At Thanksgiving dinner, someone I hadn’t seen for several years asked me what I was doing for a living and I replied, “I make Jews.” The person was a little startled by response, so I explained that I was a Jewish educator and a rabbi. That I work in a synagogue and supervise teachers of Hebrew and Jewish studies. That I marry people who want to have Jewish households and I bury people who lived their lives as Jews. I train students for the most important of Jewish rituals, their bar or bat mitzvah and I teach them lifelong rituals like lighting Shabbat and Hanukah candles and putting on a tallit.
Or I could have said:
I make Jews whose parents want them to be Jews.
I make Jews who have no idea how to be Jews.
I make Jews who wonder.
I make Jews who question.
I make Jews who think.
I make Jews who pray.
I make Jews who sing.
I make Jews who dance.
I make Jews who struggle.
I make Jews who make other Jews. I make Jews who are resilient. I make Jews who make Jewish families.
I make Jews who learn how to do Jewish rituals
I make Jews who make Jewish rituals. I make Jews read Hebrew.
I make Jews who kvetch.
I make Jews who laugh. I make Jews who will go out into the world and do great things. I make Jews who will just be Jews.
So perhaps it is just easier to say, “I make Jews.”
Adventures in Tefillah 