Becoming a Jewish Parent - Hardcover

When children ask parents questions about God, it can be difficult to know how to answer them. In Becoming a Jewish Parent,Daniel Gordis notes that parents could very well "tell [kids] all the things we're not sure about, all the reasons we could come up with to doubt that God is 'out there.'" But he suggests a different approach. When answering children's questions about God, Gordis suggests that parents pause to consider what drives their children's curiosity.

Is our job at such moments to give our kids information, or is it to build a safe, secure, nurturing sense of the world, one in which they can begin to make Jewish life a core part of who they are? When we talk to our kids about God, we're not 'information providers'. Rather, we're 'worldbuilders', the people who are most responsible for the outlook on life our children will develop and carry with them for a lifetime.

Handling the God question is just one topic in this extensive reference book that chapters on all of the major Jewish holidays, birth rituals for boys and girls, Bar and Bat Mitzvah dating, going to college, and difficult experiences such as divorce and death and burial. Gordis, a rabbi and professor with three children of his own, has a lively and personable voice, and even his apparently unconventional ideas are grounded in his deep knowledge of Jewish Scripture and tradition. --Simon Priestly

This book is a gem. It shows us how to enrich our children's lives with Judaism, from the moment they wake up to that blessed moment they fall asleep -- and everything in between. In the process, we become better parents and smarter Jews. --Ari L. Goldman, author of The Search for God

An act of love and faith on the part of its author, this is one of the finest treatments of spirituality and parenting ever published. . . . A masterpiece of intelligence and clarity. --Library Journal