This blog post arose after a conversation about the challenges for interfaith families in which one parent is a practicing Christian trying to raise Jewish children. We were speaking about many hot topics including:

• The goals of liberal Jewish religious school and Hebrew school
• Why most synagogues hold school on Sundays
• How synagogue leaders can create a culture of not just welcoming interfaith families but understanding that for some families one parent is practicing another religion.
• How hard it is for families with young children to participate in a late Friday night service and how disappointing it is for families who want to pray with the same people (creating real community) each week when Saturday morning bar/bat mitzvah services are often filled with a different audience each week, not largely drawing from the synagogue community.

So, here are my top five reasons for congregations to consider the idea of holding religious and Hebrew education on Shabbat morning given how many interfaith families are now in Jewish life. This switch of days could help with some of the above challenges.

1. For some interfaith families where a parent grew up attending church as a family on Sundays, that parent yearns for a similar weekly tradition of observing the Sabbath with their now Jewish family. Church services are often about an hour and there is childcare for babies and young children. School age children have a Bible lesson and then join their parents for prayer and singing. This can be followed by a family brunch to process what was taught that morning and then on with the weekend… Why can’t synagogues offer a joyous, music-rich Shabbat experience for an hour on Saturday morning with a Torah reading in which the children can participate in this sensory celebration of the words that sustain us?
2. We say that the reality is that sports take place on Saturday mornings and our society is geared toward Sunday religion. There are so many options for sports today and teams here and clubs there that I have no doubt that families who are interested in “Shabbat Space” (I don’t think the word school really captures what it means to be immersed in Jewish learning) could find their children later swim lessons, different soccer teams, etc. that would begin after say, noon, on Saturdays.
3. Rather than teaching children about Shabbat on a Sunday when they have to wait days for it to arrive again, why not live it, experience it, hear it, do it on the right day? We could join in with communities around the state and the world who are reading the same words from our sacred scroll in the same way and interpreting those words in different ways!
4. Let Jewish children understand that the rhythm of our week is different from most others in our society. While we share so much with our Christian neighbors and family members, there is a particularism and uniqueness to Jewish expression which doesn’t have to set us apart and create a divide, but rather urges us to join together with our shared sacred purpose of making the world a better place.
5. Some Christian parents partnered with Jews who are bringing up their kids in both religions may want to go to Church on Sundays and having Jewish school on the Christian Sabbath makes that difficult.