The JTA’s Sue Fishkoff, who wrote many of the articles in the recent (and excellent) “Extreme Shul Makeover” series (full disclosure: S2K and S3K make appearances), has launched her new JTA blog, The Pilpulist, by asking, “Should High Holiday services be free?”

Jewschool’s Yehudit Brachah considers the role of rabbis in emerging Jewish communities:

I assert and believe (and hope?) there are ways that the current generation of rabbis-in-training who are on board with and are in fact co-creating these independent communities can actually join with good holy souls to *gasp* bring these visions into the batei knesset of American Judaism (and further). The above qualities that are to describe these minyanim need not exclusively apply to unfunded minyanim that don"t own meeting space and lack a sisterhood.They are mistaken, those in the movements who, because they can"t hear the critique the minyanim are launching against the mainstream, are gleefully and ominously predicting the downfall of these independent minyanim once we grow a little older. But I challenge us: What are the next steps? What kind of shteiblach might we create — ones with all the qualities listed above, but in which we can mark life cycle events, raise kids, be cared for in our old age?

More to the stated topic of this post: What IS the role of the rabbi in the independent minyan movement? I truly hope that the rest of us who are creating these communities can think about ways that we rabbis-to-be and recently ordained rabbis can actually serve as resources for these communities. Because, just as one cannot learn quantum physics without a teacher, it is also extremely difficult to learn/create a spritual practice without teachers. I wouldn"t be the person I am today without important Jewish teachers who have changed my life (both with and without official titles). We are all teachers and learners.

It also happens to be true that some of us have spent 5+ years in school so that we can serve the rest of us as resources for building our Jewish lives. Please. Please! Use us as such. And help us all figure out a way that we rabbis don"t have to take a job in a large, impersonal, suburban temple in order to pay off our school loans.

Won"t you come to my small, spirited, lay-empowered, caring, justice-motivated, pluralistic store-front shteibl? Oh, and help me create it?

Rabbi Brad Artson explores “The Ethics of Leadership” in the latest issue of Sh’ma:

About what do we need to converse?

• the need for and the danger of leadership based on inspiration and charisma
• the need for a compelling vision, and for noticing our vision’s blind spots
• the tension between effective leadership and transformational leadership
• the temptation to reduce leadership to management, or to consider leadership above management and ignore the details and the methods of the prosaic aspects of implementing leadership vision
• the nature of group responses to leadership – the tyranny of the majority, and the nature of herd mentality
• the structures for channeling and containing leadership

Jewschool’s Kol Ra’ash Gadol explores the sustainability of independent minyanim:

I am interested to see what will happen: will these indie minyanim figure out ways to support the community, and not just their own individual davenning needs? When rabbis go out to jobs like teaching and organizations (which I think would be a real and positive benefit - if they can actually pay back loans on those salaries, or else have the loans for seminary become more manageable) and join minyanim like these as members, rather than authority figures, what will Judaism start looking like. I think that these are exciting questions, and await further developments.

One correction to the post: unlike Tikkun Leil Shabbat, IKAR and Shtibl function more as what I call “congregational communities of practice.”

Sue Fishkoff covers the 2006 National Havurah Committee gathering and considers the impact of the next generation of the movement:

These younger Jews are bringing new sensibilities and priorities to havurah Judaism, while preserving the movement´s original egalitarian and counter-cultural nature. They want greater emphasis on music, social action, and traditional observance.

“There´s less fear of halachic practice,” notes [Rabbi Arthur] Green, adding that the founders of the havurah movement were fighting feminist and pluralist battles that today´s young Jews have moved beyond.

Panim Hadashot’s Rabbi Dov Gartenberg has posted some thoughts on the second gathering of our Working Group on Emergent Sacred Communities and its implications for Panim Hadashot and Kavana in Seattle:

Synagogue 3K set up the Emerging Sacred Communities group to explore the burgeoning of new and alternative communities and initiatives within the Jewish community. The participants were mostly Rabbis in their 20s and 30s who are starting new communities in cities around the country. Also participating were 3 Rabbis from Israel engaged in building new communities and approaches. The emerging communities represented at this gathering were diverse and hard to characterize. Some are attempting to create alternatives to conventional synagogues. Some are trying to transform older synagogues into something else. Some like myself were creating completely different models distinct from synagogues. Some of these communities organized themselves around social justice causes, while others were working on revitalizing and reformulating Jewish prayer. There were representatives from all the major denominations and many who identified themselves as post-denominational. Everyone agreed that the current Jewish communal structure is in crisis and that the modern synagogue and congregational rabbinate is in a struggle for legitimacy and relevance among many Jews.

[...]

I think Seattle needs both Kavanah and Panim Hadashot. Kavanah offers Seattle a serious experiment in building a more intentional community, a Jewish collective with a distinctive focus and ideal. Panim Hadashot offers a way to reclaim a Jewish home life and path to a more engaging Judaism that makes one appreciate the many choices that the Jewish community offers. Together we are part of a fascinating change taking place in American Jewry. Our gathering in New York was an ongoing attempt to make sense of the very creative spiritual ventures growing around the country. I is thrilling to be part of this creative ferment.