by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Because I am personally opposed to ever agreeing with anyone, I find myself, often, embroiled in interesting discussions with all sorts of folks. Over at JCarrot, I am having an interesting comments thread with Ben Murane (our own KFJ) about (I think) the difference between who is Jewish, and what is Jewish. The difficult part of this, of course, is that it’s not a completely separate question.
Who one is affects what one does, and the reverse, as well.
I recall a famous quote by (the eminently quotable) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr:
“To be is to do”–Socrates.
“To do is to be”–Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”–Frank Sinatra.
Er, I’m getting off-topic here. Anyhow, so Over at the NYT , there is what is apparently another discussion of the ongoing rift caused by the stringent versus loose approach to answering the question of “who is a Jew.”
The question for me is pretty fraught: I do believe that being this exclusive is ultimately untenable -but at the same time, there does need to be a certain level of internal definition of who gets to be considered “in.”
The question remaining, of course, as to who is in enough, or how in they have to be, in order to make such determinations.
That’s why I’m less interested in talking about who is Jewish, than what is Jewish. If one can agree on the latter, at least in broad terms, than the former can be fixed in almost any case.
Professionally, of course, I have dedicated myself to a particular kind of Judaism, and I do think that meaning inheres in Judaism in particular acts, practices and disciplines, and that there is a teleological reason for doing these practices. This doesn’t invalidate other kinds of doing, but it does mean that not all doing can be accepted as within the boundaries of Judaism. And in truth, I can’t really believe that anyone truly believes that anything goes. No matter how loose your boundaries are, there must be some, otherwise names become meaningless. If everything is “within” then one simply ceases to be - in simply a logical sense.
Anyhow, I invite others to pop in on the conversation, here or there.
by BZ · Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Pluralism is one of the most significant trends in 21st-century Jewish life. Hillel is creating pluralistic Jewish communities on college campuses during many Jews’ formative years, and producing a generation of leaders committed to Jewish pluralism. The Limmud franchise is spreading to new cities every year. The National Havurah Committee is experiencing a boom led by a new generation. New communities are sprouting up outside of the institutional movements, and many of them are committed in one way or another to pluralism. Even decidedly non-pluralistic organizations like Chabad and Aish are using pluralistic rhetoric as a marketing tool.
But what is Jewish pluralism really about? Mah Rabu’s Hilchot Pluralism series examines the theory and practice of creating pluralistic Jewish communities, but focuses entirely on the “how”, not on the “why”. Hilchot Pluralism takes it for granted that the reader is interested in creating a pluralistic community (why else would s/he be reading it?), and doesn’t address the question of why pluralism would be desirable (other than bringing up some situations in which pluralism isn’t desirable or isn’t possible).
A new article in the Columbia Current starts to ask these other questions. Dov Friedman looks at different philosophical approaches to Jewish pluralism.
For those who believe that law is fundamentally correct and that other conceptions of Judaism are incorrect, their theology precludes them from creating and joining in communal practices that deviate from their understanding of Jewish law.
Alternatively, those who believe that Judaism houses an infinite number of truths are always at risk of losing a coherent foundation upon which to build their community; they may build a pluralist community, but what would tie such a community together? It would have nothing to rally around except pluralism itself—making pluralism the end instead of a means to a more harmonious community.
For those who believe in the value of pluralism, it is an ominous reality to be faced either with traditionalism that may stamp out pluralism, or with pluralism that may stamp out tradition. In order to understand what a fully “pluralist” perspective entails, we must examine the ways in which the term is used.
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by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Recent postings on the uterus problem (see here) have been right to question the tshuvah that recently was issued from the bowels of the CJLS. I’m sorry that I got scooped on this because it’s a long standing argument that I have been having with my teachers (whom I respect very much, despite our disagreements) for years now. First of all, here is the URL for the actual tshuvah. I recommend reading it.
Secondly, I want to give kudos to Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ and Rabbi Jason Miller’s comments on the post at jspot. Both of them note that there need to be more social supports put in place for people to have children, Rabbi Jacobs noting:
–Would rabbinical students be more willing to have kids while in grad school if the rabbinical schools offered on-site child care?
–Would it be easier for Jewish women professionals (and men) to participate in professional conferences (such as the RA, from which I just returned, and where I bumped into a few poor women trying to nurse on the floor of the bathroom), if these conferences offered nursing rooms, child care, or other accommodations? (a shout out to the Wexner Foundation for being a leader in this regard)
–Would Jewish women professionals be able more easily to “have it all” if more Jewish institutions offered flex time, family health insurance, on-site child care, and paid for child care when the mom or dad is on the road?
And Rabbi Miller adding:
— not just for the women. As a 26-year-old rabbinical student whose wife was working full-time, I often felt the challenge of sitting in a class while bottle-feeding my baby son. An on-site day-care facility at JTS would have been an important resource.
He also on his own blog made some comments.
(Although I do want to note that I can’t imagine why any women were nursing on the floor of the bathroom, since the hotel in question is luxurious to the point of ridiculousness, and the WC had an anteroom with, I’m told, quite comfortable chairs and, I’m told by a nursing friend, the heat turned way up so that it was a perfectly comfortable place to strip down and nurse if necessary. Of course, the very luxuriousness of the hotel was apparently rather a sore point amongst the many, many Conservative rabbis who lack large convention stipends or, indeed, any, such as those who aren’t pulpit rabbis, or who are, but whose pulpits are more modest, say, under 500 members. A sore point indeed).
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by BZ · Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Once again, we are delighted to announce the courses for the 2008 National Havurah Committee Summer Institute! The Institute will be August 11-17 at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Every teacher is a student, and every student is a teacher.
Morning:
Afternoon:
- S. Bear Bergman (Poretsky Artist-In-Residence) - Storytelling, Diaspora, and Survival
- Julia Appel - The Art and Spirit of Prayer Leading
- Mitch Chanin - Controversy for the Sake of Heaven: Facilitating constructive dialogue across political differences about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other controversial issues
- Stephen Eisdorfer - Law and The Law
- Shelly Fredman - The Soul’s Search for Meaning—Creating a Personal Theology
- Bob Freedman - What Words Can Do!
- Bob Goldenberg - What is oral about “Oral Torah”?
- Matthew Goldfield - Infinity and God
- Jill Jacobs and Guy Izhak Austrian - It Goes Without Saying: Power, Passivity, and Social Change
- Eleni Litt - Line, Color, Form: The Shape of Torah and the Kabbalah of Color
- Benjamin Maron - Beyond the Binary: the “Other” Genders in the Mishna and Contemporary Judaism
- Adele Reinhartz - Diversity and Rupture: The “Parting of the Ways” between Judaism and Christianity
- Aviva Richman - The Vagina Monologues Meet the Talmud
- Micha’el Rosenberg - Do We Mourn for the Dead, or for the Living? The Case of Suicide in Halacha
See you in August!
by BZ · Friday, December 14th, 2007
(Crossposted to Mah Rabu)
Last week I posted some initial thoughts on the Spiritual Communities Study survey results, and then ZT posted a second round. Since then, they’ve made some revisions to the report, incorporating suggestions from us and other bloggers, so the squeaky wheel has gotten the grease. As crazy as it sounds, I’m now posting a third round of commentary on the survey.
As Desh has pointed out, these results should silence those who claim that independent minyan participants are motivated by selfishness and narcissism, in contrast with conventional synagogues and their participants who are committed to the broader community. In addition to the data that Desh cites, the results show that independent minyan participants have higher “yes” rates than synagogue members on the questions “I have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people” and “I have a special responsibility to take care of Jews in need around the world”. (The report didn’t list the results for the question “I have a Jewish responsibility to care for people in trouble (as with Darfur or Katrina)”, which would also be interesting to see.) Moreover, though there are no comparable numbers for synagogue members, the survey also shows that 95% of independent minyan participants have been invited to a Shabbat meal by someone in their community in the last year, and 86% have invited others. These results come within a few days of another study showing that people are leaving conventional congregations because this sense of community is missing. (Of course, this isn’t true of all synagogues. Kol hakavod to any community of whatever structure whose participants are committed to each other and to the larger world.)
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by zt · Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
This past weekend I was in Philadelphia for the semi-annual board meeting of JRF, the synagogue arm of the Reconstructionist movement. The first part of the board meeting was a presentation by Dan Ehrenkrantz, the president of RRC. Dan’s wisdom and foresight rivals the difficulty one has spelling his name in magnitude.
Dan was asked to speak about theology and the differences between recon jews and humanists. He talked some about that but what i think will interest us Jewschoolers the most is what he said about the role of movements.
“Our goal is to build the institutions, organizations, options, etc that Jews need and want the most. We shouldn’t ask ‘is this process the most reconstructionst’, but rather is this process the best we can create. Rather than ask ‘is this model the most Kaplanian’, let’s ask if it’s the best we can do.”
Dan is an avowed builder of denominational life, he runs a major seminary, but to his credit he is saying that reconstructionism should be about best practices. Like any good reconstructionist he is committed to radical inclusion, communal process, and halacha having a strong vote rather than a veto. Beyond that though, he is articulating a very flexible approach that seeks to do things better and accross more divides, and without the abiding sense of turf.
I think this is a promising sign that JRF and RRC will work to help build bridges to our world. I’ll have more on that in the next few days.
by BZ · Monday, December 3rd, 2007
(Crossposted to Mah Rabu)
This will probably be the first of multiple posts about the Preliminary Findings from the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study (by the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute and Mechon Hadar), since everyone has something to say about it. The JTA and Ha’aretz have already run stories summarizing the results, so I’m going to focus on color commentary here. For the play-by-play, I recommend going to the report itself.
The survey organizers have said that this report is just the beginning, and that more detailed analysis will be released later, including data about individual communities. This is good news, because even though this survey provides valuable information about a demographic that has not been studied quantitatively before, the value of lumping Kol Zimrah and Darkhei Noam together into the same pool is still limited. I eagerly await the fuller results, so that we can read about the diversity among independent minyanim, just as we have now had a chance to see how their populations differ from synagogue populations.
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by LastTrumpet · Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
In non-Annapolis news, the Times this morning reports:
Without a building and budget, Tikkun Leil Shabbat is one of the independent prayer groups, or minyanim, that Jews in their 20s and 30s have organized in the last five years in at least 27 cities around the country. They are challenging traditional Jewish notions of prayer, community and identity.
In places like Atlanta; Brookline, Mass.; Chico, Calif.; and Manhattan the minyanim have shrugged off what many participants see as the passive, rabbi-led worship of their parents’ generation to join services led by their peers, with music sung by all, and where the full Hebrew liturgy and full inclusion of men and women, gay or straight, seem to be equal priorities.
Members of the minyanim are looking for “redemptive, transformative experiences that give rhythm to their days and weeks and give meaning to their lives,” said Joelle Novey, 28, a founder of Tikkun Leil Shabbat, whose name alludes to the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the world. It is an experience they are not finding in traditional Jewish institutions, she said.
In my mind, there’s nothing in the article most of us don’t already know, but hopefully publicity on this level will help the broader Jewish institutional world wake up a bit. That being said, while the Havurah movement has had notable impact on institutional Judaism, it is still around, and still countercultural. So who knows what the future will hold.
Full story.
by shamirpower · Sunday, October 28th, 2007
The country’s oldest community Jewish day school finally gives in and changes its name to satisfy a major donor. Read on to learn about the outcry of alumni:
At a private Jewish day school outside of Philadelphia, school long called Akiba Hebrew Academy, alumni are outraged about a donation from an alum that mandated a name change to an unrecognizable name tied to a concept foreign to what many of us learned at Akiba, a school where values used to come first.
Akiba is the oldest Jewish community day school in the United States. It has many distinguished alumni including individuals active across the religious and political spectrum in the American Jewish community and in Israel.
See the letter below signed by more than half of the class of ’71 as well as the response from the school which ignores both requests made in our letter and then asks for our financial support!
Considering the growing influence of individual donors in American Jewish life we thought your readers would also be interested in the Akiba story, one that well illustrates the pitfalls of modern-day fundraising for private Jewish schools and other institutions in the American Jewish community.
If you wish, several of people who signed the letter are available for interviews. Please respond to this e-mail with a request if you wish to speak to one or more of the alumni.
Thank you,
The Akiba Hebrew Academy Class of 1971
AkibaClassof71- at - a o l - dot - com
(original letter and response below)
More »
by YehuditBrachah · Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
For all you out there in the “Maybe Rabbis Club,” as my friends and I affectionately titled it (I left the club a few years later to join the “Future Rabbis Club”), now is the time to check out Hebrew College Rabbinical School.
I know I’ve written a little about the school and what we do, and I have a post I need to write about Art Green’s amazing convocation speech [you can listen to him talk about kabbalah on NPR's Fresh Air here], but here’s the deal: Hebrew College Rabbinical School is where the jam is. Seriously.
And for those of you contemplating service as your life path, but who might be nervous about lacking denominational affiliation, joining a new endeavor, job prospects, blah blah blah all the things I thought meant I couldn’t apply to Hebrew College, think again. It took major pushing from my mentor (you can see us celebrating her installation as Dean of the Rabbinical School below) to get me to apply, and now I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else to prepare myself to be a revolutionary in the empowerment-based, text-saavy, joyful, meaningful, creative, independent Jewish future I (and I suspect many of us) are working to build.
“What does a transdenominational rabbinical school look like?” many people wonder. It’s surprisingly simple. For those of us who have ever been to a pluiralistic Jewish retreat, gathering, or celebration, it looks like that. Period. People come, we learn together, we argue, we challenge, we try new things, and we are challenged to define our own spiritual and professional paths not according to denominational dogma but according to our own searching, through intensive education and with mentors and teachers from all backgrounds. It looks like any pluralistic day school, or yeshiva, or retreat. It looks like Limmud, it looks like National Havurah Institute, it looks like Jews in the Woods. Except all year long. And with common mission among students to change the world for the better and to bring about a new kind of Jewish communal life.
See for yourself. Come and learn with us, sing with us, pray with us, share with us.
Details on the flip. More »
by LastTrumpet · Saturday, August 25th, 2007
(Cross-posted to The Last Trumpet)
Tshuva, translated as repentance but literally meaning “return,” is, on the cognitive level, simply a return to what the Buddhists call Right View, or in the words of the popular Neo-Hasidic song, the “Return to Who you are.” It’s the shuv of ratzo v’shuv, running and returning — coming back to the Source, the undifferentiated Awareness that somehow gives birth to the cosmos. Running out into differentiation, with (for all but the most awakened of us) all its traps and delusions — but then, at special times in the year, returning. And from that place of unity, reflecting on the actions of the small self, observing how they may have caused harm, and attempting to repair the harm by reconnecting with other people and with God. - Jay Michaelson Full story.
A king once wanted to test the faith and love of his subjects. So he chose one of his closest servants, dressed him up as a great king and sent him out to declare war against his subjects. When the servant appearing as king met the first group and declared war, they immediately prepared themselves for the battle. When he came to the second group, they said “Since he is such a great king, why should we fight?” Finally, the faux king traveled farther until he came to a town of sages. The sages inquired deeply, until they were able to see through the disguise. (Sefer Toledot Ya’aqov Yosef, Va-yaqhel, see Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov, Bereishit, 141).
The meaning is that serious challenges that confront us are essentially tests of our faith in the non-dual nature of reality and our love and devotion to the divine source. Whenever we face these tests, there are basically three ways of responding. The two conventional responses are either to be overwhelmed by the challenge and to capitulate without a fight or to attempt to combat the problem with the rigidity of “fight or flight” mode. Although both of these conventional responses may be the best that we can do at certain stages in our development, neither will aid us very much in our conscious quest to further evolve. The third mode of dealing with such tests is the way of the wise, who have cultivated judges and executors (see previous parashah). In this way, one neither avoids nor rushes into combat, but sees through and dissolves the shell of separation from Divine Presence with the gnostic eye of faith. - Reb Miles Krassen Full Story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First, a little background - at LimmudNY in ‘06, my first dip into Jewish pluralism (and my first in-person connection to Jewschool), Chefitz made quite an impression. After we’d had an intense breakfast conversation about my possible future in the Rabbinate, I attended a workshop he was offering on Storytelling as a Mystical Discipline. Chefitz, who learned to tell stories from Carlebach, told stories through the four worlds, and I may have had my first serious mystical experience. The primary result was my enrolling in a course on Zohar taught by Arthur Green, the rector of the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, and a subsequent course on niggunim with Nehemia Polen, whose clearly had learned some of his love of niggunim from Reb Shlomo.
Back to the story - I shared Carlebach’s Gam Ki Eilech at NHC Shalosh seudos, which prompted Chefitz to tell Shlomo stories, and just before Havdallah, he explained to a small group of us that there were only three who came from pre-war Chassidism, had a deep understanding of the Jewish spiritual tradition, and had the chutzpah to share that openly with all of us maskilim: Those three were Shlomo, Zalman, and Heschel. Chefitz explained that in his mind, Hebrew College is maintaining that line - training Rabbis to carry on their legacy.
The following Shalosh seudos at Contemporary Kabbalah week at Elat Chayyim, Rabbi Miles Krassen, with whom I’d been studying The Future of Judaism & The Evolution of Consciousness all week, spoke about Elul and the process of Tshuvah. Check out his drash on the parsha for a taste of his style. Shabbos afternoon, at the culmination of a week of teaching, Reb Miles broke down the barrier between ego and Ein Sof - I’ve gotta say, it truly blew my mind. All week, we’d learned about the shift from a consciousness represented by the sefirah of Binah, which separates and differentiates (about orange/green in the spiral dynamics model) to Chochmah consciousness, a non-dual, integral way of being (2nd tier). Shabbos afternoon, as Reb Miles taught Likutei Moharan, I experienced for the first time what he had been talking about, if only for a brief moment.
I spent the better part of this last week (until I get sent home with poison ivy) singing with 130 teenagers at NFTY-NE Summer Institute (I tried to stay away from smooth jazz) - the organization that in my teenage years helped me understand the real power of music, and of the Jewish tradition. I served as a regional board member when I was in high school, and this summer a fellow board member and dear friend became regional director. All in all, four members of the nine-member board (and a member-by-marriage) were working to facilitate the retreat. Our advisor was also on faculty, and got to schep some more nachas (he already officiated at two of our weddings this summer). There was a sense of torch-passing, and I was thrilled to see the region finally in the hands of someone who remembers how much Torah we learned back in the day. The credit for our experiences goes to the individuals running the organization when we were members, but the movement provides the structure that made those experiences possible. For the past 11 years, NFTY-NE has been both my spiritual home and laboratory - and I get the feeling that many of these kids are tasting the next step in their evolution, and without that first taste, how can we know to want more?
At Shabbos dinner, I had a fascinating debate with a faculty member and Reform Rabbi on denominationalism and post-denominationalism, (it began as a conversation about the job prospects of the students in the Hebrew College Rabbinic program, to which I hope to apply in the near future primarily for the aforementioned reasons). In NFTY-NE I see room for growth (I suppose we can’t teach them to do everything), but I see sparks of holiness, and have faith in those guiding the region’s growth. In a non-dual world, that is to say if everything (and then some) is G!d, G!d is in the Reform movement too (and the other ones), at least for the time being. Judaism certainly has further to evolve, and I believe that denominationalism is resultant of Binah consciousness, that of separation and differentiation, and post-denominatiolism represents a step toward Chochmah, toward the unity that we acknowledge in the Sh’ma.
Reb Miles taught in the name of Rebbe Nachman that as we move to a higher madrega (level) there is always someone to step into our previous level. It is up to each of us to pass on each bit of soul-warming Torah, because once it’s stopped warming us, it’s ready to warm someone else, and that is how we will all grow together.
by BZ · Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
For almost three decades, the National Havurah Committee has been convening Summer Institutes to catalyze grassroots Jewish life across North America. Since 1985, the Institute, like any Jewish event of note, has produced an annual T-shirt. Each T-shirt features original artwork on that year’s Institute theme.
Fabric artist Amy Smith of Blue Feet Studio has created a quilt that incorporates 14 T-shirts from past Institutes, going all the way back to the first one in 1985:
This quilt will be raffled off at next week’s Institute and go to one lucky winner, but you don’t have to be present at Institute to enter and win. You can buy raffle tickets online until Wednesday, August 8, at midnight. Buy one, buy two, buy fifty, and take home a piece of artwork that encapsulates several decades of independent Jewish innovation.
by BZ · Sunday, June 17th, 2007
Independent minyanim/havurot/communities have been transforming American Judaism for 40 years, but there has been a particularly significant wave in the last few years, with new communities starting (it seems) every few weeks. There has not yet been a systematic study of the population of these independent Jewish communities, to gather data about who we are and what our values and concerns are. Mechon Hadar and the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute are now conducting such a survey, designed by sociologist Steven M. Cohen. You can participate in the survey at www.communitysurvey.info and share information about yourself and your community.
by LastTrumpet · Thursday, May 31st, 2007
From The Jewish Week:
Take Lynn and Gideon, for example. She says she grew up “tangentially” Jewish. “It was an ethnicity, like being Italian,” Lynn describes. Her family belonged to a Conservative synagogue that they attended on Yom Kippur only and as she puts it, “even that was considered an ordeal.” Gideon, on the other hand, grew up Orthodox, and went to an Orthodox day school.
So what kind of married home do they have now? “Post-denominational,” says Lynn, which means taking their practice from various traditions. “I’ve learned a lot while Gideon takes his education for granted,” Lynn explains, “so what we do or don’t do is really up to me.” Now they have Shabbat dinner together every Friday night and keep their home kosher, but not to the letter. “We have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” Lynn says.
But these aren’t just issues for Orthodox-Reform marriages. Even when a couple comes from the same Jewish denomination on paper, they can have a chasm between them. Ayala was raised on the observant end of the Conservative movement while her husband was raised at the other extreme. Ayala explained that her husband only “realizes now what a sacrifice and what a commitment” he made when, for example, he agreed to keep a kosher home.
In love and marriage among the Jews, then, even what’s kosher is a recipe for delicate compromise. But it’s heartening to see the spice and variety of Jewish life emerge from all the choices made by so many Jewish couples.
My fiance and I were both raised in the Reform movement, but we tend to have a rather different outlook on certain aspects Judaism and Jewish life. Finding a balance is a challenging process, yet one with great rewards. Just as it face-to-face encounters can help us with difficult geo-political divides, I can only hope that as this trend continues, perhaps we will be able to bridge some of the denominational boundaries of Jewish life, one marriage at a time.
Full story.
by BZ · Monday, May 21st, 2007
I already mentioned briefly that the Chicago area has completely taken over the leadership of American Reform Judaism’s professional organizations. Now it’s a cover story in the Chicago Jewish News:
For the next four years at least, the Chicago area is the center of power in the world of the American Reform rabbinate.
Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, spiritual leader of Beth Emet the Free Synagogue in Evanston, was recently installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the national organization of Reform rabbis, believed to be the oldest and largest rabbinic association in the world.
At the same time Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus, of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, was installed as vice president.
Knobel will serve two years, then Dreyfus will take over as president.
As long as records have been kept for the 118-year-old organization, this is the first time the two top leaders have been from the same city.
[...]
In addition to the two rabbinic leaders, two more Chicago-era individuals head national Reform movement organizations this year. Lori Sagarin, director of congregational learning at Temple Beth Israel in Skokie, is the president of NATE, National Association of Temple Educators. And Edward Alpert, executive director or Am Shalom in Glencoe, is the president-elect of NATA, National Association of Temple Administrators.
But this article is relevant for more than just Windy City boosterism (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Here are the key paragraphs:
In broad strokes, [Rabbi Dreyfus] says, she sees a clear division between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox streams, but within the non-Orthodox stream, “the question is how we define the differences between Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism. That’s one of the challenges Peter (Knobel) wants the movement to think about-are there differences that we can really articulate, and do they really matter?”
In the case of young people, she believes the answer is no. “I see a growing post-denominationalism” in a younger generation, she says. “The movement labels are totally irrelevant. How are we going to reach out as a movement to young people who have no interest in movements? that’s another challenge.”
One answer, she says, may lie in the chavurah (informal fellowship group) movement-her eldest son, among many others, identifies with it. “His cohort are less interested in institutional synagogues as they are in studying, celebrating, creating community. At this point we don’t know what will happen to them when they settle down and have children, but we don’t want to lose the best and the brightest because we have become irrelevant,” she says.
This message contrasts sharply with URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie’s statements railing against “postdenominationalism”. Rabbi Dreyfus’s message is one that I (and other Reform movement expats) have been waiting for years to hear from the official institutions of the Reform movement: a recognition that we have created meaningful Jewish lives outside the Reform institutions without abandoning our progressive Jewish values (i.e. the reason we’re not there isn’t because we’re not interested in Judaism), and an acknowledgement that we are missed and that our absence highlights an area where the movement falls short. Acknowledging the problem is the first step towards solving it, so the message we’re hearing from the new leadership portends good things for the future.
by Rooftopper Rav · Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
Who’s heading south (or north) to the National Havurah Committee (NHC) Chesapeake Retreat this Shabbat? Jewschool will represent. So far we’ve got BZ, Ruby K, Shamirpower, ZT, and yours truly. Who else is in?
There’ll be awesome classes, davening to blow the roof off, hikes, song sessions, a Jewish book swap, organic farming lessons, Talmud study, yoga, and a post-Shabbat klezmer jam. And it’s supposed to be 70 degrees on Saturday. What more could a funky Jew(ess) want?
by LastTrumpet · Sunday, March 18th, 2007
And when we might assert one thing is certain, inside my skin I know what’s what but everything outside me is mysterious and alien — these are two separate worlds — then we look at the tzitzit on the edges of our selves, we look at these fuzzy fringes made always of my own cloth and the Universe’s air, we look to see that not good fences but good fringes make good neighbors, we look at these threads of connection that bind us to each other and we pause at that moment to remember to remind ourselves… - Reb Arthur Waskow
Two looks at fringe-y Jew gatherings (because they’re the best kind):
via sevenfatcow: Today’s NYTimes takes a look at Chulent, an NY gathering described as existing on the fringes of orthodoxy. In addition to the gathering itself, there’s an attempt made to identify some of the reasons folks go “off the derech,” both historically and currently, and explores how the ‘net makes such gatherings of fringy-types all the more possible.
Outside, the streets were dark and empty except for a few taxis hurtling uptown. Inside, people beat on African drums, chain-smoked cigarettes, spoke Yiddish, drank beer, played electric guitars and sang old Hasidic songs at the top of their lungs, creating a mutant yet richly textured variation of the culture they grew up with. Young men wearing yarmulkes clutched one another’s shoulders and danced. A man and woman sat in a corner studying a volume of ancient text. Sholom Anarchy and his friends scrawled graffiti on a wall.
The energy was almost palpable. It was as if, inside a packed space in the middle of the night, this motley crowd had found a stop on their own private underground railroad.
Sounds fantastic - I’ll have to try to make it to the city for one of those. Any ’schoolers attend?
Over at MahRabu, Jewschool’s own BZ examines his first experience at Jews in the Woods with the kind of academic zeal and general thoroughness we’ve come to expect (plus, a self-referential hilchot pluralism check-list).
To discuss what JITW was like, I’m going to compare it … with two other Jewish retreats that I have attended a total of 9 times: the Hadar Shavuot Retreat and the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute. All involve spirited davening, learning, and community-building in a bucolic setting, all take place outside the major Jewish denominations, and all are organized mostly or entirely by volunteers.
BZ continues:
As different as they are, I should note that there is substantial overlap of participants among all three of these retreats (or certainly between any two of them). To be sure, each of them serves a population segment that is not represented in large numbers at the other two:
- JITW - people who won’t daven in egalitarian minyanim
- NHC - people over 40
- Hadar - people wearing suits or high heels
I wonder how Chulent might fit into the framework BZ has laid out. There were at least two folks at JITW with Orthodox smicha (Rabbinic ordination), one of whom sometimes dons the full chassidishe outfit, but I don’t know of anyone beyond that who might fit the description offered by the Times.
I’d have to say BZ’s post replaces Jay Michaelson’s piece in the Forward as the most comprehensive look at JITW to date, and given the flexibility of the medium, there’s a great mix of anecdotal and sociological observations.
I attended this past JITW with BZ, and my journey-mates on the way there had both recently attended their first Chulent. Are we all just attracted to fringes?
by zt · Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
Last year, I went to this retreat and thought it was great. In fact, it was so good that this year, the retreat will have a strong crew of Jewschoolers including Shamirpower, Ruby-K, BZ, Jo, RDL, and more. Here are the details:
Havurot and havurah-niks from throughout the Mid-Atlantic and beyond
will gather April 20-22 in Reisterstown Maryland
for a celebration of grassroots Jewish life.
If you’re planning to join us, please REGISTER this week:
http://www.havurah.org/other/ChesapeakeRegistration2007.pdf
We’ll learn Torah, including:
* Exodus from Egypt: What Really Happened? (Does it Matter?)
* Digitally Enhanced: Using Archaeology and Photography to Study Torah
* Globalization and Going Beyond the Letter of the Law
We’ll study words of prayer and songs of praise, including:
* Morning Prayers as a Spiritual Journey
* Sing! Sing! Sing!
* Dwelling in the House of the Lord: Re-examining the 23rd Psalm
We’ll share resources for building Jewish community:
* Havurah: Supportive Community, Spiritual Home
* Siddur Eit Ratzon: Getting to Know a New Prayerbook
* Jewish Book Swap
We’ll connect adam and adamah, people and planet:
* Mayim Hayim: A Jewish Approach to Water & Human Rights
* Visit the new organic farm & greenhouse at Pearlstone Retreat Center
* Seed-saving Workshop
* Family Hike
* Rhapsody in Green
* Kids’ Havurah: Night Hike
* Kids’ Havurah: The Nutrient Cycle on a Jewish Farm
* Ride with “Team Havurah” in Hazon’s DC Jewish Environmental Bike Ride
Come share Shabbat in familiar and new ways with your whole family,
and with new and old friends. Children and teens are most welcome!
Please take a moment to print and send your form:
http://www.havurah.org/other/ChesapeakeRegistration2007.pdf
Looking forward!
Joelle Novey & Blaine Saito
chesapeake-retreat {at} havurah(.)org
