Jewish Life Summer Vacation
June 25, 2008
Community
(1 comments)
By Marge Eiseman
Jewish life is going on summer vacation. The last few bar and bat mitzvah celebrations will happen this week, and then the synagogue calendars (and buildings) will be empty except for regular Shabbat worship. And even then, with our service held outdoors on Friday night, we just walk through the building to get to the back lawn!
Is this a leftover from an agricultural society? How many of our regular congregants really take off for the summer? I understand that many of the children might go to summer camp, but I firmly believe there is still a vibrant community left "in town."
In places like Duluth's Temple Israel, the snow-birds come back in April, and for that congregation, the busiest time of year is the summer - all the simchas are scheduled for the warm months. But it still doesn't make sense to me here in Milwaukee.
If our schedules were less cluttered by meetings and school-related events, Jewish life and learning could fill in the gaps. Wouldn't it be interesting to get people to shift from the school year schedule to a year-round one? I already started thinking about what I'd be willing to commit to (if it were offered!): a multi-week evening Hebrew Ulpan; a weekly chevrutah (partner) study session; summer reading/discussion of Jewish books.
This isn't summer school; it's not punishment for failing during the school year. What I'm proposing is taking advantage of the slower pace of summer life, and filling it with rewarding acts of life-long Jewish learning. What do you think? Would you join me?
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I think it is a great idea, but there is a but! I can see some difficulties for kids and adults, at least from my perspective. My kids are out of the house, but I know when they were home, the less they had to do educationally the better; I do send them interesting Jewish articles of education type, which they promptly erase and rarely read. Oh well.
We hardly travel at all anyway (never did) ...we have pets! But at this point at least this year, and the summers being so short as they are here in Rochester, I want to do as little as possible this summer and my hubby wants to spend all his free time on the golf course before it snows. Yes I might consider joining an Ulpan or a chevurah and it would be fun in the summer, but I'd rather do so (if I can squeeze it in) after summer when I am stuck inside most of the time, even though you are right that the pace is faster between fall and spring. What I find is that the busier I am in the summer, the faster it passes me buy, so I would like to step back a bit and do nothing except maybe take care of unfinished chores in the house and work on my music for my lessons before I have to start reviewing the HH music later in the summer. My two cents.