Jewish youth face sin the teenage way

If Jewish youth like Ethan Meirovitz, 13, of Golden Valley say “awesome” this week, they may really mean it.

The sweet wishes of the new year celebrated last week gave way to a self-reflective 10 Days of Awe. Those end with Yom Kippur starting sundown this Friday. It's a holy judgment deadline that has some teens thinking.

To aid youth and adults in making a spiritual inventory of misdeeds from the previous year—in a season similar to the Christian Lent—observant families itemize sins with bread crumbs or stones thrown into lakes and use a reminder list that corresponds to letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

If they were to create their own list, teens would include A—addiction to procrastination, B—broken promises, and C-cussing, they said.

“Everyone can think of at least one thing they’re not so proud of,” said Meirovitz.

“Society’s standards for kids have changed,” he added. “Youth used to say Ma’am or Sir, follow what adults say, and go to their own church or house of worship every Sabbath. But today kids are not wearing appropriate clothing, they’re cussing at their parents, and they’re not being respectful.”

Ethan doesn’t entirely exempt himself from that indictment, he said. “I’m trying to cut down on being disrespectful. I have to remember my parents put a roof over our heads. They work hard all day while we’re at school, not only to pay for my education so I can have a successful life, but to put food on the table and so I can have a bed to sleep on.

“They provide not only necessities, but luxuries like a cell phone and computer. They have those things at school so I could survive without them, but I’m grateful that they love me enough they supply me with these things.”

One of Ethan’s most enjoyable holiday experiences was observing Tashlich—tossing crackers representing his sins into Brownie Lake in St. Louis Park with his peers one year. After confessing sins, the observant affirm the words of Micah 7:19: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”

“I definitely feel there’s a huge weight taken off my shoulders after I do the Tashlich walk. The coolest thing was when we threw the crackers into the lake, a huge school of fish came and demolished the crackers. Better for them to have our sins than us,” he said smiling.

Even many non-observant Jews of all ages take this holiest soul-searching week seriously, repairing failed relationships and fasting during Yom Kippur, since it is the Day of Atonement and final reckoning before the Book of Life, which includes the names of the forgiven, is sealed. 

Rivkah Buchbinder, 13, of St. Louis Park cited ridiculing someone as a harmful habit she will be pondering this week. “Jeering” or teasing is what the adult list calls it, an aspect of bullying difficult to control at American schools. But orthodox Jewish children not only name it, beating their chests with each confession in synagogue services, but expel it with a symbolic hurl into the lake. “We use bread or crackers,” Buchbinder said.

“The big idea is to get rid of all your sins,” she said. “Tashlich gives you time to reflect on the bad things you’ve done over the year. Then you apologize to the person you made fun of. It’s a way to forgive yourself and, if you said something bad in the name of God, to ask God to forgive you too.”

Holiness is absolute in the Buchbinder family. They are members of the modern Orthodox Darchei Noam synagogue at 5224 Minnetonka Boulevard. They will leave their lights on through the night Friday, as they do each Sabbath, so they don’t have to “work” or lift a finger to adjust them, and so nothing interrupts their devotion.

D—disrespect to parents, E—endless drama, and F—Facebook gossip, the teens continued.

Ari Feldman, an 18-year-old high school senior, extended the “teen version” of an inventory of misdeeds to include: “I didn’t text my friend back when I told them I would. I gossiped about my friend’s break-up to his ex-girlfriend. And not being nice to freshmen. Changing that would be pretty difficult.”

Teens would do well to reflect on the “addicting drama” of Facebook, he said. “We’re also addicted to procrastination. Kids are more driven than they’d like to admit.” Always playing catch-up, they can never get to “real living,” he said.

Feldman has come to see these things through the often-wrenching holiday withdrawal from a “technologically reliant” life, he said. During his freshman year, when Yom Kippur fell on a weekday, he missed a total of eight days of school despite protests to his mother.

“It made for a very stressful first quarter and I was really angry about it because I felt it was going to set me back,” he said.

But as a senior and now youth leader at Beth Jacob in Mendota Heights, “I’m gaining appreciation for why it’s important. Teenagers are famous for imposing their will on everybody and everything around them,” he said. “But it’s good to have some commitments you can’t break. Now I’m not constantly putting myself first. It’s humbling.”

If you never have to sacrifice for anything or anyone, he said, you may think you’re the center of the universe. “Not being allowed to always do anything I want gives me appreciation for the times I do get to do what I want.”