Thoughts on Affiliation for Kolot Chayeinu
Rabbi Ellen Lippmann
Shabbat Noah—October 13, 2007 Rosh Hodesh Heshvan 5768
I begin with Noah and Abraham, as our tradition so often does, seeing Noah as one retreating inward, away from the world, and Abraham moving outward, engaging with the world.
The questions of affiliation seem to divide into two similar camps, the camp of those who think about affiliation as an outward-looking move and the camp of those who think about it as inward-strengthening, regardless of whether you are in favor of it or not.
I want to talk about those camps a bit today, and raise some of the questions I and others have had about affiliation. I want to say at the outset that I am not declaring a position today, but rather raising some questions that I hope you will carry into the discussion at lunch in the Shabbat Café. I have really come to feel that this is your decision to make, and my voice can be very loud. Today, I lower the tone a bit.
I want first to locate myself in the discussion, something I urge us all to do: From what background and set of experiences do you respond to the discussion? Did you hate the big, impersonal Reform synagogue of your childhood? Did you love the Orthodox davening when your grandfather took you to shul? Have you worked in or for the Jewish community, at a Y or community organization? Are you a joiner, or a loner, or a maverick?
I am a maverick who grew up in the Reform movement. Both my parents were presidents of the synagogue, which of course was Temple, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, and I believed from an early age that God was in His holy temple. I went to very bad Hebrew school there through 10th grade, went to services almost every week, and had strong, engaging Jewish practice at home. I joined the youth group and the Reform regional board and went to Reform summer camps and youth camp.
My parents grew up on the upper west side of Manhattan. My father came from non-religious German Jews, and went on his own to Sunday school at Rodeph Sholom, a Reform synagogue there. My mother grew up in the family and the developing synagogue—the SAJ or Society for the Advancement of Judaism—of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, which was the first Reconstructionist shul. When my parents married and moved to Washington, they joined what they could find that would bring their backgrounds together: A Reform temple. They met in a church basement and slowly grew into a new building. It became my second home.
So I have Reform roots and Reconstructionist roots and when I applied to rabbinic school I applied to the seminaries of both movements and was accepted at both and chose New York and Reform training for a variety of mostly practical reasons. And when it came my time to start a community, coming as I do from a long line of shul starters, I confess that I did not think about affiliating. I thought about a new way to be Jewish in community, a way that also hearkened back to what seemed the best of some old ways of people taking care of each other as they prayed and studied and thereby invigorating the prayer and study. I was a maverick at the time, though now unaffiliated havurot and small communities abound that seek to renew Judaism in many ways.
So here we are, looking into the future of Kolot and wondering whether what we need most is connection to the world—to other Jews and to the world at large—or inner strengthening in administration, communication, perhaps even thinking about a home of our own. Are we Noah reflecting in the ark in a way that will keep this ark afloat or Abraham walking into the unknown to find and create Jews and Judaism and the social justice at its core?
If we are the more inward looking Noah, then we ask about affiliation: What kind of help will we get for our leaders, our president, our board members, committee chairs? Will there be people to help guide us if we begin a campaign to buy a building? Engage in faith-based community action? Are there tools for raising funds, hiring staff, paying benefits? What does it all cost? And are the movements the best source of this help?
If we are the more outward looking Abraham, then we ask about affiliation: Will I be able to go to conferences and meet Jews from all over the country? Are there summer camps for our children and help for our educators of children and adults? Will they help us reach out to new members and guide us in bringing them in? Is there a way to engage in social justice action here and across the nation and the world, including in Israel-Palestine? What does it all cost? And are the movements the best source of this help?
And all of us, the inward strengtheners and the outward seeker-activists, ask: What about our prayer? Will we continue to have the prayer services we have grown to love? What siddur will we use? How will our rabbi, hazzan, and member-leaders learn from the movements about new trends, new music, new modes of prayer?
And all of us, inward, outward, and in-between, ask, “What is going to change? We like Kolot the way it is.”
Believe me, if you are asking some portion of the questions I just raised, I am asking all of them. I am deeply concerned with Kolot's infrastructure going forward.
And I am deeply committed to Kolot's continuing to be connected to each other, the rest of Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, the nation and the world.
And I am at least as concerned as some of you about how our prayer develops and want chances to learn from many sources.
I began Kolot 14 years ago, almost 15, and so have known it since it didn't have a name or a building or very many people at all. It has changed every day since January 1993 and one thing I am not afraid of is change. Our prayer is very different than it was last year or probably last month. It changes every time I go away, thanks to good creative leadership that takes over. Some of us miss the circle in the balcony and some miss the old cut and paste prayerbook and some miss the earlier draft of Mishkan Tefila and some may miss the current draft if it holds together until we get something new. We have had a series of music leaders in these 14 years, and loved most of them a lot. We have had a teacher, a rabbi educator, an educator and now a new one. Our learning program has grown and changed as much as our prayer. So has our location and so has our leadership structure.
We do not have to be afraid of change. What we need to do is look into the future and ask what we want for Kolot as it changes and grows. And then we need to ask if affiliation will help or hinder the vision we have for that future? Will it help us raise funds, manage our money and our staff, build or buy a building? Will it help us connect to the larger Jewish world and the larger everything else world? Will it help us teach our children and ourselves? Will it enable us to continue to enliven our prayer in a way that we decide? Will it help you find a future rabbi, a future cantor, a future educator?
Those are our questions, whether we stand on the deck of the ark with Noah or walk the uncertain path into the world with Abraham. I do both, and I think many of you do as well. So you need to think about your answers to the question: What do I want for Kolot Chayeinu in the future? And from what I know or have read or gained from listening, will joining a movement help that vision? Or hinder it? That is what we will be answering together downstairs, because that is the real question.
So take a moment to ask yourselves: What do I want for Kolot Chayeinu in the future?
