Between the fall of 2009 and the summer of 2010, Synagogue 3000’s Next Dor initiative inaugurated four experiments in engaging congregationally unaffiliated adults Jews in their 20s and 30s. They were set in widely scattered locations across the United States (Washington, DC; St. Louis; Marin County, CA; and Miami Beach). All four adhered to the Next Dor philosophy of providing relational engagement rather than just a series of unrelated programs; but they differed significantly from one another. This report briefly follows each one’s trajectory. It analyzes the demographic characteristics of each site’s appeal, demonstrates significant Jewish growth in all four instances, and urges an expansion of the relational approach as a successful means of long-term engagement.
Download the full reportby Shira Kline
Everything has a vibration or a frequency. From the molecules to the mountains, from the rocks to rock n’ roll, from our quiet to our not so quiet thoughts and feelings. Kirtan chant master, Rigani, explains, “We all resonate at different frequencies, and these frequencies change according to what we are doing and thinking. So when we are all doing the same thing–chanting, breathing, and moving to the same rhythms–our vibrations begin to synchronize and the resulting experience is very powerful.” This is a one-of-a-kind feeling.
Sometimes we sense synchronized frequencies in our gut. “I really like that guy’s vibe,” or, “Hmmm, there’s something off here.” And sometimes it’s more distinct, like when you’re tuning a guitar. The feeling of it being out of tune is actually the strings’ sound waves bumping into each other, not lining up. So you adjust the tuning pegs until the waves align and then, ahhh, no more dissonance, rather harmony, unison. And you breathe a little better. And your shoulders relax a tiny bit. And you may even smile. Or you may cry. Either way, something opens up and something inside you is moved.
I want to talk more about this “alignment.” When we come together and sing, our voices, our buzzing vocal chords, our rhythmic starts and stops and our harmonies, these vibrations align and we can feel it. Add in kavanah or heart intentions. We feel it in our bodies; it becomes a physical thing. And it’s a unique kind of feeling because it bypasses the intellect entirely. So rather than leading to our mind where we qualify and judge and question all of our feelings, we are led to a whole different plane of feeling. This is the feeling of alignment, or oneness, with the people around us. The more conscious we are of this feeling, the more at one we are with ourselves. And the more conscious we are of being at one with our selves and one another, the more we are at One with God and all of creation. And for me this is the same “Echad” that we are referencing when we sing the Sh’ma.
And we didn’t have to do much to get here! All it requires is a release, letting our guard down and opening up to these feelings. Easier said than done, I suppose.
I want people to sing out loud together. I believe it is one of the singularly most successful ways to bring an entire group of strangers together. The problem is that as a performer and worship leader, I’ve learned that asking people to sing out loud, especially people in their 20s and 30s and especially during worship, can be like asking them to take off their clothes, their killer boots, all of the things that they dress themselves in, their cover up, their “this is how I fit into my culture” jacket, and get naked.
I met Michael in a tattoo studio a few weeks ago. He had chosen an incredible art piece for his back that would remind him of his life story and honor the memory of his mother. He’s a doctor, a busy modern guy. He asked me, “What do you do for a living?” I start to explain my work with sacred music and story, ritual, prayer, song leading, etc. Michael looks at me with wide eyes. He has never talked about religious-type stuff with someone in his own generation that he could so easily relate to. It turns out, like so many people I meet, Michael very much desires to have spirituality in his life. “I’d love to experience it [meaningful prayer and sacred practice] but I just can’t connect to it. I don’t know how,” he says quietly.
“Yes, you do!” I want to shout out excitedly. God, spirituality, is right here. It is not anywhere else. And it is yours for the taking! Don’t be afraid of it.
For many, spirituality or connecting with God is a foreign thing only some people know how to do. It’s a kind of complex act that requires some kind of difficult vocabulary and ability. It seems unfamiliar and scary. Opening up, being one’s most authentic, exposed and vulnerable self, for sure can be daunting. And for being this true, the reward is great.
We are all seeking peace, balance and real connection in our lives. Singing allows us to experience release and feel this as Divine presence. I believe that when we sing out together, the simple nature of this act aligns us with our self, with our community and with God. It is our fears that keep us separate. Music is a way to walk through our fears together.
Every year for the High Holidays, I have the joy of leading services with my good friend and colleague Amichai Lau Lavie. In a popular NYC music venue, hundreds of strangers come together as a temporary congregation. Our service is a remix of traditional liturgy and chazzanut with story, live music and prayers, revisited in modern conversation. While the intellectual and emotional journey of atoning is always powerful, it is definitely the singing throughout that allows people to close their eyes and soar. When we’re singing, we can cry, shout, laugh, listen, and connect.
Any time we sing out together, we come together. All opportunities to sing together are devotional. For the stranger who walks into the room, regardless of her level of knowledge or desire to participate, if there is devotional music present then she will feel it. It is palpable. And if deep down she is feeling afraid of sacred experience, of making contact with others and herself, then this might just be the “vibe” that she needs most and will be drawn to again and again.
As a worship leader, I want to create a space for this connection. I want to say, “You are welcome to walk in this door and join in song.” When we offer music as a way to align with each other, that’s it! There’s nothing better. And in fact isn’t that what Synagogue 3000’s Next Dor is seeking? To create a sense of belonging for the next generation of Judaism. It is essential that we continue to build this connection especially in a time of privacy settings and reality TV. Singing together isn’t just a feel good tactic, its one of the greatest gifts and most powerful tools in our ancient toolbox.
Congratulations to S3K team members Larry Hoffman and Steven Cohen, and S3K colleagues Isa Aron and Ari Kelman for their book Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary, chosen 2010 Jewish Book Council winner for best book in the Education and Jewish Identity category.
The book, largely a study of the synagogue transformation movement over the last 15 years, is about eight synagogues that reached out and helped people connect to Jewish life in a new way – congregations that had gone from commonplace to extraordinary. Over a period of two years, researchers Aron, Cohen, Hoffman, and Kelman interviewed 175 synagogue leaders and a selection of congregants (ranging from intensely committed to largely inactive). They found these congregations shared six traits: sacred purpose, holistic ethos, participatory culture, meaningful engagement, innovation disposition, and reflective leadership and governance.
Orders yours from Amazon.com
The Synagogue 3000 family joins the community in mourning the death of our friend and teacher Debbie Friedman.
When we began Synagogue 2000 in 1995, we invited Debbie to become one of the original Synagogue 2000 Fellows, teaching at our conferences and sharing her inimitable spirit with our synagogue transformation teams. As the pioneer of what Rabbi Les Bronstein has called “a new American nusach,” we were thrilled to welcome Debbie as one of our colleagues.
Debbie loved teaching…and learning. At our very first conference in Ojai, California, Debbie overhead B’nai Jeshurun’s Rabbi Roly Matalon and Hazzan Ari Priven teaching our Director of Music and Liturgical Arts Merri Arian, a new melody to Psalm 150 they had heard from Amichai Lau-Lavie. They had introduced the melody to their congregation just a week earlier. In turn, Merri taught the melody to the entire conference at our daily song session. When Roly and Ari modeled their Kabbalat Shabbat service later that week, they ended the worship with “Hallelu”…and the chapel erupted with spirit, song and dance.
If anyone recognized a great melody, it was Debbie. She began to include “Hallelu” in her repertoire…and the rest is history.
In 2001, our Los Angeles city-wide celebration of synagogue life called “Hallelu!” featured a who’s who of musical talent: Neshama Carlebach, Danny Maseng, Rick Recht, Merri Arian, Theodore Bikel, Craig Taubman, a choir of local cantors, and, to close the celebration, we turned to Debbie. More than 5,000 clergy and lay leaders from across the denominations crowded the Universal Amphitheatre for this tribute to synagogues. When we sponsored “Hallelu Atlanta” a few years later, once again we called on Debbie to culminate the sold-out experience, bringing 3,500 people in the Fox Theatre to their feet in a joyous celebration of synagogue transformation.
Debbie loved teaching and she loved people. She had the gift of creating an instant bond with her “students.” Once her music became so universally recognized, her appearances became more like folk rock concerts, everyone singing along on every song. Except one. When Debbie began singing her Mi Shebeirach and the crowd began to sing, Debbie would gently hush them. “Don’t sing,” she would whisper. “This is for you.” What a gift she gave us in that moment.
Debbie will be remembered by many for her music. We will remember her as a beloved colleague who supported our work to bring spirit and soul into synagogue worship. May her memory always be a blessing…and “let us say, Amen.”
The S3K team
test
Nita (Hebrew for, “We will plant, we will grow”) is an experiment in “doing Jewish” differently. As one of Synagogue 3000’s Next Dor pilots, Nita has spent the last year plus creating a new model of community led by Rabbi Noa Kusher who describes her rabbinate as “… one part sales, one part emunah (faith), and one part chutzpah – a stubborn refusal to give up on my generation of Jews.”
In this S3K report, Kushner reflects on the creation of Nita and its development over the last year. If we do Jewish differently, what does it mean to be a member? How do new communities pay their way? What’s in store for the future?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc,
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc,
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc,
The original posting of this column is from Sightings, a project of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
David Gottlieb is a PhD student in the History of Judaism at the Divinity School. He is also co-founder and executive director of Full Circle Communities, Inc., a philanthropic nonprofit developer of affordable housing and provider of supportive services. Additionally, David is a board member of Synagogue 3000.
In an attempt to address the well-documented and growing gulf between the economic fortunes of the rich and poor–and almost in tandem with the onset of the recession and the collapse of the housing market–Rabbi Jill Jacobs published a book on the Jewish imperative to practice tikkun olam, or repairing the world, as seen through both rabbinic and contemporary activist perspectives. The book, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law & Tradition, affords an intimate look at what Rabbi Jacobs calls “a de facto pillar of progressive Judaism.” In this book and other writings, by unfolding some of the phrase’s shades of meaning, Rabbi Jacobs works to reveal how tikkun olam refers not only to our relationship to the physical world but also to establishing an unceasing commitment to spiritual sensitivity and religiously-based moral and ethical development. Although it may be too late to rescue the term tikkun olam from overuse, it is still valuable to begin to understand its many and nuanced meanings.
Rabbi Jacobs is rabbi-in-residence at Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ), a progressive organization dedicated to “build[ing] a resurgent movement for justice with a significant Jewish presence at its center.” JFJ is part of a broad movement in contemporary American Judaism, in which tikkun olam takes on the practical tasks and commitments of social action. The Jewish social justice movement, of which JFJ is at the vanguard, sees the pursuit of economic justice as a contemporary articulation of the rabbinic imperative to go beyond the letter of Choshen Mishpat, or Jewish civil law, in working in partnership with God to repair Creation. Jacobs believes that “Jews should openly bring Jewish text and experience into public policy discussions.” Doing so is a means of upholding a central covenantal commitment while expressing Jewish identity in a modern manner.
The term tikkun olam was used by the rabbis who compiled the Mishnah (the comprehensive compendium of rabbinic teaching compiled circa 200 C.E. and comprising a major portion of the Talmud). It refers to laws designed to afford extra protection to the disadvantaged. The term took on a different meaning in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah: the followers of the sixteenth-century Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria saw tikkun olam as a kind of cosmic repair of God’s fractured creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, to which Rabbi Jacobs refers, the shards from shattered vessels of creation have trapped divine energy and human souls which must be restored to their divine Source through prescribed mystical and contemplative acts.
In its contemporary context, tikkun olam is often used as an umbrella term for any form of Jewish social action. The Kabbalistic imperative to address mystical imbalance is either folded into the work that seeks to address social imbalance, or elided altogether. This has led to a kind of “tikkun olam fatigue,” tempting many Jews to retire the term from both the activist and mystical lexicons.
In an article on the history of the term, Rabbi Jacobs notes its ubiquity and its concomitant devaluation: “I have come across puzzling references to the ‘prophetic value of tikkun olam’ or ‘the commandment of tikkun olam.’ As a post-biblical term, tikkun olam neither appears in a prophetic book nor constitutes one of the mitzvot. However, as this concept has come to be equated both with a general call to justice, and with specific philanthropic and volunteer activities, the definition of tikkun olam has been merged with those of tzedakah (financial support of the poor), g’milut hasadim (acts of loving kindness), and tzedek (justice).”
Rather than advocating tikkun olam’s retirement, Rabbi Jacobs promotes a diverse and sustainable four-fold definition: “the anticipation of the divine kingdom in the Aleynu prayer; the midrashic (homiletic or interpretive) call to preserve the physical world; the rabbinic desire to sustain the social order; and the Lurianic belief in our power to restore divine perfection.” Such a definition would inform the Jewish social justice movement with both social and spiritual goals, encouraging the practice of world-healing in as inclusive and just a manner as possible.
References
Jill Jacobs, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law & Tradition (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Press, 2009).
—. “The History of ‘Tikkun Olam’,” Zeek, June 2007.
Parashat Vayera
Our usual mirrors are flat (or “plane”) – they provide a true reflection of ourselves. Sometimes, however, it is instructive to consult the concave variety that turns us upside down. Torah is such a concave mirror when it provides models so opposite to us that we learn to abandon destructive paths we are on, before they lead to disaster.
Such a concave image comes from this week’s story of the akedah (the binding of Isaac). As father and son travel toward their mutual moment of doom – “one to slaughter and the other to be slaughtered” (as the midrash puts it) – we hear twice that “the two of them went on together.” The first time, says Rashi, Isaac does not yet know that he is the sacrificial victim. It is a preconscious moment when, by default, not determination, a father and son walk on together – it is their normal way of being. By the second time, however, Isaac’s fate has dawned on him. But Isaac does not bolt; he stays the course. Now, father and son (the first two generations of Jews) make a conscious decision “to go on together.” According to tradition, Abraham was aging at the time; and Isaac was 37 years old.
The Akedah is an upside-down image of ourselves. We too have an aging population (the baby boomers) and a generation in its thirties (their children). But the similarity stops there. Unlike Abraham and Isaac who “went on together,” our two generations are at ideological loggerheads. The baby-boomer parents built Federations, supported synagogues, shunned intermarriage, and erected denominational divisions. They see salvation in Israel, suspect spirituality, and appreciate the eastern-European ethnicity of their own parents and grandparents. Not so the next generation. According to sociologist Steven Cohen, young Jewish adults in their 20s and 30s find their parents’ institutional life “alienating, boring, coercive, and divisive.” Young Jewish adults are accepting of intermarriage. They have little or no preference for Jewish friends. They prefer universal causes of social justice (albeit, sometimes, under Jewish auspices) over Federation-supported causes for the Jewish People alone. They consider Israel a problem, not a solution. They have no patience for denominational wrangling. They are in search of meaning, not ethnic solidarity. They do not ask how to be Jewish but why be Jewish at all. They do not join much, certainly not synagogues.
Synagogues have most to lose or to gain from this situation, and much of our future depends on whether synagogues can rise to the occasion and become relevant to next-generation Jews. Their grandparents (the parents of the baby boomers, that is) joined synagogues out of civic obligation – it was what one did. The baby-boomer parents joined too, but for utilitarian reasons: to educate children and provide them with a bar or bat mitzvah. It is not clear why, or even whether, next-generation Jews will join at all – unless, of course, synagogues become less “alienating, boring, coercive, and divisive.”
Synagogues had better do so, because America is a uniquely congregational culture: it was founded with religious congregational identity at its core – and the last thirty years have only intensified that centrality. If America’s synagogues go under, so too will America’s Jews. Our next-generation problem and our synagogue problem are inextricably intertwined.
Ironically, Abraham and Isaac almost colluded in the Jewish People’s demise! God had to stay the hand of Abraham the executioner. In reverse mirror imagery, it is the inability of today’s Abrahams and Isaacs to collude in anything at all that threatens the Jewish future. And it is not clear that God cares to intervene a second time. The question boils down to whether we, like Abraham and Isaac, can reverse course and “go on together.”
In our preconscious default mode, we went merrily about our institutional agendas without regard for the eventual generational turnover. But our Isaacs are turning 37; the turnover is imminent! In this moment of dawning consciousness, we can choose to change direction.
That change has begun. This very month, for example, synagogues from around the country and across denominations are meeting to discuss a non-denominational outreach to next-generation Jews, what Synagogue 3000, the convener of the conference, calls Next Dor (next “generation”). Synagogues will be asked to collaborate across denominational lines; to temper their traditional child-orientation that only alienates young adults who may have no children, and who (in any event) seek spiritual enrichment for themselves; and to invest in young rabbis who take Judaism into the bars and coffeehouses where young Jews gather, without demanding synagogue affiliation in return.
Filled with aging Abrahams, these synagogues will be announcing to today’s Isaacs that they do indeed want to “go on together.”
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman
Professor Steven Cohen wrote a very intriguing article explaining what he’s learning about my generation of Jews: the 30-something post-Boomer up and coming leaders of the Jewish community. What makes this generation so different from the one ahead of us? What’s new and different these days?
Cohen explains that there are four major trends he sees in today’s Jewish young adults:
- Many engaged Jews under the age of forty emphasize, more than their elders and predecessors, Jewish purpose. They have… expanded social justice activities, engaged in various cultural endeavors, undertaken Judaic learning singly and in groups, and established a powerful and significant presence on the Internet and other new media.
- They express much-diminished sensitivity to matters of external threats to Jews, Judaism, Israel, and the Jewish people. Intermarriage, anti-Semitism, Israel’s security, and campaigns to delegitimize Israel may strongly motivate older engaged American Jews. But such issues excite relatively little resonance among their younger counterparts.
- Affiliation with a particular movement – denominational, ideological, or otherwise – is less prevalent for the younger generation of engaged American Jews. Conventional belonging to anything, not just things Jewish, is neither automatic nor self-justifying.
- Engaged young Jewish adults resist what they see as coercive expectations. They see once widely accepted normative standards – such as in-marriage and support of Israel – as optional, tentative, and, at best, a means to expressing higher Jewish purpose.
As Tevye said to his wife in Fiddler on the Roof, “it’s a new world, Golda.” And that was a long time ago… Imagine how surprised they’d be to see what Judaism looks like today.
Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman
Find the full article, Highly Engaged Young American Jews: Contrasts in Generational Ethos, Interview with Steven M. Cohen