If you have already turned 40, you know it is no ordinary birthday; if you are not yet 40, pray God you will get there, but, perhaps, with appropriate trepidation.
These thoughts on “40″ are prompted by our sedra’s curious insistence that Isaac married Rebecca when he was 40 years old. Commentators are taken aback, if for no other reason than that 40 is pretty old for Jews who believe that their halakhic mandate is to have children. Granted, it worked out for Isaac, and granted also, Abraham didn’t father Isaac until he was over a hundred, but still, as the Talmud puts it, “We should not depend on miracles.”
Rashi explains the calculation. “When Abraham returned from the akedah (the binding of Isaac), he was informed that Rebecca had just been born. Isaac was then 37 years old.” If he met and married Rebecca when he was 40, she would have been only three years old at the time.
That is, of course, outlandish. So Abravanel quickly concedes, “This is pure midrash. Can a three-year old water camels at a well?” So 40 is a symbolic number, not a real one. But what is it symbolic of?
“Forty” turns up everywhere in the Bible. Esau too marries at 40 (Gen. 26:34). Noah’s flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights (Gen. 7:17, 58:6); the spies take 40 days to scout the Land of Canaan (Num. 13:25); 40 days and nights is how long Moses spent atop Mt. Sinai (Exod. 24:18, 34:28); the book of Judges says, “The land had rest for 40 years” between the time that Othniel conquered the Arameans and “the children of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judg. 3:11). So maybe “40″ just means “a long time.”
More specifically, it means a period of transition, the time it takes to grow up, the time necessary (for instance) for young men like Jacob and Esau to come into their own. Until then, they are the youth of tomorrow. At 40, they become the adults of today, inheriting the mantle of leadership from their parents. That is why Joshua is 40 when Moses (whom he will replace) appoints him (Josh. 14:7); and why the generation of disloyal Israelites must wander the desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. It takes 40 years for the generational turnover to occur.
In 1946, the largest ever generation of Americans was born: the baby boomers. We date the end of the boomer era with people born in 1964. People born as of 1965 are the next generation, sometimes called Gen X. If the biblical number “40″ symbolizes maturation, Gen X began coming of age in 2005. We should just now be seeing the first signs of the baby boomers being replaced by their children.
And so we are – most evidently in the recent presidential race where a candidate of the next generation was elected, largely with a massive effort by Gen X supporters who said they wanted change, and trusted no baby boomer (or older) to bring it. America has begun the process of turning the reins of the country over to this next generation.
What is true of America generally is true of Jews particularly. Jewish organizations, however, have no national democratic elections to vote people in or out of office, so it will be harder for Jews to make the transition. Current leaders can stonewall and hold on for dear life while the next generation decides it is easier to contribute to causes outside the Jewish arena.
We cannot afford to let Gen X opt out. As Moses turned to Joshua when he turned 40, so must the boomers now transfer power to their children, even if they suspect they will disagree with what those children decide to do once they get it. Suspecting the next generation of naivete, stupidity, or worse is natural. Boomers in power today may recall that it took a revolution for them to be recognized by the establishment in the turbulent 1960s, when they were suspected of radicalism and even sedition. But they did pretty well. On their watch, we built UJA and Federations into massive agencies, saw Israel through the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars, saved Soviet Refuseniks, rescued Ethiopian Jews, and launched continuity efforts when the 1990 census showed Jewish numbers receding.
We cannot predict the challenges of the next twenty to forty years, but whatever they are, we know for sure that boomers won’t be around to handle them. It is time to empower the next forty-year old cohort to take its place in the long line of leaders who bring our People to greatness.
Synagogues looking to makeover the “atmosphere” of their sacred space would do well to take note of how The Gap recently transformed their stores from “institutional” to “homey.” In an effort to woo back customers, the retailer has devised a radical plan to remodel their outlets.
CEO Paul Pressler recognized that companies such as Starbucks and the Pottery Barn have created warm, comfortable places that people want to spend time in. The Pottery Barn stores look like home and Starbucks encourages customers to linger by providing music, entertainment and high-speed Internet access.
To accomplish this “makeover,” twenty senior Gap executives in three different teams traveled the world to learn “what everyone else was doing and really experience a lot of different customer experiences – and not just retail,” according to Christopher Hufnagel, the Vice President for Brand Store Experience. They visited places as diverse as retail stores, museums, and amusement parks. They took 4,000 photographs and recorded observations in journals. When the teams reconvened, they spent a week sifting through their findings, distilling the best suggestions into a one-page brief. This formed the basis for a detailed plan to remodel their places.
Among the best ideas: warmer lighting, upgraded display tables, better sound systems, and free bottles of water in fitting rooms. After noticing the enthusiasm and pride of a young tour guide at the Kennedy Space Center, the Gap put more emphasis on staff training: instead of pushing particular products, staffers are to spend more time asking customers about their needs (emphasis mine).
In researching my book, The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation into a Sacred Community (Jewish Lights Publishing), I cite many ideas for improving the “atmosphere” of synagogues I have gleaned from noticing the “best practices” of organizations that interact with the public: better signage, color photographs of clergy and staff on a wall near the office, placing couches in the lobby, and offering a Starbucks-quality coffee bar.
Some synagogues have completed their “extreme makeover.” Ahavath Achim Congregation in Atlanta participated in our recent Synagogue 3000 Initiative there and decided to renovate a long, narrow and bland entryway to their mid-twentieth century building. Instead of a “bowling alley” effect, the entry now features a gorgeous “concierge” desk and a flat screen LCD television that flashes rotating images of congregants participating in all sorts of activities, color photographs of clergy and key staff, and notices of upcoming programs. Situated next to this desk is a “living room” with couches, coffee tables, Jewish periodicals and membership information. In the corner, guests and members discover “Café Schmooze,” offering excellent coffee, teas, and treats.
This renovation addressed one issue facing congregations seeking to create an “ambience of welcome” in the building. But, the lobby is only the first step into a sacred community. Many congregations are looking anew at their sanctuaries, offices, classrooms, and other facilities to upgrade them from dreary to delightful.
Moreover, the quality of the building is only one aspect of creating a welcoming community. Far more challenging is to improve the hachnasat orchim (hospitality) most guests experience when they meet our synagogue leaders and members. Is everyone in your congregation equipped to be a great greeter? Are the prayer experiences you offer welcoming to those with few or no “access skills” to the liturgy? Have you thought about how to deepen the relationships between members and the congregation, members and each other?
Embarking on a serious assessment of your building is one way to begin the “extreme makeover” of your congregation into a sacred community. The most important lesson is this: synagogue leaders rarely look at their sacred spaces with fresh eyes. Familiarity breeds myopia. Here"s a best practice idea from The Gap: form a team of people to visit the stores and public venues in your community. Visit other congregations – Jewish and Christian. Collect your photos and observations. Look at your building as if you are a first-time visitor. Then, make the changes that can transform your “institution” into a spiritual “home.”
Dr. Ron Wolfson is President of Synagogue 3000 and Fingerhut Professor of Education at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He is the author most recently of The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation into a Sacred Community and God"s To-Do List: 103 Ways to Be an Angel and Do God"s Work on Earth (both Jewish Lights Publishing).
Althought S3K is out of the ‘emergent’ business, our research into emerging (pardon the pun) Jewish community trends informs our current work with synagogues. Independent minyanim are one form of new community. What do you think?
WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA) — When Kehilat Hadar met for its first Shabbat morning service on Manhattan"s Upper West Side in 2001, about 60 people showed up, some of them spilling into the hallway at the apartment of Ethan Tucker, one of the minyan"s founders. Three weeks later the number had ballooned to more than 100.
“It was a wide range of people already there and I didn"t know half of them,” said Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, another of Hadar"s three founders. “That"s when I actually got a sense that this was bigger than just a couple of friends getting together.”
Seven years later, Hadar now attracts some 200 worshipers on a typical Shabbat and has a mailing list of about 2,500. More significantly, it has been joined by some 55 so-called independent minyanim across the country.
The Jewish institutional world is beginning to take notice.
On Monday, representatives of dozens of the minyanim met with academics and communal professionals at Brandeis University for the second independent minyanim conference. The meeting provided a chance to discuss the manifold ways these communities pose both a challenge and an opportunity for established Jewish organizations.
“I think ultimately there will be a necessary transformation in what American Judaism and what the institutions of American Jewish life look like in the 21st century,” said conference participant Felicia Herman, the executive director of Natan, a foundation that supports several emergent Jewish communities, including independent minyanim. “This is part of that reinvention. We"re helping to build a new infrastructure, but we have no idea what it"s going to look like.”
Though the minyanim by nature are independent of the mainstream institutions of Jewish religious life, their rapid growth has made them difficult to ignore. Typically they are lay-led communities with spirited prayer and an ability to attract the elusive cohort of 20- and 30-something Jews that the organized community has struggled to engage in Jewish life.
There appears to be widespread agreement that the minyanim provide an avenue of engagement for what sociologists increasingly describe as a new developmental stage: the post-college and pre-marriage period, when many young Jews often fall off the communal radar.
Hadar"s original Shabbat morning prayer community has spawned Mechon Hadar, an institute creating the first egalitarian yeshiva in the United States to train a corps of leaders for the minyanim, which require highly educated participants for their rabbi-less communities.
And while both Kaunfer and Tucker have recently received major grants from Jewish foundations, there has been some hesitation to fund minyanim that are seen as catering to a population that is highly educated and already relatively well-connected to Jewish life.
“We felt in the beginning that our added value in the field was focusing on unaffiliated jews,” Herman said. “That"s changing over time and we"ve become much more willing to consider organizations that are developing Jewish leaders and that are just giving all kinds of Jews creative new expressions for their Jewish identity.”
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. Most members define themselves as nondenominational, according to survey results presented at the conference.
They also seem to reject what several participants refer to as a consumerist model of Judaism, where members pay dues to synagogues in exchange for services provided, in favor of a more participatory experience.
But in creating communities with no rabbinic leadership, and where participants are unlikely to affiliate in traditional ways—through synagogue membership, for instance, or by donating to federations—the minyanim pose particular challenges to existing communal structures.
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, the dean of the Hebrew College rabbinical school and a longtime member of a Boston-area minyan, joked that by existing communal standards, she probably would be counted as an unaffiliated Jew.
“Significant numbers of Jews are rejecting a consumer model of Judaism and opting for a model where they see themselves as co-creators of Jewish life,” Cohen Anisfeld said. “In a culture of rampant commodification, this is an amazing achievement.”
The minyanim also pose significant challenges to the rabbinate. Most of the communities are led by extremely knowledgeable lay leaders who conduct services and deliver Torah commentaries, as well as carry out many of the functions typically performed by rabbis. Even those minyanim that might want a rabbi may find themselves rubbing up against institutions that limit the range of positions their rabbis can assume.
“Independence is not compatible with the protectionist guild system that has a stranglehold on the American rabbinate, and I would say on rabbinic creativity,” said Tucker, the Hadar co-founder.
Though Tucker, speaking in a session on minyanim and rabbinic authority, argued for changes to rabbinic roles and training, he and several others at the conference agreed that no long-term minyan model was viable without some rabbinic guidance.
In this respect, as in many others, the minyanim have looked for inspiration to the havurah movement, which saw the rise of similar lay-led and self-governed communities in the 1960s and 1970s. They were sort of a Jewish religious version of the larger countercultural movements of the time.
Rabbi Arthur Green, the rector of the Hebrew College rabbinical school and one of the founders of Havurat Shalom in Boston in the late 1960s, said during the closing plenary that a rabbi would have helped havurot avoid another pitfall that threatens the independent minyanim—the tendency toward cliquishness.
Green recalled how Havurat Shalom had twice rejected a candidate for membership who had all the qualifications, but was deemed to be a somewhat obnoxious personality who would not get on well with other members.
“That was one of my failures of leadership,” Green said. “Had I been the rabbi of that group I might have been able to say, ‘We stand for something. We"re not just here to satisfy ourselves, we"re not just here to have fun." I couldn"t do that because I was just one of the group. We didn"t believe in professional leadership.”
Though some of the independent communities are organized around a paid rabbinic leader, most are not, which makes a knowledgeable lay community integral to the continued growth of the minyanim.
“The No. 1 scarce resource for the minyanim is not dollars, it"s human capital,” said Kaunfer, now the executive director of Mechon Hadar. “What"s crucial about these communities, it"s not a single person who"s in charge. It"s not even five people. There"s a premium on having a wide variety of people running services, teaching, etc. The question is how do you develop that pipeline of participant leaders who can continue to work and grow communities.”
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