Raising Our Children

IN THE DAY SCHOOL AND SYNAGOGUE COMMUNITIES

By Shoshanna Goldberg

When we first embarked on the journey of Jewish Day School, we weren’t considering our future engagement in Temple Israel, only our daughter’s education. We fell in love with The Rashi School, and their mission to provide a values-based education, steeped in the Reform Jewish ideals of spirit, respect, community, justice, and learning. Our daughter Rachel is now in first grade, and is learning to be a strong reader, writer, and critical thinker, as well as a kind, compassionate and thoughtful person. She is also learning that as a member of the Boston Jewish community, she has the opportunity to be a thought-leader and role model through her actions and words. Our son Zachary is a student at The FJECC preschool, where like his sister before him, he is gaining his sense of self, while learning to be part of a larger community.

Being members of both a day school and synagogue community affords us with many opportunities to strengthen our Jewish identity. Unlike some of our friends who struggle to incorporate Jewish traditions into their hectic daily lives, we sometimes find ourselves struggling to remind our children of the secular world that exists outside of our minoritymajority bubble. We enroll our children in town sports and other extracurricular activities that expose them to other cultures, religions, and points of view. Judaism plays a starring role in Rachel’s education, so that she’s often unable to distinguish secular and Judaic concepts. Her views might take on a different shape if her only exposure to her Jewish heritage was through Sunday school.

Often by sundown on Friday evening, members of our family have participated in multiple Qabbalat Shabbat services, and eaten more than our fill of challah. So much so, that we sometimes experience “Shabbat fatigue”, and it’s only the nudging from our preschooler that compels us to light candles in our home. Without these reminders it would be too easy for us to forgo these rituals, and lose sight of what compelled us to pursue a Jewish education in the first place.

We are fortunate to have made so many friends through Temple Israel, the preschool, and are nurturing new friendships at Rashi. Raising our children in the day school and synagogue community is a deep commitment in many ways; but these friendships, and the love of learning we see in our children is worthwhile.