When Students Come to Visit: Teaching Judaism Through Lived Experience

Every year, groups of students walk through our doors at Temple Sinai to learn about Judaism. They come from different places and for different reasons. Some are church groups studying other faith traditions. Some are public high school history classes. Others are world religions courses. Each group arrives with notebooks, good questions, and a certain amount of uncertainty about what they will encounter inside a synagogue.

Last week I had the privilege of welcoming the Snelling Core students from Champlain Valley Union High School. They are studying a powerful essential question: How does belief influence action? Their unit asks them to explore how religious belief shapes daily practice, community life, and moral choices in the world. As part of their place-based learning, they visit houses of worship across our region to gather real evidence, not just textbook descriptions.

That is exactly what we try to offer them. Not abstraction, but lived Judaism.

When students arrive, I do not start with theology. I start with the building.

We talk about how space reflects values. They learn why our space is arranged the way it is. Our social hall functions as more than a room. It is where we celebrate bar and bat mitzvahs, share oneg after services, and gather for funeral luncheons. Where we play mah jong, where children burn off excess energy at break during school, where we host community meetings, and even provide space for recovery groups. They begin to see that a synagogue is not only a prayer space. It is a community ecosystem.

We explore the objects and symbols they see around them: tallitot, kippot, mezuzot, Torah scrolls, Hebrew artwork, and classrooms filled with children’s projects. We talk about what these mean and how they are used. We also discuss respectful participation. It is always appropriate to wear a kippah in a Jewish space even when you are not Jewish. Some ritual items, like a tallit, are not costumes or props but sacred garments tied to Jewish identity and obligation.

I also speak honestly about something harder: safety and antisemitism.

We look at the barriers outside the building. I show them our Czech Torah scroll, which was looted by the Nazis, and explain that sacred objects sometimes carry the weight of history. I tell them that some members of our community feel uneasy when Jewish children are visibly gathered in brightly lit classrooms at night so during school we keep curtains drawn. These are not easy conversations, but they are real ones. If students are asking how belief influences action, they should know that Jewish communal life today includes both resilience and vigilance.

But we never end there.

We end with joy.

Before we conclude, I ask the students to put down their notebooks and pencils. I invite them to close their eyes and take a deep breath. Then I light Shabbat candles. I circle my hands around the light and sing (badly) the blessing that welcomes Shabbat. For a moment, the room becomes quiet and still. No one is analyzing. No one is writing. They are simply present.

Judaism is not only something we explain. It is something we experience.

After last week’s visit, one of the teachers wrote to me and shared something that stayed with me. She said she appreciated how much we emphasized the joy of Jewish community and how faith communities support one another even when members do not agree on everything. She wrote that one of her hopes is that students leave high school ready to seek out “third spaces.” These are places that are not work and not school, but community. Places of belonging.

That is exactly what a synagogue strives to be.

When students visit Temple Sinai, I hope they leave with accurate information about Jewish practice and history. More than that, I hope they leave with a fuller picture of what a religious community can look like at its best. It is grounded in tradition, honest about hardship, alive with learning, and sustained by joy.

Belief influences action.
Action builds community.
Community creates light.

Sometimes that light begins with two candles and a quiet moment of welcome.