For years, my family went to a Shabbat Mincha/Maariv minyan in the backyard of the beit knesset on our corner. (I use the Hebrew terms “beit knesset” and “tefillah” rather than the Yiddish terms “shul” and “daven” to include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic institutions.) The minyan, a holdover from Covid, was attended by about 25 adults and five or six teens. While not a “teen minyan,” it was all about the teens, for the simple reason that the adult gabbai made it his mission to ensure every teenage boy present (it was usually only boys) saw himself as an indispensable part of the minyan. Practically, this meant the teens were in charge of setting up the chairs, bringing the Siddurim and the Torah outside, and leading the davening. My son knew that the first Shabbat after he became a bar mitzvah he would be expected to lead Mincha. After receiving positive feedback, he’s been comfortable leading Shabbat Mincha ever since.
I share this story because it is an example of something that happens all the time in schools. A student is given an opportunity, learns a specific skill, and then receives recognition upon execution. (This focus on opportunities, skills and recognition is a social development strategy articulated by Communities that Care, a program at the University of Washington we at SAR have been modeling.) What struck me about this example was an adult who is not a teacher by profession decided to make educating teens a focal point of the adult minyan, which means that my son is now comfortable with this new skill in the context of a regular minyan, not one that segregates teens and adults.
I am writing as a parent of teens but also as a high school educator who is increasingly concerned about the opportunities we miss when we separate adults and teens during Shabbat tefillah. We miss the opportunity for parents and children to create family bonds around tefillah. We miss the opportunity for role modeling from adults who are not Jewish educators but are deeply invested in tefillah. And we miss the opportunity for teens to feel comfortable and invested in a multigenerational tefillah community.
My family regularly attends two different batei knesset, and each, in its own way, deliberately welcomes teens in the main minyan. Teens serve as gabbaim, are greeted by name by the rabbis, and regularly take part in leading tefillah. It is not a coincidence that neither of these batei knesset has a teen minyan—the goal is to make the regular minyan a comfortable place for everyone. Teen minyanim exist to provide a more engaging tefillah environment for teens, one which offers teens leadership experience. In addition, our communities lean on teens to lead youth groups, which fills a communal need and provides teens with leadership experience and income, but comes at the expense of teens being mitpallel with their parents, and often, of teens attending beit knesset at all. Even when teens attend hashkama minyan prior to groupleading, they are often not doing so with a parent. Instead of segregating teens and adults, the main minyan can be a place where teens feel not only welcome but needed, a place where they can comfortably try out new roles and receive feedback.
What might this look like? Give kids jobs. A teenage girl walking into the beit knesset and hearing another teen reading the misheberach for tzahal will understand the space as her space. A teenage boy walking into the beit knesset and seeing another teen on the bima will understand the space as his space. Teenage girls and boys can both give divrei Torah to the community. In addition to ritual roles, teens can play a role in making sure the space is set up for tefillah, putting out the Machzorim or schlepping whatever needs to be schlepped. While these roles are not glamorous, sweat equity can increase investment and has the added benefit of helping our kids understand that those Machzorim don’t just magically appear on the shelves.
In our schools, the opinions of teens are given credence in formal ways, through leadership positions in student government and a myriad of clubs. As an important constituency of a beit knesset, and one that is mature enough to have an opinion, a teen might hold a position on the board—even if a non-voting one. In creating roles for teens, it is important to normalize everyone participating in some way, not the same highly motivated teens who inhabit all the roles. The idea is not just to get the jobs done but to encourage as many teenagers as possible to feel invested in the beit knesset.
If teens successfully take on new roles in school, it is because they understand school as a place where they are supposed to be learning, where it is OK to make mistakes, and where the adults are cheering them on. Our batei knesset can be educational institutions as well, where teens can think of themselves as still learning rather than performing. This does not mean lowering the standards for tefillah or kriyat haTorah or divrei Torah. On the contrary, we want to set a high bar rather than a low one. This might mean breaking up roles into smaller chunks so that teens can be successful or being patient when something takes longer. Above all, it means that all adults, not just the rabbis and youth directors, see their role as encouraging and celebrating teen participation.
If teens are in the main minyan, who is going to run groups? I’d posit that groups should serve the limited purpose of allowing parents of very small children to be in minyan. By the time children are in first grade and have received a siddur, they can be expected to sit in shul for a limited amount of time, with groups running for a shorter period. As children get older, the time children are in groups can decrease, and the time children are in minyan with their parents can increase. This reduces the need for teen group leaders, but, more importantly, it ensures that children grow up with familiarity and comfort with regular minyan as they approach the teenage years.
Let’s work towards making our batei knesset places where teens feel valued and needed, and where all adults are invested in their learning. Teens are mitpallel with teens five days a week in school. On Shabbat, let’s all be mitpallel together.
Rabbanit Lisa Schlaff is the Director of Judaic Studies at SAR High School. She received an MA in curriculum development from Teachers College, Columbia University, completed coursework and exams towards a PhD in rabbinic literature at NYU, and is a graduate of Yeshivat Maharat. Rabbanit Schlaff has taught Gemara and Tanakh at the Drisha Institute and is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program.
About Machon Siach:
Machon Siach was established in 2015 with a legacy gift from Marcel Lindenbaum z”l, honoring the memory of his wife, Belda Kaufman Lindenbaum z”l”.
