You and I Will Change the World: Arik Einstein and the Hope of Israel

Leaving Israel is, for me, always accompanied by a certain sense of melancholy. Some authorities in our tradition (reading from Numbers 33:53) teach that while it is arguably a mitzvah to go to Israel, it is an aveirah, a transgression to leave.

But of course, I have a job and a family and a life here in Great Neck. I have a congregation that needs me (well, sometimes). I am 100% American, and in many ways I belong here. (Once in a while, I am complimented by actual Israelis about my accent in Hebrew, and they are surprised to learn that I grew up in Massachusetts. But I don't look or dress or have the body language of an Israeli, and the more astute observer can pick out an American long before he opens his mouth.)

Nonetheless, I feel a sense of belonging in Israel that I have never had here. These are my people. This is my land. Whether sitting at a cafe (and the cafes in Israel are numerous and excellent) drinking kafeh hafukh (literally, “upside-down coffee,” what the rest of the world calls cappucino), hiking through the desert, visiting an archaeological site, strolling through one of Israel’s many shopping malls (Israelis love malls!) or lounging on the beach, I feel at home. Yes, I speak the language, and I have spent in aggregate more than two years there, and am accustomed to the quirks and unpleasantries of Israeli society and culture that often make life there challenging for Americans. But there is something more there, a steadfast bond that connects me on a primal level to those ancient, contested rocks.

Apropos of the beginning of the book of Shemot / Exodus, the story is told of how God asked Moses which place he wanted to be the Promised Land. Moses, as we all know, was slow of tongue. So he starts to say California, but can’t quite get it out. So God says, “Canaan? That wasteland? Well, if you say so.”

But the last laugh may be on God, since the discovery of natural gas off the coast of Haifa in Israel’s territorial waters. It’s the largest natural gas field in the Middle East. Go figure!

I’m not sure exactly what is the source of my connection with Israel, or why it is so strong. But I do know that this feeling is quite real. Israel lights a fires in my soul. And my daughter seems to have the Israel bug as well: she has been saying for at least two years that she plans to marry her Beth HaGan classmate Andrew and make aliyah and live in Jerusalem. (Judy and I are not quite sure if Andrew was at all complicit in hatching this plan.)

And one thing of which I am certain is that Israel is a symbol of hope. It represents what the early Zionist poet Naftali Herz Imber called Hatikvah HaNoshannah, the ancient hope of our people to live in our own land. His poem was later modified to become the Israeli national anthem that we know and love. And there’s another hope, a hope for the future that Israel inspires in me: the hope of tiqqun olam, the potential for repairing the world. Both of these hopes were encapsulated in the best-known song of Israel’s most-beloved pop singer, Arik Einstein, who passed away a few weeks ago when I was there. Anybody who knows anything about Israeli pop will surely be familiar with some of his songs.

The NY Times ran an obituary for Mr. Einstein, which is remarkable not only because very few people in America have heard of him, but also because if we read anything in the American press about Israel, it’s only either about violence or the peace process, which paints a very narrow picture of Israel as it is. Let’s face it: Zionists only make for good copy when they are threatening or being threatened.

Arik Einstein's grave in Trumpeldor Cemetery, Tel Aviv, December 1, 2013.

But Arik Einstein was a Zionist - perhaps not overtly or politically, but he was an essential part of the fabric of Israeli culture, and a devoted citizen of the State of Israel and the voice of a musical revolution. Born in Tel Aviv in 1939, the son of a stage actor, he grew up in the center of the artistic and cultural ferment of the nascent Jewish State. Einstein took cues from the Beatles and other international pop groups of the 1960s and ultimately fashioned an experimental rock and roll sound that was at once distinctly Israeli and universal. While the state-sanctioned music of the time still presented the themes of love and war and good ol’ Eretz Yisrael, Mr. Einstein (to whom everybody in the country was referring as “Arik” in the wake of his death) emerged at a time when Israeli musicians, just like those all over the world, were beginning to challenge the status quo.

His best-known song was a favorite among American youth groups in the 70s and 80s: Ani VeAtah:

אני ואתה נשנה את העולם,

אני ואתה אז יבואו כבר כולם,

אמרו את זה קודם לפני,

לא משנה - אני ואתה נשנה את העולם.

אני ואתה ננסה מהתחלה,

יהיה לנו רע, אין דבר זה לא נורא,

אמרו את זה קודם לפני,

זה לא משנה - אני ואתה נשנה את העולם.

You and I will change the world

You and I, and then everybody else will come along too

Others have said it before me, but it doesn’t matter

You and I will change the world.

You and I will strive from the beginning

If there will be anything bad for us - no problem! No big deal.

Others have said it before me, but it doesn’t matter

You and I will change the world.

It is a tremendously moving song that speaks of the ability of each of us to influence those things that seem unchangeable, of the power that we each have to do good in the world and for each other, despite the naysayers. I have at times been moved to tears by this song.

Ani VeAtah is not explicitly Jewish, other than the fact that it is in Modern Hebrew. It does not quote any traditional source - the Torah or the Talmud or midrash or anything. But it implicitly references two fundamentally Jewish texts: Hatikvah, which I have already mentioned, and Aleinu, everybody’s favorite “we’re-almost-done-with-services” prayer.

Why Hatikvah? Because Ani VeAtah is the flip-side of the Israeli national anthem. Hatikvah is about the ancient Jewish yearning for return to Israel. It tells a story of hope, of national desire, and the actions of a small band of politicians, ideologues, and fighters that realized the ancient dream of Israel, a seeming impossibility. Arik’s anthem for changing the world is a plea to turn the realized ancient hope, that hope of 2,000 years, into the universal message that hope should never be lost in the future.

Why Aleinu? Because it contains a line (in the second paragraph, which we always recite silently here at Temple Israel) that speaks of our hope to repair the world: letaqqen olam bemalkhut Shaddai - we hope that that You, God, will perfect the world through Your sovereignty. In its original context, the author of Aleinu meant tiqqun olam to imply bringing everybody in the world to worship our God. But modern interpreters see this as the origin of the idea of repairing this very broken world through deeds of hesed, of lovingkindness to our fellow people. Arik’s 20th-century lyrics reflect our obligation to work toward this goal, that despite obstacles, we each have the potential to right the wrongs around us: to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to straighten the bent, to house the homeless, to promote environmental stewardship, to seek peace and pursue it, in the words of the Psalmist, and so forth.

You might think that the lyrics are naive, particularly given the great complexity of all of these challenges. And Arik himself confesses as much in the song. But, “lo meshaneh.” It doesn’t matter. The simple message of hope is the one that inspired the complex process that brought about the miracle of the State of Israel in our time, and this message will guide us in the future in our task of further perfecting the world.

It has often been observed that the book of Shemot is about the creation of the Israelite nation. Curiously, much of this nation-building takes place outside of the land of Israel, in Egypt and Sinai, and so from the very beginning of our people, we have faced the challenge of diaspora, of living away from our home.

There has been much talk, in the wake of the Pew Research Center study released in October, about the challenges facing American Jews concerning our relationship with Judaism. (Temple Israel and SHAI hosted Uri Cohen of the Queens College Hillel this past week, and he spoke about some of the implications of these statistics.) There are many voices in our sphere saying that contemporary Diaspora Judaism has a problem, that is, the disengagement of Jews with Judaism.

For centuries we have focused much of our yearning, as filtered through the lens of Jewish prayer and text, on redemption. This theme is found throughout your siddur, and permeates rabbinic literature. The future redemption that Jews have prayed for and meditated on and repeated over and over in the beit midrash, the study hall, like our first redemption from Egypt, is the return to our land after centuries of dispersion, the re-establishment of the Davidic throne over a united kingdom over the entire Promised Land.

Part of that redemption has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. It is an imperfect, incomplete redemption. But we now have sovereignty within our historical land. And that is, at least on a personal level, one of the most inspiring, most appealing aspects of living as a contemporary Jew, here in the Diaspora or in Israel.

The answer to the disengagement suggested by the Pew study is Israel. The messages sent by its pre-eminent rock-and-rollers, is the inspiration that we all need, the answer to the Diaspora’s Jewish malaise. It is the very essence of hope. Israel might very well be the world’s poster child for the ability of Hatikvah, of hope’s ability to effect change.

No, it's not perfect. No, it's mostly not even holy. Yes, there are many, many political and social problems in Israel.

But no other place gives me that sense of hope, of hatikvah hanoshannah, of ancient and future hopes that ignites a fire under my Jewish identity.

As another great Israeli songwriter, Ehud Manor, put it, “Ein li eretz aheret.” “I have no other land.” (Translation here.)

I am fortunate that on the heels of my most recent trip, I will be returning to Israel in February with 35 teens on Temple Israel’s Youth House trip to Israel. I know from having done this before that Israel will ignite a fire under those kids’ Jewish identities as well.

Through our active embrace of the Jewish State, by going there and experiencing all that Israel has to offer, we can sustain that feeling, that connection. We can feel the hope. And we can change the world.

Keep singing, Arik, and Shabbat Shalom.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 12/21/2013.)

Thanksgivukkah (sp?) Recipe: Spaghetti Squash Latkes!

Ah, the latke! It hits the Jewish palate with an unfettered, pleasurable mix of memory, satisfaction, and fried wonderful-ness. Of course, the use of oil reminds us of the Hanukkah miracle. But who can argue that this culinary treasure is an icon unto itself, a ritual that engages body and soul with Jewish history and peoplehood, pressing the savory, sweet, and holy buttons all at once.

Here’s a new twist on an old favorite, appropriate for Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: Spaghetti Squash Latkes!

• 1 average spaghetti squash
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (use more if necessary for binding)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup olive oil (you can also use coconut oil for crispier results)
• Optional toppings: Sour cream, apple sauce, salsa, Sriracha, etc.

1. Cut squash in half, remove seeds, place on a baking tray, and bake at 350˚ for 30–45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes.
2. Remove spaghetti-like squash strands with a fork. If necessary, cut strands on a cutting board to make them more manageable.
3. Place squash strands in a bowl and mix with beaten egg, flour, salt and pepper.
4. Heat oil in a nonstick pan. Drop squash mixture into 3-inch round patties. Fry until brown and crispy.
5. Remove latkes from oil and place on a platter layered with paper towels to absorb extra oil. Serve hot! Savor the taste of Hanukkah, and remember the miracle. (Don’t forget to light the candles!)  

 בתיאבון! Beteiavon! Bon appétit!


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

An Ancient Principle Revived: Our Shared Story - Vayishlah 5774

This past week we observed Veterans’ Day, which, I think, is just behind Memorial Day in the list of Most Unappreciated American Holidays. NPR played stories of recent veterans - one man who served in Afghanistan and is recovering from horrible burns, vets who are finding work and community by becoming firefighters, older vets recalling their experiences in WWII as their numbers dwindle. The stories were touching indeed, but my sense is that most Americans were not reflecting too seriously on Monday about those who have served in the nation’s armed forces.

What Veterans’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving do for us as Americans is to help maintain our shared story. This is who we are; this is our history; these are the memories and principles that sustain us as we move forward.

Problem is, I don’t think we have a shared story any more. Maybe we never did, but in any case, the texture of American society is too varied, and our willingness to spend time reflecting about anything is too scarce. We are more likely to spend these days shopping than celebrating our American-ness or recalling those who served and died for this nation. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of our society has, I think, yielded multiple Americas: Consider how we are failing to speak to one another in the public sphere - our politics, issues of education or race or even religion.

And, thanks to the magical information-sorting mechanism known as the Internet, we are moving to a place where we are all living in our own little echo chambers. As print media and even broadcast journalism (is anything actually “broadcast” today?) continue their slow decline, we are gradually growing more isolated due to the search engines that make choices for us regarding what we want to read or watch, all in the name of the advertising dollars that sustain Google and Facebook by getting us to click on more and more links.   

Abetted by the binary thinking that underlies computer technology (everything boils down to ones and zeros; you either “Like” something on Facebook or you don’t), there are two mutually-exclusive narratives on climate change, two narratives on health care, multiple narratives on Israel, and on and on. These binary echo chambers are, in some ways, limiting our abilities to see the complexity in difficult issues and ancient religious traditions.

In this environment, it is very hard for us to have a shared story.

However, ladies and gentlemen, shared stories are the vehicle that binds us to each other. And no matter how talented our electronic devices become, they will never bring us together in the ways that our ancestors bonded, first over communal meals by the fire, then in the foundational myths that held ancient societies together, then in the common ideals and dogma of the great religions, and in contemporary times, the modern tales of war, revolution, and technological advancement that have shaped our world.

So, while shared stories have always been the glue of societies ancient and modern, consider for a moment the following. In the last month, I have been to four different gatherings of Jews discussing the Jewish future: 

• the United Synagogue Centennial Convention,
• a seminar on the future of the rabbinate with Long Island colleagues, hosted by UJA-Federation’s Synergy program,
• a workshop on using the model of community organizing for synagogues hosted by the Rabbinical Assembly (Clergy 2.0), and
• a training session for congregational facilitators of United Synagogue’s Sulam for Emerging Leaders, a leadership-development program that we are launching here at Temple Israel next month. 
   

At three out of four of these gatherings, significant attention was paid to the need to build relationships between people by sharing stories. In the seminar on community organizing, I and 43 other Conservative rabbis spent a day and a half learning techniques for eliciting stories from members of our communities, individually and in small groups. It seems that the idea of sharing stories is one of the foundational principles of the brave, new world of reimagining faith communities.

But here’s the irony: we know that! In particular, we, the Jews, the People of the Book - we know that stories bind us to one another. We are the keepers of the greatest contribution of storytelling to Western society: the Torah!

In fact, we read this morning what I have long felt is the most essential, foundational story in the Torah related to Jewish peoplehood. It’s Yaaqov’s one-on-one encounter with an angel, where he wrestles all night long, but before the angel departs, he bestows upon Yaaqov a new name: Yisrael.

What does Yisrael mean? The Torah tells us:

כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים, וַתּוּכָל.

For you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.

We are Benei Yisrael, the children of Israel. Our very name says everything you need to know about the Israelite people. We are the people who struggle with God. We ask questions. We argue. We disagree. That is an essential quality of the Jewish character. I could rattle off any number of relevant jokes here, but what I am saying is actually quite serious: our theological struggle, our willingness to wrestle with the words of the Torah and Jewish tradition and yes, with God, defines our peoplehood.

And this story of who we are is just one of literally hundreds in the Tanakh, the entire Hebrew Bible. Why do we read the Torah in its entirety every year? Yes, because we continue to learn from it. Yes, because God has commanded us to meditate on these words day and night (c.f. Joshua 1:8). But all the more so, because these are the stories that unite us. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, even the Secular Humanists have to admit that the Torah is our collective, national story.

Here is the challenge that we face as the 21st century picks up speed: the Torah may not be enough. Why are all these Jewish organizations exhorting their rabbis and lay leaders to focus on building relationships through shared stories? Because we have lost sight of our heritage. Because we no longer have one narrative.

How many of us are hear the Torah read regularly? How many of us are meditating on it night and day? I can tell you that in my weekly parashah discussion, Dor HaBa, we usually have about 12 very eager participants. It’s always a great discussion, but can we seriously say that this community is engaged with the Torah?

The recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that only 11% of American Jews attend synagogue once per week or more, and another 12% once or twice a month. Most of the people in those two categories are Orthodox. That means that ¾ of American Jews, and the vast majority of the non-Orthodox, are not engaged in the time-honored tradition of hearing our Jewish story on a regular basis. And furthermore, even of the ones who are there week after week, how many of us are actually listening, reading, and actively engaged?

We have to work harder to find our contemporary shared stories, so that we can maintain our ancient story, the Torah.

And that will require cultural change. What made big synagogues like this one function through the middle of the 20th century until recent years is the common narrative of its members. Not just the Torah, but the immigrant experience in the New World, the common foods and musical tastes and cultural pursuits, the struggles provoked by anti-Semitism here and abroad, the wake of the Shoah and the establishment and building of the State of Israel.

But we don’t have that anymore. We are far more diverse today, with an ethnic mix far more varied than that of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, with different tales and origins and foods and music. Israel is not struggling for survival. 73% of Jews in the Pew study indicated that “Remembering the Holocaust” is an essential part of being Jewish, but as the survivors among us dwindle and World War II recedes further into our national memory, this will also figure less as a uniter of Jewish peoplehood. (BTW, only 19% that “Observing Jewish law” is essential to being Jewish, although this, of course, is material for another sermon entirely.)  

What this institution, and all the institutions of American Jewish life need, at this point, is cultural change. We are going to need a change that is akin to Yaaqov’s name change, from the one who aspired at birth by grasping the heel of his older twin brother, to the father of the nation that struggles with God. That kind of change.

And that change will have to come from within. It will emerge through a range of conversations: individual conversations one-on-one with members of the clergy and senior staff or lay volunteers, larger conversations in group meetings, and so forth. The primary question that we will be asking, ladies and gentlemen, paraphrases that most famously asked by President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address. The question is not, “What can Temple Israel do for you?” but rather, “What are you willing to do with Temple Israel? What might you do to make this a more engaging place for more members of this community?”

We will need to move this congregation from a transactional relationship with its members (i.e. you pay your dues, we provide you with services) to that based on personal engagement and participation. And we can build that personal institution. Yes, there are some among us who will always prefer to write out a check than participate in a hands-on way, and there are many of us who feel like we simply do not have time for a more active role in Jewish communal life, and we need all of those people too. But it is upon us as a community to seek ways that we can reconnect, to make this a place of shared stories, to make this institution less, well, institutional.

We are all searching for personal meaning, and we as a community have to get to a place where meaning can be found in our relationships with members of this synagogue, where our stories bind us to each other and to God. And to find those entry points, to create the environment in which we can share those stories, we, the clergy and the laity of Temple Israel will need your help. So we hope that you will step forward when asked.

Until that framework is created, however, here is an easy suggestion: When you are in the building, don’t just talk and greet your friends. After today’s service is over, at the kiddush, find somebody you have never met before and get to know them. Ask: What’s your story? What brought you here today? Tell me about yourself. What makes you want to be involved with a community? What are the things about Judaism that appeal to you? If you had the time, the energy, and the resources, what great idea might you initiate in this community?

We have to continue to struggle with God. We have to continue to engage. If we stop doing so, then we will no longer be Yisrael, the ones who struggle with God. Look for those opportunities to elicit the stories of others, and to share your own. It’s an ancient idea whose time has come again.

Shabbat shalom.

~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, November 16, 2013.)

A Call to Action - Lekh Lekha 5774

I’m sure that many of us saw the article in the New York Times last week about the demographic state of American Jewry. (The full report from the Pew Research Center may be found here.) The major findings are the kinds of things that set off alarm bells and rounds of hand-wringing in certain quarters of the Jewish community. For example:

• 22% of American Jews now consider themselves “Jews of no religion,” and that figure is higher for younger cohorts
• 72% of non-Orthodox Jews marrying in the last 13 years married somebody who is not Jewish
• Affiliated Conservative Jews now account for 18% of American Jews (cf. 35% Reform and 10% Orthodox
• The Conservative movement is now, on average, the oldest movement (median age of members is 55 years) and the one with the fewest children living at home (0.3 per family)

And so forth. There are plenty more where those nuggets came from.

Now it is very easy to let ourselves get agitated over this, and of course the Times loves stories that get Jews agitated. (Arnold Eisen, the Chancellor of JTS, invoked a classic joke in his blog post on the subject: One Jew sends a telegram to the other: Start worrying. Details to follow.)

But, like Chancellor Eisen, I’d like to suggest that we let cooler heads prevail here. The essential message that we should glean from this report is this: we have to read this not as a threat, but as a call to action. Allow me to explain by illustrating a point in Parashat Lekh Lekha.

Our newly-minted everyman hero, Abram, whom we just met at the end of Parashat Noah, is instructed by God to pick up and leave his home, and move to some other place:

וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ.

God said to Abram, “Go forth from your land, and from your homeland, and from your father’s house, to the land that I shall show you.

Abram does not know where he is going, but he trusts God, and so he picks up and leaves his homeland and his father’s house to head out to what we know will some day be called Israel. This is his Lekh Lekha moment, where Abram (according to a midrash), goes off in search of himself, primed to be the father of a new nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, we in this room, who are among the most committed American Jews, and in a wider sense the Conservative movement, we must go off in search of ourselves. And to do that, we have to leave the comfort of our homeland, of (dare I say it) Rabbi Waxman’s house. And I mean that in both the tangible and spiritual sense.

I was on a conference call this week with Dr. Jonathan Sarna, the prominent professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, to put the Pew survey into perspective. He pointed out that (א) studies like this pop up from time to time, broadcasting dire predictions and precipitating much communal angst, and (ב) that they have also spurred the major movements into action, and have even succeeded in helping turn them around.

Dr. Sarna pointed out that this is not the first such seeming statistical low point. In his book, American Judaism (Yale University Press, 2004, pp. 224-5), we read that in 1919, the American Jewish Year Book offers that less than 23 percent of the Jewish population was “regularly affiliated with congregations.” (That is far less than today, percentage-wise.) In 1926, the US Census of Religious Bodies found that “average length of stay in a Jewish school” was two years total. The San Francisco of 1938 had an 18 percent affiliation rate. In Brownsville, Brooklyn in 1935, only 8 percent of men regularly attended synagogue (and the women even less), and ¾ of young Jews in all of New York City in had not attended services AT ALL in the past year, including High Holidays. And so forth.

Dr. Sarna noted that in the 1930s, Reform Judaism was seen by most American Jews as a small movement with limited appeal, and would soon disappear. But in response, Reform reinvented itself, and is today by far the largest movement. Similarly, he noted that his teacher, the sociologist Marshall Sklare, predicted in the 1960s that Orthodoxy would soon languish away. But Dr. Sklare was wrong, and Orthodoxy is thriving today, even though it only accounts for 10% of American Jews.

While news outlets have been quick to point out that the numbers look especially bad for Conservative Judaism, these kinds of surveys have spurred movement-wide change before, and this should be our call to action. This may be our Lekh Lekha moment.

We are living in an age in which fear/mistrust/dislike of institutions is rampant. Government. Corporations. Organized religion (although I’m not sure why anybody would call Judaism “organized”). Indeed, the very concept of “religion” is alienating to many people today; such is the hazard of living in an open, secular society. But that’s why we have to leave our comfortable surroundings, the physical and the metaphorical, and extend ourselves, to reconsider what we do and how we do it.

For decades, and especially through the periods of dramatic growth that the Conservative movement and Temple Israel experienced in the middle of the 20th century, we did not have to work to attract adherents. It was enough for congregations to hire a brilliant rabbi and a cantor with a soaring voice, set up a Hebrew school, and voila! In came the Jews.

But we are no longer living in those days. We cannot expect that people will just walk in the door and join us. Yes, that is true for a few people (we welcomed a bunch of new families this past weekend with a special welcoming ceremony). But many Jews today think that the synagogue experience is not for them; many Jews think that they just don’t have time or money or interest for shul, that they can’t manage the Hebrew or synagogue choreography, and are therefore intimidated or bored. Reaching those people will require that we go out to them, and provide avenues for involvement that are not solely focused on ritual. And here is where we can take some cues from Chabad.

Where do we usually encounter Chabadniks? On the street with lulav and etrog. On campuses offering free Shabbat meals and a welcoming home. Holding big, splashy programs with wide appeal for families. They go to where the Jews are, and they attract them with free offerings, a judgment-free, friendly environment, and the promise of an authentic Jewish experience.

But we have some things that Chabad does not. We are egalitarian, counting women and men as equals in Jewish life. We welcome dissenting views and incorporate history, science, and scholarship into our understanding of Jewish texts. We think and approach Judaism like contemporary Americans. And it is for this reason that we cannot cede the realm of outreach to Orthodoxy: we need to be out there where the Jews are, too.

A Reform colleague, Rabbi Leon Morris of Sag Harbor, offered the following in an opinion piece in Haaretz:

“... the troubling results of this survey actually underscore the urgent need for non-Orthodox Judaism to be successful. If a case needed to be made that the vast majority of American Jews will never become Orthodox, this study makes the case clearer than ever. The synagogues that have the greatest potential to reach the growing number of “Jews of no religion” are the non-Orthodox ones. If American Orthodoxy cares about the survival of Jewish life in America, the results of this study should in fact encourage American Orthodox leadership to work together more closely with the Reform and Conservative movements. Those movements are the shock troops for deepening Jewish life for the most endangered Jews described in this study.”

We are on the front lines, ladies and gentlemen, but we’re all looking the other way.

Dr. Sarna pointed out a few encouraging statistics: that a whopping 83% of the “Jews of no religion” say that they are proud to be Jewish, and 46% of them believe in God! And then he indicated another group: 36% of American Jews are in the “Other” category. They are not affiliated with a mainstream denomination, or describe themselves as “just Jewish.” These are the people, he says, that we should be going after. To this end, Dr. Sarna suggests a few things. We should...

• feature musical Friday night services at a fixed time each week
• reconsider the de-funding of Koach, the Conservative movement’s arm on college campuses
• refocus our energies on promoting day schools - making them affordable as well as the best educational option for Jewish children
• meet the technology challenge - not only to use the new tools of social media better, but also to stop telling people to turn off their phones in synagogue. (And let me assure you that this is a hard thing for me to accept.) People used to come to synagogue to be connected to others; now when they arrive they are told to disconnect

I think we could even come up with our own creative new approaches. There are things that we do already that are so creative and engaging and work on so many levels, but most of them are small programs that reach only a select few people. The things that I think work the best are those that create holy moments outside of the formality of synagogue services, where it is easier to make personal connections: tashlikh, the Sukkah-building workshop, the new members’ welcoming ceremony that we did last Sunday, the Youth House trip to Israel, the retreat at Camp Ramah that we led for Vav class students last spring, and will be doing again, the new groups like Temple Israel Bonds (for parents with children in the Religious School) and the EmpTInesters group.

Along these lines, we should have more retreats, more creative services that are held outdoors, more social groups that bring like-minded people together. We should have meet-ups in Kings Point Park where we learn Talmud, say. We should reach out through Facebook to gather people for a surprise, late-night qiddush halevanah (blessing over the moon), maybe with cocktails. We should organize a volunteer staff of community outreach coordinators, who keep an eye peeled for newcomers to Great Neck and reach out even before young couples sign up to bring their kids to Beth HaGan, or sign up for High Holiday seats.

The point is, we have to think outside the sanctuary. We can’t rely merely on the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process to capture and hold people, especially when so many can easily avoid our “requirements” and fees by going elsewhere.

In two weeks, I will be attending a training session at JTS about implementing the community organizing model, a workshop for rabbis that will help us in building our communities, and I hope that it will give me fresh ideas to bring back to Great Neck.

But it cannot be just the clergy; we have to work harder as a community as well. We cannot sit idly by, even here in this beautiful sanctuary, as 22% becomes 30% becomes 50%. If we want this community to grow, we have to find those “other” Jews, the 36%, invite them in.

So this is a call to action, and an opportunity. There are plenty of people, right here in Great Neck, that might well join our community if we can reach them and offer them appealing points of entry. Our Lekh Lekha moment has arrived - we may need to leave our current model, but we will do it knowing that the Promised Land is at the end of our journey.