I was thinking about Holly’s deleted post (although the one I link to here is good, too) about kids and morality and religion. Morality is one of the reasons I want Noah to go to religious school at the temple. Not because I think that religious school is the place to be introduced to morals (umm, that place would be real life, folks) or even that religious leaders are the people to teach kids about morality (that would be parents, folks) but because I want him to have a formal grounding in a religious tradition that talks about morals without damning you to hell if you don’t follow the rules.

I want Noah to be able to go to a source — the Torah and more importantly the Talmud — to wrestle with big questions. I don’t care if finds his answers there or if he ends up in another religious tradition or if he never finds the answers at all. I want him to get used to searching. I want him to get accustomed to thinking critically about the world. My bias is that I like the intellectual demands of Judaism. I like that there are books to turn to and that you’re not just told to pray for answers. No, in Judaism you go out there and find your answers. That’s a value that I want Noah to have.

When I first took a class in Talmud — that huge, many layered document — I felt so excited and hopeful. I knew that I would feel at home in Judaism because it expects — in fact, it demands! — that we will struggle to find truth. As my rabbi pointed out, the stereotype of the Jewish lawyer has grounding in fact because if you’re “doing” Jewish, you’re studying law — halacha — and training your mind for logical, intensive study. I’m glad that this will be Noah’s tradition, too; the paradox of a spirituality grounded in logic.

But ultimately, like most parents, I want my child to practice the Golden Rule that every major religion shares. As the Rabbi Hillel famously said when challenged to recite the Torah while standing on one foot, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.” (Please note how this differs from the Christian Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you think about it, that’s much harder to follow but it’s really the same message.)

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