By Burt Jacobson
Many of us carry with the image of a time in the past when Jews had a home, a community where life was integral and whole, where the spirit mattered, and one's daily actions related to something ultimate. Now that time is gone, and we find ourselves longing for something precious that has been lost.
And yet, we know that if the shtetl could be magically replicated once again, we would not choose to live in it. We are of a new age, formed by social and cultural forces which our great-grandparents could never have envisioned. And these forces have, for better or worse, radically altered Jewish life, making it irrevocably modern.
Perhaps our longing itself is a mirage, an illusory search for the childhood we never had, for the Edens of all mythology. Living in the complexities and uncertainties of the twentieth century, at times we long for a return to a more simple and integral life. Yet when we reflect on Jewish history, we know that our romantic image of the traditional community needs to be balanced against the darker underside of that life: the inequalities of social and sexual station, the meanness of poverty, and the impotence that lead to harassment and slaughter.
But even with these shadows hovering over our lives, it is nevertheless true that the quality of our ancestors' faith gave them something that we, living in an age of greater individual freedom, seem to be missing. There was a sense of holy community, of ultimate meaning and destiny, of rootedness in an infinite past, of the centrality of moral imperatives, of the privilege of being a Jew. And there was hope and confidence in the future, no matter how dismal the present.
The modern forms of Judaism which have attempted to replace the traditional community seem to work for some people. But for many Jews these forms have failed. The synagogues are not alone to blame for this; authentic religion is a rarity in an age dominated by a secular ethos. Nonetheless, I would maintain that the majority of existing religious institutions have failed to come to grips with the challenges facing them. The liberal synagogue, on the one hand, offers a Judaism that is comfortable and perhaps intellectually cogent, but leaves the heart unchallenged and cold. The traditional synagogue, while more passionate, presents us with a parochial religiosity that neither understands nor honors our hesitancies and our searching, let alone our commitment to humanity at large.
It is impossible in our day to turn the clock backwards, to recapture the spiritual grandeur of much of Jewish life in the past. That life was based on certain sociological conditions and theological premises which no longer exist. But I do believe that it may be possible in our time to create a new form of American Judaism, one that might nurture our lives in some profound ways, integrating wisdom from the past with the best values and ideals of contemporary living, and aiming toward a vision of the future based on our knowledge of the potential of the human spirit.
Our ideal is a Judaism that would bring together in an integral fashion the personal and the communal, the mystical and the intellectual, the moral and the political. We are seeking to create a religious perspective which is at once imaginative and passionate, as well as clear-sighted and rational.
At the conclusion of her eloquent and moving book Generation Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America, Anne Roiphe tries to imagine the kind of Judaism that might bring her and other Jews back to a sense of connectedness with the Jewish community and with the synagogue:
Perhaps there is a kind of Reform Judaism that exists or can be created that would be: (1) Serious and genuinely intellectual (not a version of Judaism to play golf players in suburbia). (2) Political...., that is to say in active opposition to human suffering of all kinds, in active relation to not just Soviet Jews, but Cambodians, Afghans, blacks, and others. (3) A Judaism that creates a new emphasis on the heroic Judaic tradition and not the lachrymose one. It must not engender a sense of helplessness or victim mentality. (4) Liberal, tolerant, and unafraid of or threatened by other Jews' ways of doing things or other people's. (5) Deeply tribal but without the exclusivity, the snobbism, the clannishness that deprives one of the outside world... Intellectually able to maintain a dialogue with all the major spiritual contributors of the time, to be universal without losing the pleasures of the particular. (6) Can there be a truly nonpatriarchal Judaism? Can teh new attitudes towards women be infused into centuries of prejudice? It is in the Jewish tradition for the Jewish tradition to change, so perhaps! Is it possible to find a Reform Judaism that doesn't erode before the materialism and mediocrity of this country?I will start looking for this kind of Judaism.
(pp. 218-219)
I identified strongly with Roiphe's quest. To her list I would want to add several other key elements that I consider essential: (7) An environment where serious spiritual - not just intellectual - searching and experimentation is nurtured and supported. By spiritual I mean, in part, the process of inner unfolding that leads to self-knowledge, and hopefully, to a growing relationship between the self and the Mystery we call God. (8) A focus on face-to-face community where people come to know, like and trust one another, and are able to openly share their griefs and joys, receiving support from others when they need it. (9) Religious services which provide not only a warm sense of shared community, but may open a window into the mystery of God. (10) Some worship and celebratory activities that bring youngsters and adults together; other worship and celebratory activities designed for specific age groups. (11) Creative artists and other individuals in the congregation should be encouraged to enhance religious services through visual, aural and kinetic modes of expression. (12) Serious ongoing encounter with the sources of Jewish religious and moral living as found in the great books of Judaism. (13) A school for youngsters that emphasizes knowledge of the tradition, excellence in teaching, small classes and personal relationships between teachers and students, and parental involvement in the learning process. (Kehilla school already exists and is based on these principles). (14) Although membership in the congregation would be open to any individual or family who wished to join, the focus of affiliation would be personal participation and involvement in the programs of the synagogue. (15) A special effort would be made to welcome people into the congregation who may feel out of place in many synagogues: single individuals, single-parent families, intermarried couples, and gay and lesbian individuals and couples. (16) A commitment to full equality and democracy; each individual in the congregation would have both the power and the responsibility to help determine the direction of the congregation. This means that wealthy Jews would not have more power than poor Jews. (17) The Community-Synagogue as a whole would be based on teh ideals and principles articulated in this section of this paper, but within this framework we would welcome a diversity of viewpoints with the hope that dialogue and discussion would be based on mutual respect, and would lead to understanding and learning from one another. (18) A rabbi who functions primarily as a teacher, rather than as a bureaucrat or lobbyist. And there should be people in the congregation other than the rabbi who can serve as spiritual leaders and teachers. (19) Roiphe rightly emphasized the necessity for a strong political thrust to the quest for justice: add a second moral-political thrust for international peace. We need to work to end the arms race which is threatening to annihilate the planet, and to strive for genuine world peace. (20) Support for the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, and as a place where the Jewish dream for national freedom can continue to be experimented with. (21) At the same time, we do not see ourselves as a satellite community of Israel. We are creating meaningful Jewish cultural and religious forms here in the United States. We feel that it is imperative that we apply the moral values of Judaism to the dilemmas faced by citizens of the United States, as well as applying them to the dilemmas faced by the Jewish people. We see our role in relation to Israel as one of creative partnership and dialogue. (22) We believe that just as the Jewish people requires a homeland for those who choose to live there, so the Palestinian people must have its own homeland. We will work for this goal, both in the interests of justice for Palestinians, and also to promote greater security and peace for Israelis.
Here then, we have an ambitious program for a new kind of community and synagogue which would reach many Jews who are currently alienated from Jewish life, yet who are searching for a way to return to it. My hope is that Kehilla Community-Synagogue will become such an institution here in the Bay Area.
Let me admit right away that the ideals for this new Judaism, as they have been formulated above, have not appeared sui generis. There have been many critics of the American synagogue and many attempts over the years to correct the deficiencies and to create new, more vibrant approaches to Jewish life.
The most important attempt in recent decades at developing a new Judaism began in the late sixties, initiated by young Jews who were emotionally, religiously and politically disaffected from the American synagogue. Those of us who were part of the "Jewish counter-culture" of those years began to create tiny independent communities known as havurot or minyanim. Free of the constraints of conventional synagogue structure, we began to experiment with new approaches to Judaism and Jewishness. At the core of this "Movement for Jewish Renewal" - to use Arthur Waskow's felicitous phrase - has been the quest for community and for spiritual depth; for new ways of studying and struggling with traditional texts; for moral fervor in the political sphere; for personal autonomy, democratic empowerment and the full equality of women. A number of experimental synagogues have been initiated in different parts of the country which attempt to embody some or all of the ideals pioneered in the Movement for Jewish Renewal.
This, then, is the vision that has inspired me to initiate a new congregation in the Bay Area. My hope is that together we can build a congregation with a consensus based on these ideals. If it is a vision you can share, I invite you to join with me in the adventure of creating Kehilla Community-Synagogue.
At this point I would like to set down the essence of my own philosophy of Judaism as it has crystallized for me during the past few years. Those who join the Community-Synagogue would not, of course, have to agree with my philosophy, but it is my sense that the reader might wish to know something about my own approach to religion, and my beliefs about Judaism. My hope is that even if you do not fully agree with everything I am about to say, these ideas will lay the groundwork for future dialogue.
The word of Torah may be translated as Holy Teaching. Traditional Judaism is based on the notion that there are two Torahs: the Written Torah, which traditional Jews believe was spoken to Moses on Mt. Sinai; and the Spoken Torah, the orally-transmitted interpretations of the Written Torah that evolved as the Talmudic rabbis applied the teachings of the written Torah to novel life situations.
For me, both the Written Torah and the Spoken Torah grow out of the Torah of the Heart. What do I mean by Torah of the Heart? The founders of all the great religions based their teachings on deep spiritual experiences, experiences characterized by their numinosity, their sense of wonderment, awe and mystery. The locus of such experience is, I believe, the inward depths of the self. The human heart is the gate through which the Mystery enters human life.
When we examine the scriptures of different traditions, we of course see many dissimilarities between them, because the symbols which clothe the divine are always conditioned by the particular cultural and historical matrix in which the founders lived. What becomes apparent though, when religious traditions are set side by side, is that at their core all religions attempt to provide answers to the ultimate human question: What lies behind phenomenal reality? Where do we come from? Why are we here? What are our responsibilities? Why is there suffering? Whence are we bound?
I believe that the divine lives in the depths of every individual, just as the divine lives at the core of every creation and in every process in the universe. But it is not always easy to hear the still, small voice at our depths. Some people are able to reach inward through dreams, meditation, poetry or art; some do this through philosophical or even scientific reflection. A people is an organism like an individual. Just as the divine can speak through the individual heart, so it can speak through the collective experience of a people. For many of us the symbols and rituals of communal religion offer a way to sense God's presence that moves us beyond the individual quest. Religion teaches us how people in the past connected with the divine. At its best, religious tradition can teach us how to listen to our own depths, and how to incorporate the teachings of the spirit into our daily lives.
As a Jew, who was reared in a Jewish home, it is most natural for me to pursue my religious quest in a Jewish community. The Sabbath and holydays, the music and prayers, the family and community celebrations, the rites of passage - all these help me to approach God as God spoke through the heart of one particular people. The intellectual encounter with the Bible and later tradtion puts me incontact with the ideas, values and religious differences of my ancestors. As I dialogue and struggle and experiment with their teachings, I come to know myself both as a Jew and as concerned human being.
Along with the spiritual and intellectual elements of our tradition, there is a strong moral component as well. For the religious person, the consciousness of God involves a heightened awareness of the bonds that unites all of God's creation. This awareness provides the religious basis for ethical living: the moral conscience is rooted in spiritual consciousness. In our tradition, the prophets and moral teachers continually taught that the quest for God implies moral responsibility toward ourselves, our family, our community' and it implies moral responsibility toward our people, toward humanity at large, and toward nature. Our tradition offers models of human beings who were concerned with cultivating compassion and love, with achieving justice and peace in the social, economic and political spheres. And once again, the study of those teachings today can sensitize the conscience and energize us to act in ways which make our personal lives and the world more human.
We have the mistaken notion that the moral values of Judaism are the moral values of the Western world. While it is true that the Bible has had a powerful impact upon our civilization, it is also true that the radical teachings of Judaism regarding love, compassion, justice and peace remain unknown today, even among most Jews. We need to re-discover our moral legacy, and to examine our own lives in its light. And we need to allow these teachings to challenge the economic, political and military institutions that de-humanizing and destroying our world.
Judaism is not a religion in the conventional sense of the term. We are not only members of a faith-community, but also part of a people, a family whose origins stretch back almost 4000 years to Abraham and Sarah. If spirituality and morality are the soul of Judaism, then our people itself is the body of Judaism, without which there could be no soul.
We talk about "Jewishness," by which we mean the specific ethnic character of Jewish living. Our shared history, our love for the land of Israel, our literatures and languages, our arts, food and humor - all these provide body and fullness to Jewish life that spirituality and morality alone would lack. IN our own time the shared grief and anger over the Holocaust, and the hope engendered by the birth of the state of Israel have strengthened our ethnic ties. Unfortunately, a one-sided secular ethnicity has begun to eclipse Jewish spiritual and moral values, reducing Jewish identity to an affinity for Jewish culture, to a concern for physical survival alone, or to secular nationalism. Such attitudes rob Judaism for its authenticity and its links with the past.
We are part of the family of the Jewish people, but have a more inclusive identity as well. The Torah does not begin with the story of Abraham and Sarah, but with a vision of the creation of the universe and with the story of humankind. From the very beginning, then, the task of Judaism is set in a universal context. The ancient prophets spoke not only about the redemption of the Jewish people, but about the redemption of humanity as a whole.
We have many identities: we are individuals, we are Jews, and we are members of the human family - children of the earth and cosmos, threads of the One that weaves all reality into a whole. The purpose of Jewish existence is not only to preserve and enhance Judaism and Jewish life; it is also to create, out of our legacy, our own special vision of human destiny, and to contribute this vision to the world at large.
KEHILLA was initiated by Rabbi Burt Jacobson in 1978. The word "Kehilla" means community, gathering or congregation.
The first venture undertaken by Kehilla was the SYNAGOGUE WITHOUT WALLS, an outreach program designed to meet the needs of Jewish individuals and families, unaffiliated with synagogues, who with to work with a rabbi for study, counseling, conversion, or life-passages such as weddings or funerals.
KEHILLA SCHOOL grew out of the Synagogue Without Walls. The school was co-founded with Deborah Enelow, one of the foremost Jewish educators of the Bay Area. It represents a new approach to schooling 10-14 year olds. Youngsters study afternoon a week in tiny classes, allowing for individualized learning and close relationships with teachers. Parents are also involved in the learning processes.