Being a Bahá’í in a Jewish Community: Reflections on being an Interfaith Family

I recently was asked by the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) to write a blog piece about what it's like to be a Bahá'í in a Jewish community in honor of their December focus on inclusion and welcoming interfaith families. It provided a great opportunity to take a moment to reflect on this question and on our family's interfaith spiritual journey. This piece feels like it belongs on my own newly started blog, so I include it here for those of you who might be interested. I had a great experience working with the URJ and recommend their site to anyone interested in connecting with reform Judaism.

When my husband and I decided to get married, we knew that one of our main challenges would be raising children in a Jewish and Bahá’í home with Jewish and Christian grandparents. I had become a Bahá’í in 1993 after years of searching for a faith that had a more diverse and spiritual population than I found in most of the Christian churches in which I had grown up. My husband and I talked about our wishes for the children we hoped to have and both agreed that we wanted a home that welcomed questions and encouraged exploration of one’s beliefs and values, and we hoped that our children would be able to be comfortable and respectful of both religions. 

Once we had our first child, I realized how hard this might be when we first met with Rabbi Eric Gurvis at Temple Shalom in Newton, where we had decided to join because of their welcoming attitude to interfaith families and their focus on Jewish education and social service work. We discussed our daughter’s naming ceremony, and I realized that I was committing to say that I would raise her as a Jewish girl, something that I wasn’t fully comfortable with at the time because I also wanted raise her as a Bahá’í girl. The Rabbi pointed out that one doesn’t learn Judaism by osmosis in this culture and that there are not many Bahá’ís who become Jews, but there are more Jews who become Bahá’ís. I took comfort in this, knowing that I did want our daughter to learn about being Jewish, and that she could certainly have a Bat Mitvah at age 13 and then decide to become a Bahá’í at age 15 (the age of maturity for Bahá’ís, when one is able to sign the Bahá’í declaration card if ready to do so, and thereby gain voting rights and the freedom to participate in the full range of Bahá’í activities) or later if she desired. We had a beautiful naming ceremony with my Presbyterian family and my husband’s Jewish family present with us. The Rabbi worked with us on the ceremony and allowed us to include a message to our daughter about the type of spiritual atmosphere and education we wanted to provide for her and a passage from the Bahá’í writings that expressed our hopes for her. I have always loved the Jewish prayers and writings, and see the core spiritual principles they share with Bahá’í writings, so once I saw the program and prayers, I not only felt comfortable with doing a naming ceremony, but blessed to have this opportunity, which is unique to Judaism.

We then decided to send our daughter to the Nursery School program at Temple Shalom, and I felt very happy with what she was learning and what I was learning as I read the wonderful educational packets sent home by the Director of the program, Johanna Perlin. We celebrated the Jewish holidays with Josh’s parents and the Christian ones with my parents, as I continued to attend the regular Bahá’í gatherings and holidays in our community and to serve on Newton’s Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assembly. We went on to have two more daughters, whom we also named in ceremonies led by Rabbi Gurvis and sent to Temple Shalom Nursery School.

As our oldest daughter became of age to attend Hebrew school, the questions of which religion we would follow came up again for us. Her first year, I decided to fully embrace spending our Sunday mornings taking her to Hebrew school while my husband and I took a Jewish parenting class called Ikkarim, which is now called “Parenting Through a Jewish Lens,” while our youngest girls went to the babysitting provided. I loved this class and enjoyed sharing my Bahá’í perspective on various topics that we explored, along with several other interfaith families and some completely Jewish families. The next year, we decided that it was time to take a turn experiencing the Bahá’í Sunday school that is run at the Boston Bahá’íCenter downtown. I took our younger two daughters there and taught a class each Sunday while my husband and our oldest daughter went to Hebrew school. I loved feeling more connected to the Bahá’í community and seeing my girls learn more about the Bahá’í Faith, but I also felt sad to not be together as a family on Sunday mornings.  I missed being a part of the Temple. So this year, after much discussion with my husband, we decided to go back to all going to the Temple on Sunday mornings for the children’s service and Hebrew school for our two oldest daughters, and I have started teaching Bahá’í classes in my home every Monday afternoon so that the girls are learning about both religions. They feel a little overexposed to religious school, but they usually come out of both sets of classes feeling happy. I’m not sure how long we can maintain this system, but for now it is working, and I am grateful.

I have two good friends who are Bahá’ís married to Jewish men, and we have enjoyed sharing our journeys with each other. One of them recently decided to join Temple Shalom so that her children could have more experience with both religions. It is wonderful to see our children at the Temple and at the Monday Bahá’í school she helps me run in Newton. I love having the girls learn prayers from both religions and comment on connections they see in the teachings and practices of both religions. The Bahá’í Faith tells us, "Love ye all religions and all races with a love that is true and sincere and show that love through deeds..."(‘Abdu’l-Bahá)  So for me, it is a joy to be part of a Temple with a warm and welcoming congregation, and to participate in the schools, services and activities. It is challenging to also be an active member of the Bahá’í community in Newton in terms of time, but I feel spiritually alive as I connect with other people across faiths and continue my path of lifelong learning and discovery.

Getting Started...the history of Peacemakers classes

November 10th, 2011

My 1st Peacemakers Group in Portugal 2008

So, I’ve been putting off writing my first blog entry out of uncertainty about what to say and a lack of time and energy for reflective writing, but I decided to make a first stab at it tonight, after a week of intense activity. In August, I set a goal for myself to start spending weekly time making job contacts, doing professional reading, and organizing various sites of boxes around our house in October. So far, I’m not doing too well on that goal. I’ve unpacked 3 boxes and some of the dishes and tablecloths unearthed are still sitting on the floor in the basement and I’ve written one job contact email, to which I’ve received no response. So what have I been doing with my newfound time with Elena now at preschool 14-19 hours a week (depending on the school holidays they have, which are many, especially in the actively Jewish month of October at a Jewish Preschool)?

I’ve been making new friends through Zervas Elementary and Temple Shalom Preschool, and running the groups I’ve taken on for this year – weekly Bahá’í children’s classes, monthly Peacemakers classes, monthly women’s groups, monthly interfaith community service,  Respect for Human Differences meetings at Zervas, and various one-time volunteer opportunities such as hosting a Zervas “Destination Dinner,” helping with the “Consecration Quilt” at Temple Shalom, and doing classroom presentations for Bahá’í Holy Days. I am an enthusiast by nature, and this gets me into trouble because I have a lifelong habit of taking on too much at a time because it all sounds so fun and interesting and potentially worthwhile.

So, after a week of many volunteer activities, I’m feeling rather tired and yet energized by what I am doing, which makes it hard for me to figure out what to give up if anything, and how to make time for the goal work I set up for myself in the summer.

Illustrating quotes in our living room

What am I learning from each of these volunteer activities? Why am I so deeply invested in them? Let’s start with Peacemakers. I started this group 4 years ago, when we were living in Portugal, using the original Peacemakers Curriculum developed by my friend, Soma Stout. I had dreamed of teaching some sort of class that involved art, music, literature, and drama around social justice issues for years, and this was the perfect combination of those things, and better yet, was already written and tested by someone else! I invited women I met who seemed like they might be interested in such a class for themselves and their children and we started meeting every two weeks at my house in Carcavelos. Warm and sunny Portugal has a fairly ideal climate for such a class because the most days the kids could come over after school, have a snack and literally run around our house for 30 minutes before settling into our IKEA rainbow chairs outside in our garden (or yard in American terms), beneath the shade of a rustling fig tree and flapping laundry on the line. Every now and then it rained and for a few months it got cold, so we huddled in our living room on those afternoons, warmed by the space heater and each other as we shared readings, played games, and did role plays together based on the topic of the week. We were a group of 6 families who regularly attended for the two years we lived in Portugal, and I look back with great fondness and love for all of the people who participated in these first classes.

Peacemakers in Portugal

We had a great time together and learned many things along the way. After we left, the group continued on their own for a year before deciding that it was too much to do on their own, but I was warmed to recently get an email from one of the moms from that class, telling me that her daughter often tells her about ways she is trying to be a “peacemaker” among her friends, and that she was grateful for the introduction of such a concept into her daughters’ lives.

Painting peace rocks

When we returned to the United States in 2009, I decided to start another Peacemakers group here in Newton, and again, invited families I knew who seemed like they might enjoy such a class. Our first year, we had 5 families participate, and we took turns hosting the classes at each of our houses, which made it easier for me to teach the class and balance my life’s responsibilities. Last year, we and two others in the group had moved and the group disintegrated, so I formed a new group that met at the Waban Library Center, which my energetic mother-in-law had helped re-open with a staff of committed volunteers. In the fall, we had 6 families participating on a weekly basis, and then we switched it to a monthly class in the spring, with 3-4 families continuing on. This year, those families are still meeting together on a monthly basis at the library. I want to expand the class, but am also really enjoying the level of intimacy and comfort that has evolved between the children and the adults, so I haven’t been great at advertising. I do keep inviting people on a personal basis, but people are busy and Friday afternoons are tough, so only our dedicated threesome has continued to meet this fall. I did a presentation in my middle daughter’s class, though, today, and many of the children were interested in becoming Peacemakers, so we’ll see how it grows…

Last Friday, we studied the virtue of Assertiveness through some readings, think-pair-share work on qualities we like in ourselves, and many role plays. The children love doing the role plays because they get to play out being the mean kid and/or to explore other ways of dealing with a difficult situation, and they learn how it feels to be on both sides. My children like these role plays so much that we use them at home on a regular basis when one of them comes home with a challenging friend situation. All one has to do is describe a scene from the day when my 3 year old leaps up in her chair saying, “Ok, which part do you want me to play?” Both my 6 and my 9 year old have reported using some of the techniques and responses they’ve come up with in our role plays, and feeling stronger and more assertive than they would have without them.

I look forward to seeing how our Peacemakers class evolves this year and to figuring out my next steps with the groups I’ve created and helped create. I feel that I am “living the questions” by continuing to run these groups and create other workshops. I hope that writing this blog will give me a chance to do more of the reflection that I crave and spark my thinking about the transition I am hope to make to bring this work into a more professional context.