2012
Text-Based Life-Long Learning across the Congregational System- Schools, Board Rooms and Beyond
The "Transformative" in Transformative Jewish Texts
At its core transformative is defined as "A marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better." So what does it mean to us in Jewish life? What texts have the potential to change our ethical character and/or our connection to Judaism? What power do we attribute to Jewish texts?
Gems about textual teaching, drawn from a project involving seven Reconstructionist congregations and RRC student rabbis, as well as JRF education and congregational leadership programs (such as PEARL) will be examined for what they both reveal and conceal about Jewish text study, and the implications for the classroom, the boardroom, programming, social justice action and so on.
Expected Preparation (Written and Audio):
Intro: http://jrf.org/showres?rid=194
2005 Omer Initiative: http://63.115.67.94/pirke-avot/index.html
Sustainability http://jrf.org/omer/2007 (http://jrf.org/files/Omer%20Text%20Study%20Packet%202007.pdf)
Parker Palmer, To Know as Are Known (1993)
Where schools give students hundreds of pages of text and urges them to speed read, the monks dwelled on a page or a passage or a line for hours and days at a time. This method allows reading to open, not fill, our learning space.
When all students in the room have read the same brief piece in a way that allows them to enter and occupy the text, a common space is created in which students, teachers, and texts can meet. It is an open space since a good text will raise as many questions as it answers. It is a hospitable, reassuring space since everyone has walked around in it beforehand and becomes acquainted with its dimensions. Too often we fail to capitalize on the space-creating quality. We hold students individually accountable for what they read on texts, but seldom allow their reading to create a common space in which the group can meet in mutual accountability for their learning.
(The Five Books of Moses. The Schocken Bible: Volume I, commentary and notes by Everett Fox Pgs.256-258, 268.)
Now Moshe was shepherding the flock of Yitro his father-in-law,
priest of Midyan.?
He led the flock behind the wilderness-?
and he came to the mountain of God, to Horev.?
And YHWH’s messenger was seen by him?
in the flame of a fire out of the midst of a bush.?
He saw:
here, the bush is burning with fire,?
and the bush is not consumed!?
Moshe said:?
Now let me turn aside
that I may see this great sight-?
why the bush does not burn up!?
When YHWH saw that he had turned aside to see,
God called to him out of the midst of the bush,
Moshe, Moshe,
he said:?
Here I am.
He said:
Do not come near here,
put off your sandal from your foot,?
for the place on which you stand-it is holy ground!?
and he said:?
I am the God of your father,
the God of Avraham,?
the God of Yitzchok,?
and the God of Yaakov.?
Moshe concealed his face,
for he was afraid to gaze upon God.?(Exodus 3:1-6)
Dr. Jeffrey Schein is currently a Professor and Director of the Department of Jewish Education at the Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies. He has served as the Senior Consultant for Jewish Education for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation and for the Mandel Center for Jewish Education of the JCC’s of North America Lekhu Lakhem project.
Dr. Schein is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and of the doctoral program in curriculum studies of Temple University in Philadelphia. He is the author of Creative Jewish Education (Rossel Books), Targilon: A Guide for Charting the Course of Jewish Education (JESNA and JRF), and Windows on the Jewish Soul, Connecting Prayer and Spirituality, The Reconstructionist Curriculum Resource Guide, and Lifelong Jewish Learning , and Growing Together: Resources and Programs for Jewish Family Education. He has coauthored with Rabbi Sandy Sasso Kol Ha-Noar: The Voice of Children., a prayerbook for young children and their families. He is the first non-pulpit Rabbi to receive the Ira Eisenstein award from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association for distinguished service. He is the founding Rabbi of congregation Kol HaLev, the Reconstructionist congregation of Cleveland.
Rabbi Erin Hirsh is JRF Director of Education. A 2000 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, she spent ten years working as an Education Director in the Reconstructionist movement at congregations Kehilat HaNahar and Mishkan Shalom. She also served as a consultant to Reconstructionist congregations during that time. Rabbi Erin has taught in a variety of supplementary school settings, including Reform and Reconstructionist congregations. She is the author of Etz Hayim We, a series of text study curricula based on the megillot. Rabbi Erin has also helped write the curricula for Camp JRF for the past five years. She and her partner, Ezra Sherman, are blessed with a daughter, Zoe.
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, www.rabbizevit.com is a congregational consultant and Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is the Co-Director of the award-winning Davennen Leaders Training Institute and is a spiritual director for many clergy. A recording artist he has also written and developed resources in the areas of Community Building, Leadership, Prayer, Contemporary views of GOD, Jewish Men's issues ("Brother Keepers: New Essays in Jewish Masculinity), and Money and Jewish values ("Offerings of the Heart: Values-Based Approaches to Money in Faith Community". Rabbi Zevit moved to Cleveland in 2009 to be with his wife Simcha and family, continuing his work for JRF from there.
Tikkun Olam programs, decision-making and programming in our communities
This call will explore best practices for creating committees and buy-in for effective social justice work in our congregations, including integrated youth and adult education and tikkun programming, as well as service-learning, decision-making and advocacy outside our communities. As well, as part of JRF's ongoing Sustainable Synagogue Initiative, these sessions will focus on Jewish values and successful greening of synagogue life. Special focus on texts and traditions on religious and ecological consciousness and sustainable practices in ritual, programming and policy aspects of Jewish communal life, using alternative energies, and emerging best practices.
Expected Preparation (Written and Audio):
http://jrf.org/pearl/2008/living-our-values-of-tikkun-olam-inside-and-ou...
http://jrf.org/pearl/2011/Sustainability
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, www.rabbizevit.com is a congregational consultant and Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is the Co-Director of the award-winning Davennen Leaders Training Institute and is a spiritual director for many clergy. A recording artist he has also written and developed resources in the areas of Community Building, Leadership, Prayer, Contemporary views of GOD, Jewish Men's issues ("Brother Keepers: New Essays in Jewish Masculinity), and Money and Jewish values ("Offerings of the Heart: Values-Based Approaches to Money in Faith Community". Rabbi Zevit moved to Cleveland in 2009 to be with his wife Simcha and family, continuing his work for JRF from there.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling leads RRC’s initiative to invest rabbinical students with the clarity of purpose, vision and voice to become uniquely effective, spiritually strong leaders in the drive toward social justice and environmental sustainability, as the first to direct the newly created Social Justice Organizing Program, http://www.rrc.edu/academics/rabbinical-program/social-justice-organizing-program?print=1. Liebling himself has worked throughout his career toward tikkun olam, repair of the world.
Through his own experience, Liebling came to realize that spiritual leaders hold unique power to demonstrate and inspire ethical choices, and to lead a pursuit of justice fueled by caring rather than rage. Most recently he served as the executive vice president of Jewish Funds for Justice; prior to that organization’s merger with The Shefa Fund, he held the title Torah of Money Director at TSF, providing guidance to help people apply Jewish laws and values to how they spend, invest and donate. For 12 years he was the executive director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, and he later served there as senior consultant. Before entering the rabbinical program at RRC, he worked as a community organizer.
Liebling was a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations for 12 years. He has served on the boards of various national and international non-profit organizations; currently he serves on the boards of the Faith and Politics Institute and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. Liebling also is the president emeritus of the Shalom Center.
He has received awards from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility and Mazon. Liebling also has spoken out for justice for people with disabilities, and his family was the subject of the award-winning documentary film Praying With Lior. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in government from Cornell University and Master of Arts in the history of American civilization, specializing in American progressive movements, from Brandeis University. Liebling is a 1985 graduate of RRC. He has published articles in many publications, including Tikkun, Israel Horizons, Jewish Currents and The Reconstructionist.
Tikkun Olam: Advocacy, community organizing and external partnerships for change beyond our walls.
This session provides a forum to discuss social justice organizing in faith community, including developing policies and procedures for dealing with advocacy issues in your own congregation. Many Reconstructionist clergy and lay leaders have led the way in their communities to start and grow "CBCO" networks, transforming their own congregations in the process. We will also discuss drawing others to your community who are already drawn to this work, leveraging the larger community of organizations and professional organizers to amplify your potential for success, the benefits of working in diversity, and thinking about your own internal leadership development so as to effectively pursue this work.
Expected Preparation (Written and Audio):
http://jrf.org/pearl/2008/tzedek-tzedek-tirdof-actively-pursing-social-j...
http://jrf.org/pearl/2009/cbco-congregation-based-community-organizing
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, www.rabbizevit.com is a congregational consultant and Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is the Co-Director of the award-winning Davennen Leaders Training Institute and is a spiritual director for many clergy. A recording artist he has also written and developed resources in the areas of Community Building, Leadership, Prayer, Contemporary views of GOD, Jewish Men's issues ("Brother Keepers: New Essays in Jewish Masculinity), and Money and Jewish values ("Offerings of the Heart: Values-Based Approaches to Money in Faith Community". Rabbi Zevit moved to Cleveland in 2009 to be with his wife Simcha and family, continuing his work for JRF from there.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling leads RRC’s initiative to invest rabbinical students with the clarity of purpose, vision and voice to become uniquely effective, spiritually strong leaders in the drive toward social justice and environmental sustainability, as the first to direct the newly created Social Justice Organizing Program, http://www.rrc.edu/academics/rabbinical-program/social-justice-organizing-program?print=1. Liebling himself has worked throughout his career toward tikkun olam, repair of the world.
Through his own experience, Liebling came to realize that spiritual leaders hold unique power to demonstrate and inspire ethical choices, and to lead a pursuit of justice fueled by caring rather than rage. Most recently he served as the executive vice president of Jewish Funds for Justice; prior to that organization’s merger with The Shefa Fund, he held the title Torah of Money Director at TSF, providing guidance to help people apply Jewish laws and values to how they spend, invest and donate. For 12 years he was the executive director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, and he later served there as senior consultant. Before entering the rabbinical program at RRC, he worked as a community organizer.
Liebling was a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations for 12 years. He has served on the boards of various national and international non-profit organizations; currently he serves on the boards of the Faith and Politics Institute and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. Liebling also is the president emeritus of the Shalom Center.
He has received awards from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility and Mazon. Liebling also has spoken out for justice for people with disabilities, and his family was the subject of the award-winning documentary film Praying With Lior.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in government from Cornell University and Master of Arts in the history of American civilization, specializing in American progressive movements, from Brandeis University. Liebling is a 1985 graduate of RRC.
He has published articles in many publications, including Tikkun, Israel Horizons, Jewish Currents and The Reconstructionist.