Top Ten Tips for Taking (and Advising Others Who Are Taking) Jewish Journeys
Jewish Living Now: A Call to Action
Editor's Note: The following are excerpts from the keynote presentation by Dr. Wolfson formally launching the USCJ Jewish Living Now Campaign at the 1995 United Synagogue Biennial Convention.
1. Offer Warm Welcomes and Extend Invitations.
Many people begin their journeys with a first phone call or visit to one of our synagogues. How are they greeted? Have you been to a shopping mall recently? What's the first thing that happens to you when you enter a store? There's an employee standing at the front entrance whose entire job it is to warmly greet you -- to help you find what you're looking for, to direct you to the right person, to just say "Hi."
How are people greeted in our congregations -- when they call on the phone, when they walk into the office, at the entrance to our sanctuaries? Who is there, not just to hand them a humash, but to sit with a family getting up from shiva to say Kaddish with the community? Who is there to help someone build a sukkah for the first time, to kasher a kitchen, to make a Seder, to ensure a minyan.
How many of our synagogues end the Shabbat morning service like the Library Minyan of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, where members who have brought guests are invited to introduce them to the congregation and an announcement is made by a volunteer family that if someone is in need of an invitation to Shabbat lunch, they are the designated hosts? Warm, personal greetings are indispensible beginnings for Jewish journeys.
2. Plan Long Journeys, Take Small Steps.
The Jewish journey can seem as intimidating and complicated as the most detailed road map. But that's the genius of the Triptik -- organizing the trip in small, do-able segments. We need to provide people with their own personalized Jewish Triptik, to help them assess where they are on their Jewish journey and where they might take that next step.
One of the many things I love about Brad Artson's new book, It's a Mitzvah, is that he presents a series of small but important concrete steps into each mitzvah.
3. Open the Access Roads.
We know when most Jews, even the most uninvolved and unaffiliated, intersect with Jewish living.When do they come to synagogue? Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When else? When they're invited -- especially to a lifecycle event, such as a bar mitzvah, a wedding, or a funeral. We've gotten better at providing explanations of Jewish practices as we do them. We need to take the next step and offer easy access for these visitors to consider their own Jewish journeys. How many of us know of people who, because they said Kaddish for a parent, renewed their involvement in the synagogue and Jewish life? These are opportunities to make Jews -- let's use them.
4. Give Good Directions.
When we want to adopt a mitzvah, we ask all sorts of questions, looking for direction. And because we are a pretty smart bunch in most things, if we have to ask a question about Jewish practice, we often precede the question with something like, "I know this must be a stupid question, but..." On Jewish journeys, there is no such thing as a stupid question.
Have you ever wondered why most parents of religious school kids drop off their children, a condition my colleague Rabbi Jeff Salkin calls "carpool tunnel syndrome?" Why won't they get out of the car? I think they are scared: scared to ask a question about something they think they should know; scared to be embarrassed, especially in front of their children. So when someone asks a Jewish question, it's an opening, and how we respond will often determine whether the journey continues or not.
5. Use Guidebooks.
Like the office of Triple A, our Jewish Living Now offices need to be equipped with the guidebooks that can help chart the journey. I am always so thrilled when people tell me they have found the Art of Jewish Living books helpful to them in taking the next steps in their own celebrations of the holidays or in helping them formulate the words and actions of comfort for mourners. And there has been an explosion of user-friendly, easy access books and resources for the multiple routes onto the highway of Jewish living.
I've already mentioned Brad Artson's marvelous guidebook, It's a Mitzvah. Then there's Danny Siegel's new book Good People; Daniel Gordis's guide to Jewish spirituality, God Was in the Fire; David Wolpe's Why Be Jewish?; Alan Silverstein's sensitive volumes on dealing with interdating and intermarriage; and many more.
6. The Road Between Synagogue and Home Is a Two-Way Street.
We've spent the last half of the 20th century building magnificent institutions where we can gather as a community to celebrate Judaism. We assumed that families were living Jewish lives at home, when, in fact, they were becoming increasingly dependent on the synagogue as the place to go to be Jewish: You need a Shabbat dinner experience? We've got one for each class, once a year.You want to sit in a sukkah? We've got one. No need to build your own.
Certainly, we want people to come to the synagogue to celebrate together in community. And they come, often in large numbers, to a Shabbat Seder dinner or a Model Passover Seder. But we also want them to be able to take home what they learn about Jewish celebration so they can enhance their Jewish living experiences there as well. This has guided our work in Jewish family education at the University of Judaism's Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life.
7. Remove the Roadblocks.
We've got to understand what gets in the way before we can get people on the way to Jewish living. There are all sorts of roadblocks to be aware of. Here's one: Hebrew. For many, it is a foreign language that is difficult, even in transliteration. For those with no Hebrew ability, even a short blessing can be intimidating. That is why I applaud the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs renewed Hebrew Literacy Campaign, a perfect complement to the Jewish Living Now project. In the meantime, we need to let people know that they can get started on the road to Jewish living with transliterations and English, although Judaism in translation is a pale shadow of a rich tradition.
Time is another huge roadblock. We all live such frenetic lives, with many of us in dual-career families. Who has time to prepare a traditional Shabbat meal? Who has time to come to synagogue? And yet, time is perhaps the most valued commodity we have -- time for reflection on the meaning of our lives, time to spend with our families, When we take a journey, how to spend our time is one of the most important decisions we make. Our goal is to live Jewishly all the time, but for many, finding the time is a challenge.
Another roadblock: Conflict. Have you been on a trip where the people with you disagreed about where to go next or how long to spend in one spot, or where to stay or what to eat or any number of decisions that need to be made when travelling with others? Well, many people who are on a Jewish journey live with others who are on one, too. And sometimes, there are disagreements about how fast to travel on the road of Jewish living.
The Jewish journey can be filled with these detours, and there are no simple answers, except to undersc ore the importance of dialogue: keeping the conversation open, looking for consensus, sometimes accommodating and compromising, sometimes not. But, most importantly, there must be an understanding that when we travel with someone else, there may very well be curves in the road, and itwill take sensitive steering to stay the course. People need support along the journey, especially when they run into a detour or a roadblock.
8. Permission and Empowerment.
There is something happening among major segments of the community that can help us get people into Jewish living Now. Now, more than ever, people are seeking meaning in their lives. The baby boomers have come of age and they are assuming positions of leadership in our congregations. They are an interesting lot, born in the placid fifties, raised in the turbulent sixties, college educated in the seventies, and establishing their own homes in the eighties. They are used to taking charge of their own lives. They are used to feeling empowered to effect change.
We need to give people permission to take charge of their Jewish lives and empower them with the information, skills and motivation needed to take the Jewish journey, wherever it leads them. I see this when I teach people about Pesah. By all means, let's read the Haggadah. But let's also get our heads out of the book and answer the question of my favorite of the Four Children, the Rasha: "What does this mean to you?" We can offer all kinds of ways to get our heads out of the book and engage each other in conversation, in story, and in song. Let's not forget that the journey should not only be substantive and meaningful, it can be joyous as well.
9. Jews Need Other Jews to Be Jewish.
It's very difficult to be Jewish alone. It's very hard to take the journey by yourself. That's why we need congregations to organize "Group Tours." "Share the Journey" is the name of an important study by Professor Robert Wuthnow, who looked at the phenomenon of small groups in American life and how they have come to effect religious communities. Wuthnow estimates that 40 percent of all North Americans are involved in some kind of small group -- from Weight Watchers to Alcoholics Anonymous, from home-based Bible study circles to havurot.
These small groups enable individuals to find the support they need to take the journey, especially at times of need. This is the notion of community writ small and intimate.This is a challenge to our medium and large congregations, to create multiple opportunities for our members to connect to one or more small groups within the congregation, and to identify those functions of community that enable people to continue on their journeys: moments of prayer, moments of learning, moments of healing personal pain and reaching out to help heal others who are ill, physically and/or spiritually, moments of healing the world through social action, moments of celebration, moments of consolation.
I want to say a word about our special responsibility to respond to those whose journeys have not gone well: those who are in pain -- both physical and spiritual -- those in our midst who are in need of healing. How we respond to these sojourners is the true test of our resolve, our compassion, our menschlichkeit and our community.
10. Multiple Routes.
My final point is simply this: There are many routes on the road to Jewish living. There are many on-ramps and access roads. For some, it will be enhancing their personal celebration of a holiday. For others, it may be a search for spirituality. For some, it will be tzedakah work. For others, it may be moving to a new level of kashrut observance. For some, the adventure of Jewish living may be just beginning. For others, the task is to respond to the challenges facing those nearing the end of the journey.
That is why we have to write personal Triptiks one at a time. We need to be personal mentors to one person, one family at a time, and offer many roads into Jewish living. Our task is to remember this: Jewish continuity depends, not on some commission, and not on some institution, and not on someone else. It depends on each and every one of us. The Jewish future depends on you and me -- and it depends on what we do now, right now.
Dr. Ron Wolfson is Vice-President and Director of the Shirley and Arthur Whizin Center for the Jewish Future of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. He is principal investigator of "Synagogue 2000: A Transdenominational Project for the Synagogue of the 21st Century" and author of The Art of Jewish Living Series, published by the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs and the University of Judaism and now available from Jewish Lights Publishing.
