Community: Education

October 15, 2009 at 1:14 pm (community)
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I have taken on the role of leading (with another fellow) the “Adult Learning Committee” as it is named.

One of the questions that has been asked is “why is it when the temple puts on all these cool educational opportunities does the same 30 people always show up? Why is it that no one else comes?”

This is an interesting question about community. When you have a large group of people that affiliate with a synagogue or other organization, how do get people to come? There are plenty of reasons and excuses of why people do not take on these educational opportunities. However, this little committee really cannot answer the question of what it is that the community is looking for?

What if they stopped providing these educational programs would people notice? We do not know.

So what I have asked the people on the committee to do is go out and talk to five people. I want them to start with finding out what the persons relationship to Judaism is. I want to where are people coming from? What is the context of their lives?

From here we will start mapping out what people are interested in. What I am positing is that this process of listening will help define what kind of things we should be offering to bring more people in? How? I think the future will emerge from these conversations and we can look backwards at today and say “what do we need to do to move us toward where people want us to be?”

I think we should be able to get every adult involved in a learning opportunity over the year. My guess is that is around 1000 people.

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Local or Anywhere

July 6, 2008 at 8:51 pm (Uncategorized)
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Where should the community members come from? Are they only local? What would things look like if you assumed they came from anywhere in the world? Could you provide community and guidance to people all over the world? Could they participate in our community and Daven locally?

We should be able to provide an online version of many of the communal aspects of a synagogue. If the organization can provide service for community such as Torah study, social action, meditation and prayer online, then the requirements to come to the synagogue become less. So what does this kind of membership model look like? Do you switch to a pay for service model?

Think of how many things we could offer and tie together under one umbrella. Provide the opportunity for people to learn and become more deeply involved in their Jewish experience.

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Community: Different Time and Place

July 2, 2008 at 8:05 am (Uncategorized)
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If the synagogue was the center of community life for so long and the barriers to leaving that are now gone, how do we keep community?

Jewish life has always been defined by community. Many rituals require at least 10 Jews (minyan) to make it legit. While you live close or have enough people in an area who are available on call a minyan is possible. What do we do going forward if people do not live near or are not available at the right time?

Reform Judaism threw many of the traditions out that required a minyan. As long as the synagogue was there and there was a place for you to go to pray or to say Kaddish that was good enough. Since it is harder to get people together in one place at one time should we just throw all the communal obligations out? It would be easier. Would it provide the spiritual life needed?

Given this new world there needs to be a multiplicity of approaches to meet the different needs of the community. Activities online that help one study or focus introspectively on one’s own behavior can go along way to help individuals that are not close or do not have time to go to temple. Perhaps even individually led prayer sessions online. Recorded prayers and ninguns for further spiritual connection. Much of this could be facilitated through communities online. Rabbi Uzi from CA teaches courses through teleconference. Alan Morinis leads mussar discussions via yahoo groups, conferences, and classes. Each of these create distributed asynchronous communities. Should any of these be incorporated into temple life? Should temples be locating these as other avenues of Jewish community building?

All the tools that have removed the friction have created a quandary for traditional synagogues. Does the synagogue march forward with the dedicated small group that comes to temple and attends the functions? Do they offer alternatives for those who do come? Given these asynchronous lives temples need to focus on multiple avenues and encourage more small groups functioning within the community as a whole.

Since people can find interesting things through many alternate means the synagogue should be looking to make ritual and spiritual connection more meaningful and more intense. Like going to a spa or a retreat, people should come to the temple for a respite. This should not be one program created to fit everyone but focused times around people’s spiritual needs. How about intense sessions of prayer as meditation? Chanting? Silence?  Should these even go on in the temple?

For Shabbat, why not focus on an exotic experience with music, food and drinks. Have this in a home, restaurant, or the temple. People can recline and be comfortable. Have an experience where people hang out, talk and challenge themselves. Make it something remarkable, something people want to talk about.

Now that there is less of reason to come to temple what do we do? How do we build community?

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Marking Time

June 2, 2008 at 5:15 am (Uncategorized)
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My weeks are long. I put 100% into my week. I have a wife and 2 children. I work full time, have a side project and am taking Meah (Jewish studies classes). 100s of emails, tons of calls and meetings galore, the week is hectic. When Friday comes I am ready.

I have always enjoyed the end of the week. In recent years, with the children, the change to the weekend never seemed to come. Before children we would have a relaxing Friday night and sleep in on Saturday and make a lazy weekend of it. With children the wake up call still is around 6:30 maybe 7. Shortly after they want to go downstairs and have breakfast. There went the hanging out in bed.

We started a new tradition in our house more than a year ago that I never understood. It seemed so old and religious. Now we do it every Friday night. We have a Shabbat dinner. We start off with lighting the candles, giving blessing over the wine and another over the Challah (or another yummy bread).

I never realized the power of lighting those candles and saying the blessings. Then one weekend after several weeks of doing Shabbat we were not able to do the new routine. The weekend was a flurry. I went to work and did not know what hit me. I did not feel like I left.

Lighting the candles and saying the blessings are a physical marker. They define the space between the week and weekend. It is fabulous. The brain registers this and a marker is placed. Now the weekend can begin.

Try it. Do Shabbat dinner for 3 weeks. Get past the awkward beginning. Enjoy the marker in time. Enjoy your weekend.

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