Teaching Respect to the Faithful
The New York Times’ Bruce Feiler reports about some Jewish communities’ efforts to instill in their teenage members greater respect for their rites of passage rituals. “Jewish communities around the country, horrified by the appalling lack of manners their children display at bar and bat mitzvahs, are increasingly turning to more-formalized training efforts.” Rabbi Dovid Kupchik, a principal at a Jewish day school in Lawrence, New York, says, “[l]ike many things in life, if you actually talk to the students about how to behave instead of just assuming they’re going to act a certain way, it’s fresh in their heads.”