If you join us tonight, you’ll witness young people at two stages along their Jewish journey. Our Wise School sixth graders will be attending their last Friday Shabbat before their graduation. In addition to their graduation, the children are also gazing forward to their upcoming B’nai Mitzvah. Farther along in their own journey, our high school seniors will also be joining us for their confirmation service. They’ll reflect on their path to young adulthood within the Wise community as they prepare for college life and the independence it offers.
Celebrating elementary school graduation with our sixth-grade families is filled with joy and tears, as parents watch their children end one stage and begin another. This is a moment filled with the awareness that the little children—once fully reliant upon their parents for every life step and bound to them with thick rope—are now moving towards the fine gossamer threads with which our kids are held in adulthood. Though true adulthood is far off, each step along the path removes the parents just a bit from the children’s sphere of influence. Parents realize that our capacity to influence our kids and affect their choices diminishes by the year.
It is this realization that makes the confirmation service particularly meaningful. These are truly young adults, preparing to take meaningful steps into ever greater independence. As they stand before the community and read their words of Jewish commitment and discovered meaning, we the listeners have the opportunity to gain perspective into the next generation. We hear their words and recognize that the world will be placed into their hands. Our minds are filled with questions as we wonder if the preparations we’ve offered them have been adequate. These are the concerns every generation has for the next: Have we done our job? Will they do theirs?
Moments of transition such as these are profoundly meaningful. The richness of our Jewish tradition is that such times of change are marked by rituals that exist not merely for the sake of the ritual, but for the meaning given to the one who experiences that transition. As Reform Jews, we recognize that we can build on the rituals, drawing from tradition while integrating new practices with the old. Neither confirmation nor graduation were ever envisioned by our ancestors, but incorporating both into our own Jewish experience adds deeper purpose and meaning to the lives of all who witness these sacred moments.
Shabbat Shalom,
—Rabbi Ron Stern