Giving our young people a worthy voice

Rabbi [Rachel] Zerin’s wonderful recounting of the Noah story (D’var Torah, November 2019) points to a need for hope amid our anxieties over “climate change, political turmoil . . . “ I agree but also wonder whether Noah’s story, paired with other pivotal Torah stories that shape our Jewish mind, has left us with a contrary message sadly unsuited to our time and its pressing need to guarantee our children a livable planet. What is this unsuitable message?

Recall these formative stories in addition to Noah’s story: the offering of Egypt’s firstborn in the story of Exodus, the binding of Isaac, the offering of Lot’s children to the mob at Sodom, the baby’s placement under King Solomon’s sword.

We were children when these narratives made their vital imprint. Can you recall hearing these stories with your 4-to-10-year-old ears?  Most of us can’t. But what therapists call our “inner child” can remember, and the message we absorbed may surprise us. Our baby-boomer generation may carry the “hidden” message of these sacred stories in its collective heart. These stories may be undermining our best intentions of solving the climate crisis on behalf of our kids.

So what is this message about the fate of children conveyed in a pitch that only little children could hear? Here’s a clue: in these honored tales, from a small child’s point of view, children are the first to be abandoned – whether left to rising seas in the flood story, to the tenth plague negotiated by Moses, to Abraham’s sharpened blade, to Lot’s inexplicable choice, to Solomon’s child-targeting sword –abandoned on the important platforms of adult ambition. Whether those lauded ambitions are religious, spiritual, geopolitical, or civil does not matter. Those adult distinctions are lost on the child. A child only asks this question of story and myth: Where am I in this story? Where do I fit in? Where do I belong?

The painful answer for the child in these civilizing stories is “nowhere.”

When it comes to more important adult behavior, you are expendable. It’s hard to find a children’s story in the bible that doesn’t involve their sacrifice. And the kids in folk and fairy tales? Do they fare any better? Ask Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel or William Tell’s boy. Even the Ten Commandments turn a blind eye to kids’ protection. Children, only the child is quick to notice, are nowhere mentioned there. “Is there an eleventh one about me?” a child might ask.

So our challenge as concerned adults who care for our kids’ future, and therefore prioritize a climate solution, is to recognize in ourselves that still, small voice, a voice still under the sway of old tales, that whispers, “I am not important enough for saving. I am not worthy.”

But we are, of course, worthy. We were worthy as children, too. Our “inner” child is worthy today. Our real children are worthy. Their children are worthy. The next generation is worthy of saving, no matter the contrary and confused message in the otherwise magnificent stories of our Judeo-Christian upbringing.

I lead a not-for-profit in Rhode Island called Merlyn Climate Grants. We award grants of $500 to $3,000 to young climate leaders helping adults overcome their passivity in the face of a coming climate crisis. The kids we support have managed to transcend their cultural training to remain silent and passive while the adults do their thing. Like Isaac in the famous painting by Caravaggio, they are wrestling for their lives. We are going to help them instead of silencing them. If young people can transcend, so can we.

JIM STAHL is president of  Merlyn Climate Grants  and editor of Merlyn’s Pen New Library of Young Adult Writing. Contact him at Stahl@merlynspen.org.