Source: The Seattle Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/faithvalues/2003675301_glickman21m.html
"Rabbi, we were wondering whether you could come speak to our eighth-graders about what it means to be Jewish. Easter is so prevalent at this time of year, and it would be great if they could get another perspective."
We rabbis get a lot of requests like this each spring, and most of us appreciate the invitations very much.
So I usually try to accept those invitations. But if I were to respond to them in a more brutally honest way, my response would be a bit more complicated. Oh sure, I could hold forth about Jewish holidays, life-cycle events, dietary laws, daily rituals and all other things Jewish for as long as these teachers would like. I could describe the difference between Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews, explain why pork isn't kosher and tell the students all about the little beanie-things many of us wear on our heads.
But all of that is just surface stuff — outward practices and particulars that reflect religious experiences and world views that, in reality, defy description.
Even to the most genuinely curious and open-minded of non-Jews, I could never, for example, fully describe what it is for a Jew to celebrate a Passover Seder. I could tell them what foods we eat, what prayers we say and maybe even something of the theology upon which the ritual is founded. But my explanation could never fully capture the resonance that the celebration has in the Jewish mind and heart. Nor could non-Jews ever completely comprehend how Judaism's kosher laws transform the very act of eating into a sacred deed.