Synagogue 3000

Shalom shalom. I just got back from Boulder, where I was repping the Moishe Houses (and MH Boston in particular) at the Synagogue 3000 Emergent Sacred Communities gathering. Though when Synagogue 3000 first approached me I thought it was some sort of Jewish spam or a Jewish version of mystery science theater, in fact the organization works to document and reinforce innovative practices in Jewish communities in the US and Israel. My cohort of "emerging leaders" includes a guy who runs a Jewish theater troupe, another guy who runs the Jewish camp at burning man, a woman who created the first coop synagogue hybrid (Kavana in Seattle), and then a bunch of minyans and other new Jewish stuff. And some folks doing cutting egde work creating non-orthodox religious communities in Israel.

Anyway, I wanted to report two things from the experience. First, combined with the MH retreat, this gathering gave me a sense that we are really part of a growing movement to revitalize Jewish community and recreate it in a way that is meaningful for our generation. That means a bunch of different things for different people, but in general, folks are mixing and matching, not sticking to conventional expectations about what Jews look like and act like.

Second, the gathering was focused on developing our leadership, and gave me some tips that I thought might be useful to my Moishe brothers and sisters in the struggle. In one of our exercises, the facilitators asked us to map out the different roles we play as leaders of our communities, such as exec. director (fundraising, website, staffing issues), community organizer, teacher, thought leader, pastoral care giver(or just being there for folks one on one), prayer leader. For us Moishe House members, I would add a few other titles, like maybe chef and party planner.

The goal was to think about what our personal strengths and passions were, what balance of these strengths the community needs, and how we can either build on ourselves or partner with members of our community to make sure that we are covering these functions overall, to the extent that we want them to be covered. For example, I am good at recruiting volunteers and big vision stuff, but I spend less time than I wish I did having one-on-one time with our key leaders. I am also technologically inept, and don't really like dealing with finances. So, I'm committing to spend more one on one time, and working to support Joe and a couple volunteers to build up our website and financial management.

Anyway, whatever your particular strengths/challenges, I think it is easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day of planning programs that you can forget to think about the big picture of what you are trying to create and how to get there. But when you do step back, it can be really exciting, and bring a lot of clarity. So I encourage you all to take a breath, think about where you are, where you want to get to. Then, deep breath deux, imagine how you might bridge that gap by building on your strengths, overcoming your challenges, or getting help from your community members who brings skills you might not have in spades. I know I'll be doing the same....