our Jewish identity to rituals that will not even be relevant to the next generations. Our mission is often interpreted as we should teach our children for the sake of Jewish survival. That is the wrong reason for keeping Judaism alive. The reason is, in my humble opinion, that teaching Judaism will improve our children’s lives. The question is how do we improve our children’s lives by teaching them Judaism, when we don’t have the knowledge needed to do so?

The answer can be found in the daily blessing that precedes the Shemah Yisrael:

“Kind creator, have compassion for us, open our hearts so that we may understand and discern, hear and study and teach, observe and perform, and fulfill all the teachings of your Torah with love.”

The ultimate expression of love is teaching our children to translate into action the teachings of our tradition. So, the sequence is to understand, to incorporate the knowledge in order to study. Once we study, we teach either by performing or by transmitting and sharing our experiences and all that is done with love. Our love for the next generations is an extension of God’s love for us.

If you are interested in participating of any kind of learning experiences, please contact me at cantorc@tcs-westport.org. I’ll be happy to help you.

Sincerely, Cantor Luis Cattan

Cantor Luis Cattan