Home for the Holidays at Moishe House Chicago

September. It was a month full of new beginnings. 5771 -- the new year. 722 -- our new street address.

It was a busy month too. We desperately tried to unpack our boxes, or at least hide them in closets and corners, before the marathon of Jewish holidays began. We kicked the month off with Shabbat Shuvah, and followed it with a program on the Jewish Art of Reconciliation with our guest Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. For Rosh Hashanah, our friend, Jake Adler, led a discussion on Tashlich and self-transformation. Yom Kippur found us hosting nearly 30 people for a break-fast meal.

We didn't stop with the high holidays. Next was Sukkot. We partnered with The Gan Project to build a sukkah from found objects. I raided my parents' garage, others searched in alleys. In the end, we had a beautiful, unique, sacred space right here in the middle of Chicago. Then, many people joined us for a Shabbat dinner in our sukkah. To top the month off, we retreated to Black Oaks Center where we slept in a yurt and spent 24 hours off the grid. There was no electricity or running water. While the goal had been to camp for Sukkot and volunteer our services on a farm harvesting vegetables, this experience made me, at least, much more aware of, and grateful for, all the amenities I have living in the city. (And the yurt provided welcome protection from the droplets that rained down all night.) Without heat and electricity, I was reminded of how vulnerable we are to the elements, perhaps a glimpse of the Israelites' experience in the desert. Most of all, the trip provided a break from our daily habits. We also had a song circle to sing the Havdalah prayers and other Jewish and American tunes we knew.

One other program we had was a planning meeting for a discussion series we're hosting to explore privilege and oppression in the Jewish community. I was unable to attend because of a work obligation that night, but as I approached our house on the sidewalk, I passed several friends on the sidewalk; I knew they were coming from our house. And when I came in the door, I was greeted by the smell of good home cooking, sounds of laughter, and many familiar faces. Our walls were covered with butcher paper filled from edge to edge with notes from the planning meeting. Another friend, Julia, stayed after the dinner session to work with me on planning our Sukkot camping trip. It finally felt as though we hit our groove.

I know anyone can get a list of our events by looking at our calendar, but I summarized them here because I felt incredibly proud of the programs we created in September. Inspired by our friends in Boston, we've been trying to implement more of an organizing model for programming. We are meeting one on one with our community members and bringing them into the process of designing and executing programs. And while it's much more energy intensive and overwhelming (especially when you have 3 major Jewish holidays all in one month), it is much more rewarding. For me, it was also an opportunity to explore holidays in a new way. I've never had my own sukkah, let alone built one from found objects (a practice in line with my values). It was special to be able to break bread in it and sleep in it too. This month, we saw a big increase in the number of new people attending too, a sign that we're doing something right. September reminded me of the privilege it is to live in Moishe House and to have the opportunity to help build a vibrant, young, meaningful Jewish community. I'm excited to continue forward with the momentum we built last month.

Chicago's meaningful moment

The prompt brought to mind two moments in particular that I found particularly meaningful for our Chicago Moishe community.

The first moment was at a recent Shabbat dinner. A girl, Rebecca, who had come to one program arrived. Later, two of our regulars, Karin and Brendan, arrived. They all got to talking and while playing Jewish geography, they slowly came to realize that Rebecca was about to move in as a subletter in Karin and Brendan's apartment. They had not yet met. We were thrilled at this connection. Moishe House Chicago is coming to be a place where people with similar values come together. On a side note, Karin and Brendan moved away at the beginning of June. Moishe House played a very important role in their time here in Chicago. They said it was the first community of which they really felt a part and they always looked forward to our programs, especially our Shabbat dinners. We are super sad to see them leave.

The second experience that comes to mind is the program we planned with some of our community members for Shavuot. I (Hannah) am trying to explore Judaism and its traditions. I've never celebrated Shavuot, but I wanted to do it this year and I trusted there would be others out there looking for a similar experience. So I tapped some people that I thought would contribute well to program development and they were excited to help plan. We had a very successful event. 30 people attended, 8-10 of them were new too! I was thrilled to see that there is an appetite for more Jewish-learning oriented programs. Additionally, a handful of people that attended are not Jewish. It's important to us, at MH Chicago, that we develop a diverse and open community. So we were happy that a program celebrating a holy day still attracted our community members that are not Jewish. Finally, it was great to see the enthusiasm of the planning crew. They were grateful to have been asked to participate in that regard, and we were grateful for all the assistance they provided.

May there be many more meaningful moments.
Over and out.

Neal, MHSeattle, 10/1/09 (personal blog post)

Change is in the air -- literally. As if on cue, the weather here in Seattle recently changed from summery to chilly, windy, and wet. Fall started Sept. 23, and already it's off to an ambitious start. I've apparently lost my beloved red North Face jacket, which means I need to buy another one. The Moishe House Seattle sukkah is well on its way to completion in the backyard, and I hope our scheduled mini-golf trip in late October isn't rained out, especially because I'm leading it.

Zara is, as expected, a great addition to the house. Her enthusiasm and sensitivity are wonderful to have around, and she made our living room look as though civilized people actually inhabit the house. I'm not a neatnik, and she likes things reasonably clean, but we're working on a compromise that we'll both be pleased with. Also, she's leading an ingenious program wherein we'll build sukkot out of cookies (like gingerbread houses). I can't wait!

I'm 30, so I'll be leaving Moishe House soon. No organization is perfect, just as no person or house is, but MH has helped me find my way back to Jewish life, and for that I'll always be grateful. I'm also glad to know that as a Moishe House alum, I'll likely have somewhere to stay across the country, and even around the world. I want to also mention the efforts of Summer Shapiro, who has done her best to work with MH Seattle's unconventional approaches to various matters. I wish the MH Seattle of the future, whatever shape it may take, a great deal of luck. And of course I'll always be around as a resource, in case my wisdom is needed or desired. Shana tova, everyone, and happy Sukkot!

MHSeattle, Neal Schindler, 4/1/2009

It's amazing how much bacon we've been eating lately. More than that, I'm astonished by how many raw oysters Joel has managed to consume each night of the past week. These occurrences, plus our decision to change Shabbat dinner to Tuesday nights, have really shaken up the house.

Or perhaps it's simply April Fools' Day. :-)

Our recent MH Seattle events have gone well. Sunday's sushi lunch (which I should have billed as Jewshi when I had the chance) attracted some diehard fans of raw fish (no oysters, of course) and extremely sticky rice, and the most recent bowling excursion was a pretty big hit, too. (Skating has been phased out now that spring is supposedly here, though it snowed today -- and that's no April Fools' joke.) Next month there'll be an African Music Night at the local Eritrean restaurant Hidmo; I'll probably pass, in order to avoid event burnout. Our MH Shabbatot have been successful in both Russian and generic Jewish flavors, and we have a MH seder planned as well for Passover, which should be quite the three-ring circus at our house, between the epic cleaning, epic grocery runs, and epic hosting duties.

I think the 22-to-30-year-old set is starting to really get what makes Moishe House, and MH events, different from the other events we plan, and I think expressing that distinction consistently, clearly, and firmly is what will keep MH Seattle afloat in the future. There really are plenty of Jewish twentysomethings in town who have somewhat offbeat taste in social and cultural events, and I think we can bring in a rising number of them. Word of mouth is still an important tool for us, but people also find us via Facebook, or via other Moishe Houses. We may have a friend of MH Philly staying with us after Passover; she's checking out Bastyr University in Kenmore and looking for a couch to crash on for a few nights. It's always fun getting to know someone from another part of the country, with unique experiences to share, and I'm looking forward to meeting and hosting her.

Based on my wonderful experiences at MH D.C. earlier this year, I could really get behind a slightly more organized MH exchange program whereby Moisheniks visit a few Houses other than their own each year. It's probably too much to ask, at this stage, for MH HQ to underwrite our travel expenses for such a venture, but maybe in the years to come...

MHSeattle, Neal Schindler, 10/2/2008

Whew! The Rosh Hashanah rush was very fun and very wearying. I started a part-time temp job on Monday, and even though I'm sure most of you out there get up early every morning, rising at 7:30 a.m. to catch an 8:11 bus to start at 9 was a shock to the system for a few days there. (Now that I'm more used to it, I'm very grateful that my internal clock has been realigned to conform to, you know, employed people time.) Anyway, helping to host a Sunday night re-screening of the presidential debate and then co-hosting two RH dinners in a row (after last week's Wednesday potluck and Thursday movie night, yet!) left me needing some R&R.

Happily, I'm back to functional mode, and tonight I'm off to a VP debate-watching party being hosted by friends of friends of the Kibbutz. And Friday night's Shabbat dinner should be a smaller-than-usual, relatively quiet affair, which suits me fine. After all, October brings Sukkot -- days of gathering materials, multiple potlucks in the sukkah, and so on. I love the familial vibe of the house, but it's also reminding me that family means obligations. However fun those are, they have to be fit in around whatever else is going on in one's life. Mine is still pretty un-busy, which makes me wonder how things will be when I eventually land another full-time job. I'm also feeling a little guilty about not helping on RH prep as much as the other house members, but I guess the new job is a somewhat decent excuse. And I think communication in the house is open enough that if somebody thought I was slacking, they'd let me know. (I also worry all the time that I'm a big slacker, so often it's mostly my worries that are the problem, not the objective situation.)

P.S. Organizing the Nextbook salon about Jews and sex is continuing apace. Today I put together Elana's and my submission for the readings packet and deliver it to our co-coordinator, Jacob Fine, at Hillel.