My teacher, the late Abraham Joshua Heschel, once said that Judaism must be caught, not taught. By that he meant that religious loyalty and observance are the consequence primarily of emotional convictions, not just cognitive insights. We are constantly bombarded by countless stimuli which add to our knowledge of the world; but what ultimately affects our behavior is the whole constellation of experiences throughout our life which have assigned strong emotional value to certain instructions while others fall on deaf ears.

I always tell conversion students that I can teach them all the facts they need to know about Judaism; but I can’t give them Jewish memories. I can instruct a person on how to light candles on Friday evening, for example; however, I can’t transmit the emotional attachment that a Jewish person feels toward such rituals as a result of
watching his mother and grandmother do this from the time he was a child. I indicate to my students that they have to be patient with themselves. Many Jewish rituals will seem strange and artificial at first; but the longer you do them the more attached you become to them and the more they become a natural component of your behavioral routine. Converts have to create their own memories over time. Conversely,
Franz Rosenzweig, the eminent philosopher, flirted with the idea of converting to Christianity as a young man; because he had come to the conclusion that Judaism lacked emotional depth and the capacity to touch the soul. Even though Judaism might be more rational and logical, that wasn’t enough for Rosenzweig. He needed and wanted a religion that had intensity and a sense of engagement. It was only when he became convinced that Judaism could also reach the depths of the human heart and soul that he decided to remain Jewish. That fateful resolution was reached, not by rational argumentation but emotional experience.

I recall as a student in college that we often had “bull sessions” in the dorm about whether God existed. Not infrequently, on the basis of the epistemological criteria we mastered in our philosophy classes, we succeeded in “disproving” the existence of a Supreme Deity. Then immediately thereafter we would pause to daven minha and maariv. Logically that may not make sense. If there is no God, why should we pray? Clearly our emotional loyalties at the time superseded our rational conclusions. Subconsciously, our belief in God was obviously a lot deeper than our superficial arguments as “smart-alecky” college students who thought they knew everything.

Norman Podhoretz has written a fascinating new book entitled Why Are Jews Liberals? In it he argues that from a rational point of view, Jews should now become conservatives in this country; because their self-interest lies in fostering causes and personalities on the Right which, he maintains, are increasingly philo-Semitic. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, Rabbi David Wolpe, who participated in a Commentary Magazine symposium, is correct in saying that “kinship is stronger than any ideology.” Emotionally, Jews will always feel a lot more comfortable making common cause with people on the margins than the Daughters of the American Revolution. In other words, in spite of all the arguments advanced in political debates, it is ultimately an emotional attachment with the underdog that proves decisive for the preponderance of American Jews. J.H. Bradley put it this way: philosophy is ultimately “the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.”

Recognizing that emotion trumps reason every time is very important in our effort to inculcate values in young people. Thus, when a teenage couple is in the back seat of a car, whether they have sex or not, or unprotected sex or not, will not be based solely on maxims learned in the classroom or health risk reports. Those teenagers will ultimately decide on the basis of sub-conscious and communal attitudes absorbed over a lifetime. A whole web of previous interactions with friends, family and the world-at-large will determine whether sex is a no-go zone or not.

In the last analysis, our success in influencing behavior depends on our getting human nature right. That is the case whether you’re dealing with teenagers or trying to solve the problems of the Middle East. Heschel was right. Not only in the realm of religion, but in regard to every significant dimension of our lives, values must not only be taught; they must also be caught.