Studies show that members of the American generation now coming of age, Gen-Z, are both more likely than the generations before them to be depressed and anxious and at the same time interested in spirituality more than other generations. I believe this paradoxical state of affairs creates an important obligation for religious communities which are warm, open and diverse such as ours. As an Orthodox synagogue, our primary mission is to religiously educate and engage those who are part of our community. Still, we can not ignore the world around us which is filled with Jews and Gentiles who are thirsting for depth and for resources with which to live a more meaningful life.
The prophet Amos (chapter 8) expressed this well:
“Behold the days are coming, says God, and I will send a famine to the earth, not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of God. People shall travel from sea to sea and wander from north to east to seek the word of God, but they shall not find it. On that day, the beautiful maidens and the young men shall faint with thirst.”
Amos says that people generally, and especially the young, will thirst for Torah, the word of God, and then they will seek it but not find it and this will result in them fainting. This indeed seems to be the case today. Young people are searching for meaning, for something spiritual, but they are not finding it, and this results in them fainting. Fainting from eating disorders, depression, and loneliness. This generation is one of the most connected to all corners of the world, as Amos states, yet it is one of the loneliest.
If they are seeking the word of God, and are looking for something deeper, why can’t they find it? The answer is that we are not answering the call to bring our knowledge and our deeply meaningful way of seeing the world to them. We are not making the word of God accessible to those outside the walls of our Shuls.
First, we must help the next generation to formulate the questions that people before them have been asking for milenia, to introduce them to the existentialists such as Sartre, whose popularity has waned but who was so good at painting the meaninglessness of life, staring nihilism in the face, and thereby laying bear the pressing questions of existence and being. We must study writers with them such as Victor Frankel who were not afraid to say there is no shame in the search for meaning, that it is fundamental to who we are. And once the questions have been asked, the yaw of meaninglessness felt and the search to make sense of life undertaken, we must read the Bible with them. This most popular book in history at its very beginning articulates the ultimate meaningfulness of the human being who is made in the image of the Divine, and then tells the story of a man and woman who search for Godliness in themselves even at the risk of exile from their comfortable bliss in Eden, “…For on the day you eat of the tree you will become like Gods, knowing good and evil.”
The Torah teaches many lessons which are vital to living a meaningful life. For instance, we do not need to be perfect to find God and to help the world, for there is no one in the Torah who is not flawed in some way. Sometimes goals are multi-generational and we can not expect immediate satisfaction, as it can take 40 years to get to the promised land. When those we care about sin and face destruction we must intervene for them as Moshe did, and be willing to sacrifice ourselves to help them. The value of family despite the difficulties and familial strife that sometimes occur. We must value words and take care in how we speak about others, as in the story of Miriam and Aaron speaking about Moses. We must be grateful with regard to God’s gifts, as the story of the spies teaches us, that there is such thing as good and evil, and so many more timeless teachings.
The Torah resonates through all generations even to us moderns because it is not only a book of laws and lessons it is the word of God and thus contains infinite depth and, as those who place themselves close to it can attest, a holy beating heart. Even if one is not aware of its origin, its power comes across, which is why it has persevered for so long and helped to form the basis of modern Western civilization. We have the Bible to thank for the founding values of our own United States, for the preservation through history of the Jewish people and for bringing us back to the promised land to be a blessing for all the “families of the earth.”
This High Holiday season, let us focus not only on our own sins or on the needs of our community but also on our obligation to speak to our society, our country, and our world. To help quench its thirst for the lessons that Judaism has to teach and thus may we be an even greater light unto the nations.