When Jewish Children Go Off To College . . .

Matt Epstein of Tarzana, CA, says that his alma mater, Pomona College, one of the exclusive Claremont Colleges, was a great place for higher learning. But he’d rather his child not go there. “College is a meat grinder of spirituality,” and he’d like to see that his daughter, Kayla, “will graduate with the same attachment to Judaism as she has now.” Pomona has very little Jewish activity on campus, so Harvard, Yale, Columbia with their Jewish communities and Shabbat dinner opportunities are more attractive to the Epsteins. “Having a Chabad on campus is a definite plus,” says Matt.

While high school seniors are patrolling their mailboxes waiting for college acceptance letters this season, many parents are wondering how their children’s Jewish identity will survive four-years of freewheeling university life. Along with tuition worries, this is a real concern, and Rabbi Dov Greenberg, Chabad representative to Stanford University, understands. “University, A Place of Higher Learning?” was the title of his lecture Wednesday night. Sponsored by The Menachem Institute at Chabad of the Valley’s headquarters in Tarzana, CA, the lecture addressed the fears of many parents who are getting ready to send their children to college for the first time.

With Chabad centers catering to over 100 college and university campuses around the world, Chabad-Lubavitch campus representatives know well the perils facing Jewish coeds and are well positioned to guide parents and students around them around them. University life is a minefield of “values antithetical to Jewish life,” said Rabbi Greenberg, encouraging parents to think ahead and help their children make the right choices.

Chabad campus representatives from across North America polled informally by Lubavitch.com were of the opinion that, overall, science and math courses offered students “tremendous brilliance,” but most liberal arts courses were “a quagmire of ideas” and reigned by “narcissism and relativism.” Chabad of Brandeis University is now offering seminar-style courses such as “Judaism in a Semester,” “Torah and Science” and “Why and What” to engage students’ minds with challenging Jewish ideas. College is where all sorts of ideas float around, ranging from the sound to the absurd,” said Rabbi Peretz Chein, director of Chabad House at Brandeis. “Chabad’s ideology is well known, and students involved with Chabad House have a grounding and a stability from which they can go out and explore their own identities.

Debbie Steinberger, co-owner of Highlights Photography in Van Nuys, CA, has seen two sons through college, but is concerned for daughter Karen who’s hoping for a spot in University of Maryland or Boston University. Typical universities with mixed dorms and coed bathrooms are settings that “absolutely encourage the obvious,” said Steinberger. “I don’t want Karen to feel uncomfortable” or to date non-Jewish boys. Smart mom, says Nechamie Silberberg, co-director of Chabad House at University of Western, Ontario. She and her husband Rabbi Mordechai Silberberg spend many late nights counseling Jewish students torn between wanting to date non-Jewish classmates and obligations to Judaism. A former president of Chabad House’s student organization found it unreasonable to limit her love life to Jewish men simply to “satisfy her parents desire to feel comfortable at the synagogue when they sat together on Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur,” Silberberg said.

A Jewish day school and yeshiva high school student, Karen has been well fortified against the assimilative tendencies of her peers. Parents become frantic when their nice Jewish kids announce that are in love with a Chris or Christine, but working toward their child’s Jewish identity should realistically, begin much, much earlier than senior year of high school. “Jewish education before college is the key to Jewish continuity,” said Rabbi Greenberg. Starting a college fund at birth is a common practice, “but what about the child’s spiritual preparation for college?”

All parents, whether they’ve sent their college-bound kids to Jewish schools or not, would be wise to introduce their children to Jewish life on campus during freshman orientation week or while touring the college, according to Florida State University Chabad’s Director Rabbi Schneur Zalman Oirechman. “Let us know they are coming so we will look out for them.” Rabbi Oirechman recently received a call from a father panicking over his son’s choice of a non-Jewish girlfriend. The father decided to sponsor a Chabad of FSU Shabbat dinner in his son’s honor, creating an opportunity for his son to meet with Rabbi Oirechman and have a heart-to-heart conversation.

Most of the 2000 Jewish students at Stanford know little about their heritage. Many recall tossing spitballs during Hebrew school, chanting a bar mitzvah portion that they didn’t understand, and not much else. Far from lost causes, Rabbi Greenberg said these young adults quickly gain an appreciation for the value of Jewish practices like Shabbat dinners. “Taking one day out of seven and making it about family, children, G-d and soul is an antidote to the craziness in modern society,” said Rabbi Greenberg. “For the price of a chicken dinner you can change the course of a Jewish life.

Of related interest: When Feeling Jewish is Not Enough