Thinking about the Conservative Movement
I’ve been having a lot of conversations this year about possible directions for the Conservative movement in America; I suppose that being in Israel has provided some helpful distance, and has also provided a good chance to hear other perspectives (by comparing notes with my fellow students at Schechter coming from their respective programs in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Israel). I’ve also been inspired by the work of the Shefa Network, a new network of “Conservative Jewish Activists,” which has provided an online forum for thinking about dreams and concrete visions for the movement.
Acknowledging that this is probably only of interest to a limited number of the people reading this blog, I'll do my best to keep this brief, but will go ahead and share a few of my thoughts about good things for the Conservative movement to do. Here are some preliminary suggestions regarding areas to focus on:
1. Getting over our fears of talking seriously about halakhah (Jewish law): being willing to teach about the ways in which Jewish practice is designed to influence the smallest details of daily life, rather than focusing on the practices that are easy and palatable to our congregants.
2. Being willing to distinguish between minhag and halakhah, between traditional customs and binding obligations. As I’ve learned from my teacher Moshe Benovitz this year, we should be focusing our attention on the things that we describe as divine commandents, and only worry about the additional customs when they seem to be of value. When extra-legal customs lead us in directions that bring about unnecessary and painful restrictions (for instance, in dealing with homosexuality or some of the issues connected with intermarriage), we ought to give them less weight and focus instead on the halakhic bottom line.
3. Making connections between halakhah and aggadah, between our binding obligations and the theological and ethical values of our tradition. We are pretty good at doing this, and have produced some good literature on how various aspects of ritual and prayer ought to be impacting our behavior, character, and worldview, but this is something we should really be making into one of the hallmarks of the Conservative movement. Part of the trick is defining what our “aggadic” values are; my teacher Rabbi Ira Stone has been doing some important work in that arena, and we should be paying attention.
4. Keep expanding serious adult education opportunities. I continue to think that the Conservative Yeshiva, where I studied three years ago and where Katy has been studying this year, is probably the most important institution that the Conservative movement has. We should be expanding its reach and also setting up other similar serious learning institutions (kollels) wherever we have large numbers of Conservative Jews.
5. Finding new ways to support Conservative Jewish Day Schools. Serious Jewish day-school education is undoubtedly the best way to strengthen the movement, but we don’t have the financial resources to make it possible to provide such an education to more than a small number of students. Most parents can’t afford private school tuition; even if they can, they’ve already paid their taxes, and would generally prefer to send their children to a decent public school at no extra cost rather than paying for a Jewish day school. I think that the best public policy solution for this problem is some sort of school voucher program, which the Conservative movement publicly opposes.
6. Refocusing the way we think about Bar and Bat Mitzvah training. Since parents are interested in having their children undergo some sort of training, we should take advantage of the time we have with our students to focus on things that will be more lasting than teaching them to read Torah or Haftarah. There are lots of other “mitzvahs” (commandments) that are likely to be more meaningful to students, and we should find ways to focus on whatever will create a lasting connection, even if that means ignoring Torah-reading-skills altogether. I’d like to imagine that the educational environment leading up to Bar and Bat Mitzvahs is a Beit Midrash (study hall) model, with lots of opportunity for individualized learning, rather than a classroom.
7. Reforming our approach to training cantors. This is Katy’s big issue, and one she started thinking about when she was looking at various cantorial programs. The curriculum for the training of Conservative movement cantors is a bit too focused on artistic performance, and not sufficiently focused on training cantors to be leaders who can teach and inspire humble prayer and devotion.
8. Restructuring the relationship between Conservative movement institutions. At present, the movement is filled with organizational chaos, which particularly presents problems in the realm of fundraising. We need some good consultants to help re-engineer the movement's structure so that we can more easily meet our goals.
UPDATE: An expanded version of these thoughts can be found here.
Acknowledging that this is probably only of interest to a limited number of the people reading this blog, I'll do my best to keep this brief, but will go ahead and share a few of my thoughts about good things for the Conservative movement to do. Here are some preliminary suggestions regarding areas to focus on:
1. Getting over our fears of talking seriously about halakhah (Jewish law): being willing to teach about the ways in which Jewish practice is designed to influence the smallest details of daily life, rather than focusing on the practices that are easy and palatable to our congregants.
2. Being willing to distinguish between minhag and halakhah, between traditional customs and binding obligations. As I’ve learned from my teacher Moshe Benovitz this year, we should be focusing our attention on the things that we describe as divine commandents, and only worry about the additional customs when they seem to be of value. When extra-legal customs lead us in directions that bring about unnecessary and painful restrictions (for instance, in dealing with homosexuality or some of the issues connected with intermarriage), we ought to give them less weight and focus instead on the halakhic bottom line.
3. Making connections between halakhah and aggadah, between our binding obligations and the theological and ethical values of our tradition. We are pretty good at doing this, and have produced some good literature on how various aspects of ritual and prayer ought to be impacting our behavior, character, and worldview, but this is something we should really be making into one of the hallmarks of the Conservative movement. Part of the trick is defining what our “aggadic” values are; my teacher Rabbi Ira Stone has been doing some important work in that arena, and we should be paying attention.
4. Keep expanding serious adult education opportunities. I continue to think that the Conservative Yeshiva, where I studied three years ago and where Katy has been studying this year, is probably the most important institution that the Conservative movement has. We should be expanding its reach and also setting up other similar serious learning institutions (kollels) wherever we have large numbers of Conservative Jews.
5. Finding new ways to support Conservative Jewish Day Schools. Serious Jewish day-school education is undoubtedly the best way to strengthen the movement, but we don’t have the financial resources to make it possible to provide such an education to more than a small number of students. Most parents can’t afford private school tuition; even if they can, they’ve already paid their taxes, and would generally prefer to send their children to a decent public school at no extra cost rather than paying for a Jewish day school. I think that the best public policy solution for this problem is some sort of school voucher program, which the Conservative movement publicly opposes.
6. Refocusing the way we think about Bar and Bat Mitzvah training. Since parents are interested in having their children undergo some sort of training, we should take advantage of the time we have with our students to focus on things that will be more lasting than teaching them to read Torah or Haftarah. There are lots of other “mitzvahs” (commandments) that are likely to be more meaningful to students, and we should find ways to focus on whatever will create a lasting connection, even if that means ignoring Torah-reading-skills altogether. I’d like to imagine that the educational environment leading up to Bar and Bat Mitzvahs is a Beit Midrash (study hall) model, with lots of opportunity for individualized learning, rather than a classroom.
7. Reforming our approach to training cantors. This is Katy’s big issue, and one she started thinking about when she was looking at various cantorial programs. The curriculum for the training of Conservative movement cantors is a bit too focused on artistic performance, and not sufficiently focused on training cantors to be leaders who can teach and inspire humble prayer and devotion.
8. Restructuring the relationship between Conservative movement institutions. At present, the movement is filled with organizational chaos, which particularly presents problems in the realm of fundraising. We need some good consultants to help re-engineer the movement's structure so that we can more easily meet our goals.
UPDATE: An expanded version of these thoughts can be found here.
posted by Geoff at 10:21 PM
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