Guidelines
- Just as you find time to prepare the physical aspects of Shabbat, i.e., food, it is important to find time to prepare the religious/spiritual/intellectual dimensions of Shabbat, including finding way to engage your teens in a meaningful conversation around פרשת השבוע.
- In doing so, I suggest that you look over the questions and see if any of them are useful in helping spur conversation with your teens. If, on a given week, you don’t find any questions that resonate with your teens, try to identity other themes in the פרשה that may be of interest and of relevance to them.
- If you find the questions useful, choose 1 – maximum 2- for discussion at each meal.
- Your preparation should include time not just to identify appropriate themes and questions but to study the related texts so that you can speak intelligently about the פרשה.
- It is recommended to go around the table and ask each of your children to address the question that you posed and, afterwards, to share your own thoughts.
- It is not always clear when, and how, to make the shift from the general conversation to a discussion of the פרשה, but usually once everyone has expressed their opinion for a few minutes, a good transition is: “Now, let’s see what the parasha has to say about this.”
- Depending on the inclinations and abilities of your teens, you can either summarize the relevant text, or read it and explain it briefly
- At this point it is suggested to compare the answers that emerged from the discussion to those that emerge from the study of the text.
- In doing so, the answers your teens like better may not correspond to the answers that emerge from the text, and, in my view, there is nothing wrong with that. Getting our teens to think and discuss issues that are relevant to their lives, and to learn the Torah’s perspectives on these issues, has enormous value to their growth and development as thinking and caring Jews, even if they don’t agree with everything the Torah says.
- If the discussion is going so well that you don’t have time to relate the subject matter to the parasha at all, don’t be alarmed. The very fact that the Shabbat table serves as a forum for discussion and dialogue around subjects of interest and of relevance to the lives of your teenage children will hopefully have positive long-term benefits.
- Asking questions is not the only way to engage in our teens in a meaningful conversation around the פרשה. Other options include games, quizzes, interactive activities, stories, etc.
- A good and lively discussion should last around 5-10 minutes not much more. It is better to make it short and sweet so that your teens will walk away from the Shabbat table with a positive feeling than to schlep it out and risk losing their interest.