Tag: 2017 Cohort

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum

2017 Cohort, Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum 1 Comment

I first read this essay when it came out in 2013, just before graduating rabbinical school. It was an invaluable tool for communicating my vision with my synagogue and the greater Milwaukee community. As I am preparing to leave Congregation Shir Hadash, I want to consider my work in the context of three of the four propositions.

Chochma

Shir was already firmly rooted in an appreciation for the sacred texts of other traditions and able to find spirituality in secular texts. In my time, I sought to deepen the connection of Jewish wisdom to the wisdom of the world. One way this manifested was by using the Ted Perry version of Chief Seattle’s speech in place of the second paragraph of the Shema and meditating on what both pieces say about our environment.

In response to Harold Schulweis’ quote that, “Most rabbis have answers to the questions that Jews no longer ask,” I am constantly asking my community what spiritual Jewish conversations do we need to be having and working to shape programming based on their responses. In partnership, this manifested as a book group with Plymouth Church, the community in which our synagogue is housed, reading Jon D. Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil.  When there was a particular spike in Islamophobia, we had a Kabbalat Shabbat service with our Sufi friends that included zekr (chanting) that paralleled certain Hebrew tefillot. The focus of the evening was a teacher from the M.T.O. Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism and myself teaching on our shared patriarch Abraham. In the Torah, when Avraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away, this is the end of their story in our Torah. In the Qur’an, however, the story of Ibrahim’s relationship with Hagar and Ishmael continues right where the Torah leaves off. Together, our communities learned about our patriarch from the viewpoint of both traditions.

Integral to this work is making connections and creating space where all people can feel comfortable. This is even more important now, when our biases and ignorance as people are bubbling to the surface. At weddings where there are Christian family members, I equate the transformative power of kiddush to the transformative power of communion. At b’nei mitzvah where there is Christian family, I reference Mark 12:29 where Jesus declares the Shema and Ve’ahavta to be the greatest commandments of all.  This worldly approach is necessary for the multifaith world we live in and to ensure that our doors and minds remain open to multifaith families, of which Shir Hadash has many.

Tzedek

My most effective tzedek work was with our b’nei mitzvah students. All too often, we try to cram all the requirements of b’nei mitzvah into one year, which puts undue stress on the youth and forces them to created rushed work. I developed a curriculum starting before b’nei mitzvah and going through high school that most notably separated the tzedek project from the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. The first year is called “Becoming B’nei Mitzvah.” The students focus on the ceremonial aspects of becoming b’nei mitzvah. In the course of our conversations, we discuss tzedek and tzedaka in theory. The year after their b’nei mitzvah, they learn about mitzvot together and engage in tzedek projects. They do one project together as a group once a month, facilitated by the parents, while working on individual projects to suit their tastes. That year is called “Being B’nei Mitzvah.” This teaches that the process of becoming and being b’nei mitzvah is an ongoing one to which tzedek is a top priority.

I have observed two obstacles keeping more synagogues from picking up the tzedek mantle: a concern of endangering their non-profit status and a desire to avoid conflict within the synagogue. To the first concern, the IRS website provides guidance and the takeaway is that nonprofits cannot positively or negatively influence vote for a particular candidate. This leaves abundant room for advocacy and education initiatives, an opportunity that many synagogues are missing because they fail to see that this, too is holy work. To the second obstacle, machlokot l’shem shamayim, “differences for the sake of heaven” are spiritual exercises glorified by the rabbis of the Talmud. We need to create safe spaces in which to do more of this. Practicing these skills in a spiritual setting gives us the fortitude to use them in the world.

Lives of Sacred Purpose/kedusha

One way that I have sought to offer a glimpse of kedusha in our services is through visual tefillah, and not the program designed by the Reform movement. Visual tefillah, to my mind, is much more than putting the words on the screen. It is another way of translating the tefillot by using an image to tell a story. Or, perhaps it is a meditative focal point. For example, for Yotzer Or, I chose an analemma, a picture taken of the sun from the same spot each day. In this particular image, the pattern of the sun’s movement formed an infinity symbol, which I connected to sustainable solar energy. For Psalm 92, meod amku machshevotecha, “how deep are Your thoughts O God”, I used a picture of a fish from the depths of the ocean that was recently discovered, playing on our usual notion of “deep.” I strive to offer new meanings for the prayers and connecting the experience to an image that can be taken away allows people to bring that experience out of the synagogue with them.

I am so grateful that I began my rabbinic career at Shir Hadash, a synagogue way ahead of its time. It gave me the opportunity to fine tune my skills in each of the four areas mentioned in this essay. I look forward to taking what I have learned and developed forward into my next community.

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Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum is a graduate of Hebrew College in Newton, MA. She is currently the rabbi of Congregation Shir Hadash in Milwaukee, WI and will become the rabbi of Temple Har Zion in Mt. Holly, NJ this coming summer.  

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Matt Bar

2017 Cohort, Matt Bar 0 Comments

Excluding strange mystic experiences and perplexing dreams that whispered lech lecha into my soul at night, I had a perfectly outlined ‘covenantal identity’ childhood. My family was not religiously homogeneous nor observant. I was bar-mitzvahed at a Reform synagogue. I was a High Holiday Jew, a covenantal Jew. I would argue I have since become tribal. Is that a win? Capturing the covenantal Jew, Rabbi Schwarz claims is the new opportunity but to what end? To become tribal?

Let me begin again. Excluding highly imaginative religious experiences from recurring dreams to mystic moments, I am firmly configured as Bill2 from this essay: A covenantal Jew from an intermarriage who was a philosophy major son of a doctor. Shortly after college, I went on a Livnot Israel trip and I discovered the beit midrash. I didn’t go back to my campus as a b’al teshuvah, but rather back to my rap group to become the “poster Jew” for the crew. I had more experience as a folk singer (or folk-rapper, honestly), but I’d been rapping more and more with an all-black group called Renaissance. We produced my first bible raps: “10 Plagues” and “Am I My Brother’s Keeper.” The group’s producer, Jamo Mims, whom I’ve known since he moved from LA to my high school, said with complete sincerity, “You should be a rapping rabbi!”

My love for hip hop and my burgeoning appreciation for Judaism, specifically the intellectual aspects of our heritage, led to the creation, and contributes to the success, of Bible Raps. Bible Raps can, therefore, be most closely categorized under the first proposition of chochma. I start with the wisdom of the text. My performances and raps about bible stories are not, however, solely for the purpose of transmitting wisdom, but rather to illuminate the excitement of the story and their power for reflecting on one’s own journey. Where the real chochma is transmitted is in our workshops. This is where we study a piece of text and our students reflect on timeless questions and notions and internalize them and then literally spit them back out through their own verses in rap. And when they bust these raps in front of their peers and community we have divrei Torah being celebrated openly and with fervent cheer.

In a way, I’ve always seen my job as teaching Torah to the kids and hip hop to the adults. “I am hip hop” is a serious thing to say, in the way one says “I am a Jew.” A quick way to become intimate with others is to say ‘here is my truth’ and for them to say ‘here is mine.’ That’s hip hop. And it’s also Judaism. Hineni. Here I am. Hip hop’s power as a method of alternative education for text/reading/writing is an opportunity, even if it isn’t a vessel only for Torah, which is why Hamilton has seen such success. Lin Manuel-Miranda is able to take the (for some, stale) topic of the Founding Fathers and Alexander Hamilton’s life and inject it with fervor by using rap and hip hop as the language through which to tell his story.

For some students, hip hop provides a way for them to prove their comprehension in a language more commonplace than the Queen’s English, which ain’t easy. I was that student who, if I had to write an essay with a thesis and follow the common five paragraph structure, it wouldn’t be so great. But if I could find a creative workaround for the writing, I displayed a deep understanding of the material. For some students, the difference of sophistication and honesty that rap allows is worth investing in.

For example, having read Sid’s background and about his grandparents, here’s a rap that illuminates one piece of his story, using the voice of Lady Liberty:

“But rewind to ‘39 when I turned you back

It’s as if I turned my back, I hope we learned from that

Saw the St. Louis ship sailin’, lost my breath

As I saw you flailing back to your guaranteed death, what the heck?!

A nation of immigrants yelling ‘no immigrants here!’

Man that’s a little weird, I fear my light disappeared…”

Aligning with the theme of kehilla, we are now experimenting with taking our workshop into the virtual space. Breaching the in-person and digital realms, we are not just doing virtual learning, but virtual creating, and by entering the space where many of our youth are spending a considerable amount of time, we are able to bridge that divide and create lasting relationships. Many compelling rap songs and videos about Torah and other core texts have been created without ever meeting in person. But the most promising results in the advancement of kehilla are the combination – to have 3-5 hours with students virtually and then do a live show and present their work as part of the performance always makes for a great climax. Using technology to create moments of in-person celebration!

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Matt Bar developed a distinct Hip­Hop/Folk fusion of Bob Dylan and Lil’ Wayne and then found a way to combine it with Jewish content with his founding of Bible Raps in 2006. His debut album, “Lying in Chalk,” contains singles that have played on MTV’s “The Real World” and NBC’s “Hip Hop Nation Notes from the Underground.” Since its inception, Bible Raps has reached tens of thousands of young Jews with Torah-rich performances in schools, Hillels, conferences and camps across the US and abroad.

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Joshua Avedon

2017 Cohort, Joshua Avedon 1 Comment

First as one of Ikar’s founders, then at Synagogue 3000, and currently at Jumpstart, I’ve had the privilege to work in the U.S., Europe, and Israel with leaders of new organizations and communities of all types and persuasions. I came to this work as someone who grew up disaffected from Jewish life, but who came to embrace the tradition and community as an adult. So I suppose my mission is to save people from the kind of anodyne organized Jewish life that turned me off as a kid, and help build the kind of irresistible Jewish community that turned me on as an adult.

Throughout my travels, exchanges, and work with new communities a number of traits have come to define the phenomenon dubbed Jewish Emergent by my partner at Jumpstart, Shawn Landres. While Jewish life has of necessity evolved and been re-fashioned over our people’s long history, there’s an acceleration and particular character to the burst of innovation that began around the outset of the 21st century.

For starters there’s an intentional shift from program to relationship as the framework for building community. Instead of seeing individuals as Jewish consumers who need products created by and sold through organizations, Jewish Emergent communities focus foremost on intertwining people and experiences and ideas to weave communities. So programs become more an expression of desire and interest rather than a net to capture and retain people.

Which leads to the second concept: the rise of the producer/consumer. Emerging communities tend to break the typical top down delivery system dominant in the mainstream Jewish world. While most legacy organizations are still funded by philanthropists, governed by lay-leaders, managed by professionals, and delivered to the Jewish public, in emergent communities these aren’t distinct roles or different individuals – and participants often move fluidly between them. Communities are built by and for the same people, which makes them fully authentic reflections of common ideals and aesthetics, not something manufactured and packaged by one group for another to consume.

Third, also flowing from the previous two, these communities are based on shared values, not shared demographics. Whether that means having a post- or non-denominational bent, participants with differing observance levels, or embracing people regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, beliefs, or origin, the bottom line is common ground, not common characteristics. This is a real departure from the 20th century Jewish Industrial Complex. By abandoning the silos of movement affiliation and division by ritual practice, the concept of “outreach” has been upended. Rather than seeing recruitment as a separate activity from serving the core, emergent communities tend to operate like a solar system. The gravity is often supplied by the highly invested and educated at the center, but that intensity extends to draw in those who are less engaged, peripheral, or episodic. By mixing those who are deeply bought-in with those who are unfamiliar, curious, or even skeptical, the people at the center provide heat, energy, and enthusiasm which exerts a pull on those in every orbit.

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Joshua Avedon is a social entrepreneur, educator, facilitator, philanthropic advisor, and executive coach. As co-founder and CEO of Jumpstart Labs, a global research and design lab for creative philanthropy and social change, Joshua has spent the last several years writing, teaching, and advocating around the globe for social and communal innovation in the Jewish world and beyond.

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Hannah Kapnik Ashar

2017 Cohort, Hannah Kapnik Ashar 0 Comments

“Jews are in fact seekers of wisdom (dorshei chochma), seekers of social justice (dorshei tzedek), seekers of community (dorshei kehillah), and seekers of lives of sacred purpose (dorshei kedusha).”

What if we want to treat Jews not as consumers of these four domains, but as co-creators? What balance do we want organizations to strive for between providing experience and empowering Jews to own and evolve each of these domains?

Three of these propositions are inherently empowering, demanding participation, agency, and ownership. Seekers of community will co-create communities they are part of; seekers of social justice will be agents of change through their justice work; seekers of lives of sacred purpose will only feel their lives transformed when they actively integrate meaningful practice into their lives. In the pursuit of these three realms, seekers are co-creators, not consumers. The effort and agency that Jews put into these realms will help them to feel commitment to the Jewish project and will help them own their piece of the Jewish story.

Unlike these other domains, seekers of wisdom can be strictly consumers. There is not necessarily any agency in hearing great divrei torah or in reading powerful texts. Seekers of wisdom need not act as co-creators of Torah interpretation. They can simply receive.

I see two problems with the possibility that seekers of wisdom be consumers of Torah rather than co-creators of Jewish wisdom: 1) it fails to cultivate a sense of ownership of Yiddishkeit and responsibility for its perpetuation in the seeker of wisdom; and 2) it means that only a sliver of the population is generating content that speaks directly to the milieu of modern Jews. This means fewer Jews in the successive generation will find and hear Jewish wisdom that speaks to them deeply; fewer Jews will be ushered into the Jewish conversation.

I manage the fellowship year at The Bronfman Fellowship. Text study is at the core of The Bronfman Fellowship and we privilege texts that are ripe for interpretation. Fellows become contributors to Jewish wisdom by analyzing and interpreting text, looking for subtext and windows within the text and bridging a given text to other sources they’ve encountered. Through close textual readings and interpretation-rich study, seekers of wisdom can become agents in “expanding the palace of Torah.[1]”

Earlier generations took textual analysis and interpretation to levels well beyond what we do on the fellowship. Midrash and chasidut engage an unabashed reinterpretation style. This style goes so far as to occasionally intentionally misread a Torah source. These misreads are at once absurd and also allow a profound relevance of Torah in contexts of evolving values. Here is a stunning example of midrash: “And Jacob awoke from his sleep (mi’shnato) and said, ‘Indeed, God is in this place and I did not know.’ Rebbi Yochanan would say, ‘And Jacob awoke from his learning (mi’mishnato) and said, ‘Indeed, God is in this place…’” (Genesis Rabbah, Vayetze 69:7). Rebbi Yochanan transforms this moment, adding a single Hebrew letter and a world of ideas: it is not in sleep that Jacob dreamt his ladder with the angels ascending and descending, but in learning – in the pursuit of wisdom – that Jacob dreams a path to heaven. When Jacob is accessing divinity through study, Jacob becomes a comrade of Rebbi Yochanan. And through Rebbi Yochanan’s teaching, we see the need for innovative interpretations of our most precious texts in order to deeply relate to them. I wonder if we can resuscitate this kind of unabashed interpreting of Torah.

What might happen if our institutions set their sights on emboldening modern Jews to contribute to the body of chochma by embracing Torah with arms of creativity? This could transform us from dorshei chochma, seekers of wisdom, to darshanei chochma, pursuers and generators of wisdom. Might we better perpetuate the Jewish project if we not only strive to give access to wisdom, but strive to empower others to evolve our wisdom?

[1] Originally an idea of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, now the title of a book on Orthodox Jewish feminism by Tamar Ross

 

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Hannah Kapnik Ashar is a faculty member and Manager of Fellowship Year Experience with The Bronfman Fellowship and a rabbinic intern at Congregation Bonai Shalom in Boulder, CO. Hannah founded The Tefilah Retreat, a weekend of Jewish spiritual practice for young adults, and Boulder Denver Chevre, an independent minyan/Kevah group. 

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Wendy Aronson and Rabbi Brian Field

2017 Cohort, Wendy Aronson and Rabbi Brian Field 1 Comment

On page 13 of his essay in Jewish Megatrends, Rabbi Schwarz describes a twenty-year-old, non-Orthodox Jew named Bill. Bill is engaged to a person of another faith and when he places a call to his childhood rabbi to see if he will officiate their wedding, he receives a response that makes Bill feel rejected.

It was in response to scenarios just like this that Judaism Your Way (JYW) was created in 2003. The original one-point plan was to fund and administratively support a rabbi who would enthusiastically respond, engage, and officiate weddings between Jews and their beloveds of other faiths. In the years since its founding, JYW has articulated a mission of embodying a Judaism that is maximally inclusive and has expanded its programmatic offerings to the whole range of lifecycle moments, adult and B’nai Mitzvah education, spiritual counseling, and selected holiday celebrations.

Of the four propositions in Rabbi Schwarz’s essay, we believe that Judaism Your Way is an expression of three: chochma, kedusha and kehillah.

Chochma

One way that Jewish wisdom has been expressed over the millennia is in midrash. Midrash is the term Judaism uses for the work of the early rabbis to creatively apply the Torah to radically new circumstances in Jewish life.

Until now, much of the Jewish community’s outreach to interfaith couples and families has been viewed as a compromise or a surrender to an unfortunate reality of assimilation. JYW believes that Jewish wisdom points in a different direction. The name we give to this premise is “The Torah of Inclusion.” According to the Book of Exodus, the Torah was given to the Jewish people through a man who was married to the daughter of a Midianite priest. We note that Moses had lived with his Midianite in-laws for much of his pre-prophetic adult life. Moses worshipped with his Midianite father-in-law and took advice from him. In fact, it was Tziporah, Moses’ Midianite wife, who took responsibility to ritually bring their son into the brit.

We also note that in Jacob’s blessing of his two Egyptian-raised grandsons, Menasseh and Ephraim (whose mother was also the daughter of an Egyptian priest), Jacob says to them: “through you shall all Israel be blessed.”

In other words, within the narratives of two of the most important characters in the Torah there is an acknowledgment and a blessing of the compatibility of interfaith marriage with Jewish covenantal continuity. However, because of a history of oppression, this is a piece of chochma that has remained hidden. It is our hope that it can be the basis of a whole new genre of midrash.

Kedusha

In his essay, Rabbi Schwarz identifies a generational trend in some of the traditional markers of Jewish connection and involvement. He also identifies a greater percentage of “covenantal” versus “tribal” Jews among the younger generations. Accordingly, in Judaism Your Way’s early years, we expected that we would be most compelling to Gen X and Millennial Jews and their loved ones. However, up until very recently, the largest demographic of people attending our events has been Baby Boomers. When asked why JYW is the right choice for them, they respond by sharing that they joined synagogues to get their children a Bar/t Mitzvah, but now that their children are grown up, they look to JYW to find a Jewish spiritual connection for themselves. In other words, the urge to find spiritual meaning in Judaism includes all the generations.

Decades ago, Rabbi Field read an article in Moment Magazine by the late Jacob Petuchowski entitled “The Ever-Expanding Holiness Franchise.” Rabbi Petuchowski’s thesis is that over the millennia, the proportion of people who could claim access to the communally recognized expression of kedusha has increased – from the Levites in Biblical times to all men in rabbinic Judaism, to women and men in more contemporary expressions of Judaism, to openly gay Jewish women and men in increasing numbers of Jewish sacred communities today.

Let’s consider Rabbi Schwarz’s young inter-married Jew, Bill. He has brought his spouse of another faith to High Holy Day services. He is moved to sing. But as he glances at his spouse, he notices that she is somewhat lost, perhaps because the structure of the service isn’t familiar, or because the songs are in Hebrew. And Bill is torn. Does he sing, like a “good Jew”, and leave his spouse alone with her feelings of discomfort? Or does he align with his spouse, and stay silent, so she doesn’t feel alone?

Given the huge number of people of other faiths whose lives are deeply intertwined with the lives of Jews, the question is now being asked: Can the Jewish “holiness franchise” be extended to these loved ones as well? At JYW, the answer is “yes”. When we compose the machzors (prayer booklets) for our High Holy Day services, one of the filters through which we run every prayer and song is: Will this be accessible to non-Hebrew-literate Jews as well as people who grew up in different faith traditions?

Kehillah

One of the decisions the founding team made back in 2003 was to not become a congregation. The Board and staff of JYW are aware that a source of negative feeling among many Jews is that of not fully belonging, either to the general society (due to being Jewish) or to the Jewish community (not being Jewish enough). By choosing not to organize ourselves as a membership-based organization, we hoped to minimize if not eliminate that potential source of alienation.

One of the critiques that has been directed at JYW is that we are not a community. And in a traditional, legacy-organization-model sense, perhaps that is true. But one thing that we’ve noticed is that people who have been coming to our High Holy Day services are recognizing each other, are taking pleasure in seeing each other, and are taking steps to deepen their connections with one another. Each year, we have watched people reach out and make room for strangers who were of different ages and lifestyles. People are singing, they are happy to be there, and they often return over multiple years, bringing their family and friends with them. For our supporters and us, this is precisely the type of kehillah we desire.

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Wendy Aronson has enjoyed working for innovative Jewish organizations like the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Boulder JCC and now Judaism Your Way where she is the Executive Director. Her early career has focused on creating positive Jewish experiences for young people through informal education like camp, youth group, and Israel experiences and has since grown to include a passion for administration.

A graduate of RRC, Brian’s been a rabbi for 23 years. He came to Denver in 2004 to become the spiritual leader of a creative and evolving Jewish outreach initiative called Judaism Your Way. Brian’s vision is a maximally-inclusive Judaism that plays a robust role in the healing of the planet and the liberation of all human beings.

 

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Rachel Gildiner

2017 Cohort, Rachel Gildiner 0 Comments

My work as an educator and Jewish leader has always been about (1) fostering kehillah, and (2) deepening kehillot with kedusha. I believe wisdom, learning, confidence, further involvement, Jewish risk-taking, asking questions, engaged Jewish life, emerges from positive experiences of community first and foremost. And it has been my experience that as we grow older, we long more and more for those communities that will embrace, push, and value us as holistic individuals. That personal investment from others is what encourages individuals to grow, deepen knowledge, and pursue tzedek among other Jewish values.

This concept of kehillah, however vital, can be more complicated that one might presume. I am a (usually proud) product of Jewish institutions. Hebrew school, synagogues, summer camps and even the Jewish Theological Seminary were some of my first and most formative Jewish communities that I encountered. I was lucky that my parents could afford these opportunities for me and that they themselves were committed to Jewish education and Jewish life for our family. However, as I went through my studies at JTS, thought back about my time in a public school filled with Jews by name only, and then as I became a young adult, I was continually confronted with how our institutions are failing / ignoring / alienating / discouraging so many Jews who refuse to fit into or follow institutional boxes. It is this awareness and discomfort as an “insider” myself that now propels me to think about how to create communities that invite, not discourage, new faces and people who don’t check boxes.

This insider/outsider mindset has been both an asset and a challenge as I work with other Jewish professionals. Now, when I think about prayer communities, I don’t worry first about where to get siddurim. I ask myself – how will this space be welcoming for people who have had negative experiences with prayer, who don’t know Hebrew, who won’t know anyone else in the room? Who will be the personal face to greet them or chat with them after the service to process the experience; where will they find supplemental inspiration through poems or a gallery wall of quotes in the back? How will the deeper themes of our liturgy speak to their lives? I believe in and practice what has now been termed “radical hospitality” but I have always believed that authentic relationship building requires us not only to bring Jews in, but to deeply and truly know them. What else is community/kehillah about if not a group of people who care about one another?

Martin Buber’s writings are an inspiration for how I think about and strive to foster kehillah and kedusha. Sometimes, when we start creating experiences that are inclusive or non-traditional, I hear terms like – watering down, diluting, standing for nothing, etc. But Jewish experiences and Jewish life is a journey. I truly believe that most instances of true connection, deeper meaning, transformative prayer or ritual experiences, happen when you are wholly and holy connected to other Jews and other people who support you and believe in you on your journey of Jewish exploration. This doesn’t mean they don’t also happen in solitude – some of my most moving spiritual moments happened sitting alone in a Friday night service where I didn’t know anyone, standing above Masada looking out into the abyss on my own. But they didn’t happen in a vacuum. I knew I’d have people – rabbis, peers, mentors, etc. – who would listen and embrace and validate these experiences with me. That is kehillah kedushah. And it truly is the essential proposition for engaging covenantal and unengaged Jews.

What it also means is that “the” kehillah or Jewish community in general, will and should begin to look very different. I’m reminded of the midrash of God inviting Moshe up to Mount Sinai a bit early to watch God finishing writing the crowns upon each letter of the Torah. God then sends Moshe back to the future to show him how Rabbi Akiva teaches Torah to the students in his class. Moshe doesn’t even recognize that it’s Torah because of the radical and expanded conversation the students are having about it. But God reassures him through the voice of a student – no, this is the Torah from Moshe at Sinai, the very same Torah that we now expound upon and innovate from within. This need for innovative communities, innovative wisdom, innovative ways to engage with tradition, are and will continue to be essential to engaging more and more Jews. And it starts with communities.

I feel fortunate that through my 10 years of Jewish professional work I have had the opportunity to help launch and develop several innovative initiatives to meet these goals. Joining Hillel International’s groundbreaking relationship-based engagement pilot (CEI) from the ground in 2007 taught me how existing and historical institutions do, in fact, have the capacity to change from within, to adapt and be flexible to meet new and growing needs of the population. Over seven years there I had six different titles, worked on multiple new and innovative projects including growing into Director of Projects to connect engagement (through CEI) and learning (through Senior Jewish Educators); then Engage2Educate, now Ezra Fellows that combines these roles into one junior professional on campus. I learned so much about innovating from within an existing organization that when I began directing Gather the Jews a year ago, it was incredible to see how quickly the energy of a Jewish start-up could get off the ground. Gather the Jews is all about getting out to the grassroots, encouraging a DIY ethos, and helping Jews make Judaism relevant to them.

I would say there are additional concepts and methodologies beyond the four propositions that Rabbi Sid set forth that we use to advance our work, but they are not the fundamental ends in and of themselves. Some of these strategies include “relationology”, understanding networks, tribal leadership, and individual ownership/identity development of emerging adults.

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Rachel Gildiner directs Gather the Jews which supports and provides resources to Jewish 20s & 30s in the DC area. She strives to help every Jew find or create a relevant and meaningful Jewish life, through deep listening, creative problem solving, and through the power of immersive experiences.

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Rabbi Shawn Zevit

2017 Cohort, Rabbi Shawn Zevit 0 Comments

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Chochmah (Wisdom), Tzedek (Justice), Kehillah (Community) and Kedushah (Sacredness), the four propositions Rabbi Sid Schwarz outlines in his opening essay for Jewish Megatrends, are core Jewish values that are a winding thread throughout the millennia of the Jewish People’s journey. I have found all these areas resonant in my decades of avodah– work in sacred service- whether in socially conscious theater, spiritual music, gender and Jewish men’s work, movement-building, social justice efforts, consulting, spiritual leadership training, spiritual direction and especially now in congregational leadership.

At the same time, I see within my own life and the lives of those I serve, support and learn from, an inclination to one or more of these areas and some problems arising when approached from a compartmentalized consciousness or self-definition. In fact, the proposition areas are embedded in the mission of Mishkan Shalom, where I serve as lead rabbi. In our community we have moved from a series of years of decline to stabilization and now modest growth, with an approach that combines the four proposition areas described above, through combining tzedek and tikkun olam within gemilut hasadim- acts of caring for each other and faith-based activism in the larger community. In addition we are a destination congregation and not a community located in the center of a Jewish area per se.

Like the four worlds in Jewish mystical tradition, shared with many other faith traditions (physical/doing; emotional/feeling; mindfulness/thinking; being/spirituality), the living paradigm works only insofar as they are seen as co-arising and interdependent with one another. This is the blueprint of all living forms and the larger eco-system of our planet. It is true in how the human form functions and equally in communal systems of whatever nature (inside or outside the “box”).

We can also glean insight from the creation story in Kabbalah. We are invited into the vision of a primary creation where Divine energies come into manifestation without connectivity to each other and collapse under their own non-relationality. The second emanation of creation arises with an interconnected, relational (“partzufic” or face-to-face) world-wide-web that is able to withstand the polarization and vicissitudes of reality without shattering in its wake.

In much of the work that I have tried to live and lead as a congregational rabbi, training spiritual directors, prayer or communal leaders, I have focused my energy on where there are strengths in certain areas and simultaneously how these silos connect with a larger purpose, mission or goal. I have witnessed first-hand the transformation and engagement of individual Jews, and non-Jewish partners and allies committed to areas of strength and interest with the awareness and inspiration of a synergistic broader vision.

There is a tendency in any member-centered organization to equate growth only with quantitative increases in membership, fund-raising, programs and events. A proactive and consciously framed community-building approach recognizes that building sacred community must touch and invigorate every aspect of a congregation, organization, institution or network however formal or informal.

Ultimately, it is not about the specific programming or chasing the latest success formula of programming, dues structure, or generational attractor, or the pizzazz of the public relations. As vital as all of these areas are I believe that they are secondary and instrumental to the primary purpose of fostering caring relationships that address people in their whole-ness and support them in their growth as Jews and fellow travelers, and human beings. Ultimately for the Jewish people and our companion “soul-journers” to flourish long-term, we must not only invite people to participate in a particular program area, committee or subgroup, but to a whole and holy larger vision and connected community.

I have been evolving a framework for this approach to living an individual and communal socially activist, life of meaning and sacred purpose under the umbrella of “VAV consciousness”. This grows out of the biblical use of “VAV” as a transformative, connecting and infinitely absolute directive, the later evolution of the Talmudic rabbi’s approach of “elu v’elu”- holding seeming polarities in relationship through which something new or a greater truth arises- and a contemporary more inclusive and dynamic Judaism that sees our interdependence with all peoples, religions and cultures, and the olam, the needs of the earth we are part of.

An approach to Jewish life and peoplehood that helps us feel good and thriving as a Jewish community in North America, Israel or anywhere is limited and limiting if it does not also nurture wisdom, justice, community and sacredness with concern and connection to the issues facing all peoples, and the social, economic, political, ecological and spiritual sustainability of the planet as a whole. This is a Judaism that does not live in a dualistic debate over whether study/ideas or acts/doing are the better approaches to living out the potential of Godliness and Divine direction. We also must affirm that the Jewish path is not the only sacred song in the symphony of holy living.

Far from being a remote concept or idealistic kavannah, I have found this approach attracts more people to Jewish community and Jewish spiritual living, not only younger generations, but aging baby boomers, empty nesters and increasingly older Jews living longer and still searching for a meaningful Jewish life.

The ultimate proof is in the cholent (aka “pudding”) to quote my grandfather. Pragmatically I have seen the highlighting of the proposition areas described as well as what I would offer in addition, the values of “kishuriyut” (connectivity) and “kashrut” (in its meta-meaning of appropriate and ethical conduct), producing more effective, sensitive and aware leaders and more vibrant, diverse, inclusive communities and organizations of impact and alignment with mission and vision.

Communal and civilizational growth is, at the end of the day, about deepening relationships – with one’s self, with others (past, present and future), with the people and needs of our larger communities, and the world, all aspects of the Divine fabric that is Life itself.  Hazak hazak v’nithazek. Let us be strengthened by each other!

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Rabbi Shawn Zevit serves as rabbi at Mishkan Shalom, in Philadelphia. He is co-director with Rabbi Marcia Prager of the Davennen Leader’s Training Institute. A liturgical recording and performing artist, Shawn has been an organizer for over twenty years of www.jewishmensretreat.org. With Harry Brod he co-edited Brother Keepers: New Perspectives in Jewish Masculinity and he is the author of Offerings of the Heart: Money and Values in Faith Community.

 

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Zahara Zahav

2017 Cohort, Zahara Zahav 0 Comments

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The four propositions that Sid suggests will shape and inspire meaningful, relevant Jewish communities today contain strong echoes of central themes found in the traditional wisdom of the Torah. Chochma, kedusha, tzedek and kehillah are rooted in the famous mishnah of Pirkei Avot 1:14: Shimon the Righteous who said, “On three things the world stands: On Torah, on service of Gd, and on acts of sacred kindness.” The outlined propositions seem to correspond well with Shimon the Righteous’ pillars that uplift and support our world. More explicitly, Torah (Wisdom /Chochma), Avodah (Kedusha /Lives of Sacred Purpose), and Gemilut Hasadim (Tzedek /Justice), each explored through Kehillah, will continue to be the foundation of Jewish life in the next millennia as they have been for centuries.

Jewish life is enriched through the intersection of these key areas/pillars. Additionally, by creating a vibrant Jewish life in which chochma, kedusha, tzedek, and kehillah all thrive and support one another, each individual area is enlivened; the cross-pollination and overlap between areas of faith and practice make Judaism, both on an individual and communal level, stronger and more wholly transformative. The Jewish community at large is filled with spaces where these areas are off balance, pushing many Jews to piece together a holistic identity through a variety of worlds and underscoring disconnection between faith and practice. Our tzedek, our chochma, our kedusha, our kehillah, suffer from this disconnection.

Recently I have begun to experience a kind of integration among these areas and thus within myself as I interact with the political and religious Jewish communities in New York City. It has taken years and will continue to take a long time, as silos can be very challenging to break down. Modern radical politics have uplifted identity exploration and particularism in ways that encourage politicized Jews to know their own histories and traditions. (White supremacy, James Baldwin and others suggest, is in part upheld by the absence of this knowledge. Christian hegemony, Paul Kivel writes, also benefits when non-Christians can’t make distinctions between the dominant religious culture and their own) Meanwhile, activist culture continues to highlight connections between the wellbeing of the spirit and the wellbeing of the world, I’ve begun to see far greater room within tzedek– and kehillah-focused spaces for chochma and kedusha. Additionally, spaces that are chochma– and kedusha-centered are beginning to see their work as toothless when it does not rise up to meet the questions and hunger of growing social movements.

Therefore, if I were to suggest an area beyond Sid’s thesis, it would be the focal point at which the four areas meet in a powerful core, thus emanating outward with vibrancy and resonance. This is the location of my life’s work, a return to the original thesis set out in my mind by the Torah.

 

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Zahara Zahav is the National Campaign Organizer at the Union for Reform Judaism. An alumnus of the Pardes Institute and of Yeshivat Hadar, Zahara is dedicated to building spiritually and politically awake Jewish spaces. As an AVODAH fellow, Zahara worked as a program and development associate at Footsteps, an organization for people transitioning out of the ultra-Orthodox community. She is a former Program Manager and Network Organizer of Rabbis Without Borders at Clal.

 

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