The Jewish Educator’s Guide to Questions You Don’t Know How to Answer

You’re in the middle of a lesson when a student asks a question that makes the entire room pause. “Why should I have a bar mitzvah if I don’t believe any of this?”

Several students look up, waiting to hear how you’ll respond. With little time to gather your thoughts, you feel pressured to come up with the perfect answer.

Every Jewish educator gets these questions eventually. Am I a bad Jew if I don’t believe in God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do I have to learn Hebrew if I’m never going to Israel? Why are there so many Jewish rules?

These questions may catch you off guard, like on the walk back from the sanctuary or thirty seconds before pickup.

Don’t Focus on the Answer

Here’s the good news: You don’t need to have the perfect answer. You just need to know what to do with the question. After years in the classroom, this is the approach I have landed on.

Hard Questions Belong in Jewish Classrooms

It takes courage to ask questions like these out loud, especially in front of peers. Before you do anything else, validate the question.

“That is a fair question. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of your classmates have wondered the same thing, so I’m glad you brought it up.”

In that moment, you have shown the entire room that doubt, uncertainty, and disagreement belong in Jewish learning. That single message may matter more than anything else you say that day.

Hand the Question Back

Once you have validated the question, resist the urge to answer right away. The fastest way to shut down a big question is to answer it. The best way to honor it is to open it up to a class discussion. Ask, “What do you think?” or “What made you start wondering about that?”

Jewish tradition does not shy away from hard questions. Abraham argued with God over the fate of Sodom (Genesis 18), and Job demanded to know why a righteous person could suffer so deeply. Neither offers an easy answer.

You may also want to consider whether a theological question is really a personal one in disguise. A child asking why God lets bad things happen may have a grandparent in the hospital. You might begin by asking, “What made you start wondering about that?”

If the moment allows, bring the rest of the class into the discussion: “Who else has wondered about this?Hands may go up. Now you have a discussion instead of a spotlight, and the student who asked is no longer alone with the question.

You Are Allowed to Say “I Don’t Know”

There is enormous pressure to have a clear response ready, as if uncertainty in front of students undermines your authority. It does not. It models honesty. That honesty is also deeply Jewish.

The Talmud is filled with differing opinions rather than a single agreed-upon answer. Some debates end with the word teiku, indicating that the issue remains unresolved. Pirkei Avot praises a machloket l’shem shamayim, a disagreement for the sake of heaven. Hillel and Shammai disagreed for generations, and Jewish tradition acknowledges both opinions.

When you say, “I don’t know, and people have wrestled with this for thousands of years,” you are not dodging the question. You are placing your student inside a three-thousand-year-old conversation.

Know Where Your Role Ends

Some questions are bigger than a Tuesday afternoon classroom. If a student seems genuinely distressed rather than curious, or if the question keeps returning with weight behind it, that is worth a quiet word with a parent, your education director, or your clergy.

Not because you failed to handle it, but because a child working through something real deserves more than the eight minutes you have before dismissal. Knowing when to bring in the family is part of the job, not a departure from it.

Let the Question Stay Open

The next time a student catches you off guard with a question you can’t answer, take a breath and remember: the question is not a disruption of the lesson. It may be the most important part of it. Your job is not to close it. Your job is to receive it with respect, help the student examine it, and keep it open long enough for them to grow into it.

Concrete Examples

Every classroom and Jewish community is different, but it can help to have a few possible responses ready before a difficult question comes up. They are not meant to be final answers. In a real moment, the validation and the hand-back come first, and it often helps to ask what prompted the question before answering it. Adapt them to your students’ ages, your school’s approach, and what may be behind the question.

Why should I have a bar mitzvah if I don’t believe any of this?

Teacher’s Response: A bar mitzvah does not require you to be certain about God. At thirteen, Jewish tradition makes you responsible for your own actions and your own choices, and that includes the responsibility to keep asking hard questions.

Am I a bad Jew if I question God’s existence?

Teacher’s Response: No. Doubt does not make you a bad Jew. The name Israel itself is associated with wrestling with God, reminding us that questioning has been part of Jewish life from the beginning. Judaism is not defined by belief alone. It is also expressed through how you treat others, how you participate in your community, and your willingness to keep learning and asking questions.

Why do I have to learn Hebrew? I’m not planning to go to Israel.

Teacher’s Response: Hebrew connects you to Jewish prayers, texts, and thousands of years of Jewish history in the language they were written in. They may also be interested to know that learning a second language trains your brain to recognize patterns and solve problems, which helps in everything from math to music.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Teacher’s Response: Judaism does not have one simple answer to that question, and people have wrestled with it for thousands of years. Some point to free will. Some point to the natural world following its own patterns. Others believe there are things human beings may never fully understand. What Judaism is very clear about is what we do when someone is suffering: we comfort, we help, we visit, and we never tell a person that they caused it or deserved it. For your own background: Rabbi Harold S. Kushner devoted an entire book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, to exploring this question.

Why are there so many Jewish rules?

Teacher’s Response: Some Jewish practices make sense right away, and some only make sense after you have lived with them for a while. Jewish tradition even has a phrase for that, na’aseh v’nishma, sometimes understanding grows through doing. Instead of asking only “What am I not allowed to do?” try asking “What is this boundary creating space for?”

Shabbat is a useful example. Its boundaries around work, devices, and shopping create protected time for family meals, rest, and conversation. Research on regular family meals and evening screen use points in the same direction.

What is the most difficult question a student has ever asked you? Share yours in the comments.