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1 Page 12 The Southern Israelite By DR. JOSEPH RAUCH Louisville, Ky. “Reform Judaism lias for a long time treated Religious Education exactly like Reform Temples treated the Sunday School,” I)r. Joseph Rauch said in a recent address on “The Religious School of the Rabbi" before the group attending the Graduate Rabbinical School at the Hebrew 0 Union College in Cincinnati. “The founders of the Reform Movement,” said Dr. Rauch, “were concerned with rit ual, theology and emancipation. Their philosophy and endeavors centered about the position of the adult Jew. Children played a very minor role in their thinking and striving. “Reform congregations followed suit and showed great concern in the kind of Tem ples they built, the kind of rabbi they en gaged, the kind of choir they selected, but not in the kind of religious education that would be imparted. “This indifference to and neglect of the Sunday Schools went on for nearly a cen tury. The gorgeous and expensive temples that Reform Congregations built from the period 1850 to 1000 gave scant attention to the school facilities. The basement was good enough. “Teachers in the sense of trained peda gogues were non-existent in most commu nities. Anyone who was willing to teach or could be induced to teach was accepted. 'The rabbi himself was not trained ade quately in those days for the kind of reli gious education the Sunday School needed. “Then, too, there was no literature to convey religious school information. The books, pamphlets, leaflets and cards which we then put into the hands of our children neither expressed what we wanted to teach httnor what the children needed. There were ■ no two religious schools alike throughout the country. The uniformity of Reform Temples in religious education was to be found in the anarchy of method. "We should bear in mind that this whole business of Sunday School is a new institu tion in our midst. The Cheder and Yeshi- vah have existed for a long time, but their aim was to give the student a knowledge of Hebrew and an acquaintance with the vast mass of Jewish literature. Neither intend ed to teach Jewish people, young or old. how to be Jewish and how to live a Jewish life. These were taken for granted. “This was our educational heritage when the Sunday School came into existence. Obviously it did not fit into the new Jewish religious life which Reform from within Dr. Joseph Lunch l and occidental life from without were creating for our congregations. “Rut we knew no other system, so we followed our traditions in practically ignor ing the teaching of Judaism as a religion. We took a knowledge of it for granted, though we were no longer warranted in so doing. We began our instruction with the creation story and added to it instruction in Hebr ew. It was history plus Hebrew that constituted the course of instruction in the early Reform Sunday Schools just as it was history in and through Hebrew that made up the curriculum of the Cheder.” Dt*. Rauch pointed out in his discussion that a half century passed before the rabbis realized how inadequate was the system of Jewish education for their needs. It took them a long time to discover that what could once have been safely taken for granted now had to be taught, and that the children of today live in an environment that is foreign to Judaism. Our Jewish religious education problem is unique,” said Dr. Rauch. “It has not only to impart information as has any other system of education but has also to create an atmosphere and religious sympathy formerly supplied by the Jewish home and the Jewish environment. "Orthodox, Conservative and Reform groups are today studying the whole field of religious education with great earnest ness. Retter text books are being pro duced. The importance of Jewish : education is being recognized and the larger congregations are en educational directors to supervise tin- work of the religious schools. The smaller com munities cannot of course, afford this, but even there, the Sunday School is n<» longer the Cinderella of the congregational house hold. “Our weakness lies in our inability to give our children that Jewish background which, in a former age, the home supplied. For we must admit that the Jewish homes are highly impoverished in Jewishness. Their tone, the books and periodicals which come to them, the conversations, the edu cational ideals voiced in them are not of a kind that create and stimulate interest in things Jewish. The efforts of the rabbis to improve this have so far produced no encouraging results. What are we to do? “I should say that our first duty, as rab bis, is to enlighten our congregations on the problems of Jewish education. We can also urge our temple societies, especially our Sisterhoods, to aid us in cultivating a Jew ish attitude in our congregations. At our teachers’ meetings we can discuss these problems and devise some means of coping with them. “The rabbi must stress more than ever before the religious motif in all the fact' that are taught in the religious schools The assembly period should be largely de voted to voice worship, prayer, hope, faith. It may be put to such use as will bring out some of the religious influences that we ex pect from the home and the temple. “We have been allotted too short a period for religious school work. Iheie i> movement throughout the country to m crease it. I believe that before very Dug we shall have at least an additional lion a week in many congregations for u-hgiou work. “The encouraging part of the whole dit ficult and vexing problem is that we undtr stand it much better today than v <. did generation ago. And not only do " l nndt stand it better but we are grappling it. We are not afraid to speak short-comings or even our failuo all sides earnest efforts are being create ways and means to enabh day' School to become a religion- ual bulwark to Jewish life. W e in due time it will become a ' ' religious strength for our child'