Indie Minyanim, the Community, and Beyond
This was written on Monday, November 10 from the Independent Minyan Conference. Due to our server problems, it was never published.
Walking home from Kol Zimrah on Friday, one of my roommates asked me how minyanim were viable in the long term, and how they contributed to the larger community. And here I am, sitting in a panel that answers her question.
Our independent organizations do not strive to be everything for everyone’s Jewish journey. Most do one thing, and strive to do that one thing well. Be that great davening at an indie minyan, or comfortable and inclusive mikvah experiences. By working with other singularly, or narrowly, focused organizations, we can find our needs met across a variety of venues, each doing what it does best.
From the prospective of a Hillel director on the panel, he sees Hillels as indie minyan stepping stones (my words, not his). Students arrive at college and, on a campus with a large Jewish population, have the opportunity to explore different davening styles than they had at home, be that stylistic changes (musical, meditative, etc.) or different denominations. They can explore and expand their knowledge of Jewish services and Judaism as a whole. Then, during that elusive stage of post-college/pre-married-with-kids, they can participate in our minyanim instead of falling off the map entirely. This is, after all, the demographic that synagogues have little success with. So why not give them the tools to form their own communities, fit in with already established indie communities?
… And taking advantage of this post not having been published as originally planned:
The JTA reported on the conference.
Most minyanim cluster around a point on the ideological spectrum between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, finding a number of innovative ways to balance an egalitarian impulse with an otherwise traditional prayer service.
One of the things I found problematic with the conference is related to this excerpt: Despite inviting minyanim such as Kol Zimrah and Tikkun Leil Shabbat, the conference seemed to focus only on traditional egalitarian, Conservative, and Orthodox (and anywhere in between and amongst) minyanim that were started around 2001 and later. Yes, there was a panel discussion on the history of the movement (which was great, by the way, and I really wish it had been a plenary session that everyone attended first thing in the morning so that it could have influenced the day’s sessions), but the sessions seemed to narrowly define the movement – er, scene – in terms of age and/or discontinuity from previous generations’ minyanim and havuros along with the style of davening. Very little was mentioned of havuros; the first reference I heard was in the afternoon’s history of workshop. And does anyone know why the NHC wasn’t involved in this?
I was also saddened that the minyan conference didn’t include more havurahs. I feel like we are breaking away from established synagogues–just like people did before us–and all minyanim and havurot won’t end up in the same place, but it would have been useful to have more people there from communities that had started forty years ago in addition to those that started four years ago.
How prevalent are Havurot today? Are they really a significant part of the recent independent movement (as opposed to the one in say, the 1960s and 70s)?
LB-
It’s hard to answer these questions, because (as has been discussed before) the semantic distinction between “minyan” and “havurah” is not well-defined.
chococynic writes:
I feel like we are breaking away from established synagogues–just like people did before us
“Breaking away from” suggests that we were part of the established synagogues to begin with. I went to a synagogue growing up, but have never belonged to one as an adult, and many other independent minyan/havurah participants are in the same boat.
I don’t know why exactly NHC groups weren’t involved, but I can take a guess.
I think there is a real difference between havurot (NHC-style) and minyanim (Hadar-style). NHC is already in place to nurture the havurot with an annual conference. Hadar is trying to come in and create a similarly nurturing conferences for the much more traditional minyan crowd.
David,
Gotta disagree with you there. First, I don’t think there are that many differences- would you call communities like Kol Zimrah or TLS “havuros” or “minyanim”? There are communities of all different kinds out there, and how old a havurah or minyan is not necessarily the determining factor of whether or not a prayer group davens a certain way- is Romemu a minyan or havurah? how about minyan ma’at?
Having participated in several different kinds of communities, i think there are a lot of challenges in common for independent communities and there’s a lot of information to share out there. I don’t think these need to be mutually exclusive discussions.
David writes:
I don’t know why exactly NHC groups weren’t involved, but I can take a guess.
I think feygele’s question wasn’t about “NHC groups” (since there is no category of formal affiliation with the NHC), but about the NHC itself, as an organization.
Ruby K writes:
Gotta disagree with you there. First, I don’t think there are that many differences- would you call communities like Kol Zimrah or TLS “havuros” or “minyanim”? There are communities of all different kinds out there, and how old a havurah or minyan is not necessarily the determining factor of whether or not a prayer group davens a certain way- is Romemu a minyan or havurah? how about minyan ma’at?
And, for that matter, what about the West Side Minyan or the Highland Park Minyan (which are standard examples of ’70s-style havurot, and have “minyan” in their names)?
I have a beef about this: the NHC wasn’t involved because the NHC doesn’t want to be a central convener of minyanim/havurot. It wants to be a central place of it’s culture and hasn’t been interested beyond a few voices in taking a leadership role within the Jewish community.
In the growing gray space of independent communities, there is no leader. And so Hadar has stepped up to organize and promote this phenomenon.
Despite having what I would call “first mover advantage” in this market, I feel the NHC is missing the boat.
Missing the boat? I keep hearing from many people involved in indy minyanim that they see the constellation of options as a “scene” and not a “movement.” Encouraging everyone to latch on to a central organization, having conferences about where you’ve come from and where you’re going, establishing principles… that begins to sound much more like a movement to me.
Personally, it doesn’t matter to me if the scene becomes a movement or not, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with NHC or anyone else choosing not to facilitate that.
Encouraging everyone to latch on to a central organization, having conferences about where you’ve come from and where you’re going, establishing principles… that begins to sound much more like a movement to me.
Obviously the second one is happening, but are the first and third?
Older indepenent minyanim explicitly weren’t invited. I know at least one havurah was told that it was not welcome because it was “not emerging,” despite being very much an independent minyan interested in participating in the discussion. “Not emerging,” I suppose, was code for “not sufficiently young and hip;” that lost the conference a good many friends from the havurot, and I think probably puts them at risk of wasting much time reinventing wheels.