The Jewish World At My Door

I love the idea of the global nature of the Jewish world a lot. I love the reality even more.  For one weekend each year, the international community with whom I normally connect via Skype, email, and Facebook materializes in person. Each spring, Be’chol Lashon—the organization where I serve as the Rabbi-in-Residence—convenes a Think Tank in San Francisco. A small group of leaders are invited to come together to study, connect and learn. Each year we focus on a different topic and bring together those whose experience and knowledge can help us move the conversation about the global nature of Jewish life and the diversity of our community.

We will begin tomorrow night, much as we always do, with welcoming Shabbat together. The tunes will be Ugandan, Sephardic, American and European Ashkenazi. Rabbis will sit with poets, scholars with activists, secular with religious, Spanish speakers with Anglophones.  Old friends will be reunited and new connections will be made. At the service on Shabbat morning, there will be many rabbis but no single leader. Throughout, the energy is bound to be tremendous.

To state the obvious, those who come together are a diverse group. There is no single vision of what Judaism is, no agreement on how we express our Jewish identities and as a result there are challenges as well. There is no easy agreement on how we pray or even if we should pray at all. Each of must confront the assumptions we make about Jewish community and identity.

Last year when our focus was Latin America, I sat up late into the night with two rabbis, both Argentinean born one serving a community in Mexico the other in Panama. We discussed the complex issue of what is meant by the term Latino. Our understandings differed greatly based on geography and reading of history. I was sharing that in the context of American life, those coming from south of the border, rightly or wrongly, are seen as part of the broadly based Latino community. To my colleagues this was absurd, they see themselves as no different than me—a Jew of European decent, not Latino at all. For several hours we pulled apart the nuances of language, geography and history. It was a productive conversation, helping me to understand how much our context shapes our assumptions and complicates communication.

At Be’chol Lashon, we embrace our differences seeing the core of the flexibility that has allowed Judaism to flourish over the generations in so many different environments.

This year our theme this year is leadership. Throughout the year we work in partnership with UJA/Federation in New York City, for example, to identify and nurture the leadership of Jewish groups that are outside the Woody Allen/Al Jolson mold. Building on our experience and expertise, we will be taking time throughout the Think Tank to talk about models of leadership and to learn together about ways to strengthen our abilities. During Shabbat we will study biblical models of leadership. On Saturday night we will celebrate 5 young leaders, musicians, artists, activists and journalists whose work exemplifies the best of what the growing multicultural Jewish community has on offer. On Sunday, we will be hearing learning how our own stories hold the key to our success.

For those who lead small communities, the opportunity to participate brings many blessings. Participating in the Be’chol Lashon Think Tank  gives all leaders the opportunity to acquire new skills. They get to take time to reflect  and strengthen their ability to succeed. But for those, like the leaders of the tiny Adat Israel Reform community in Guatemala City,  for whom it is a life line. They are deeply knowledgable –on a recent trip we spoke for hours about the value of Reform approaches to halakah. But much of their learning is from books or online. They do not  have ongoing interaction with other Jewish leaders. The opportunity to connect with other Jews is the essential antidote to religious and cultural isolation. To share their own experiences validates and strengthens their sense of belonging to the Jewish people.

For all in attendance, being together in one place challenges and shapes our understanding of K’lal Yisrael, the totality that is the complex diverse global people of Israel. To learn from the strength of others and also from their challenges is a unique opportunity. Each year my sense of what is Jewish is stretched. Jewish leaders are always talking about the need to open ourselves to the complex modern reality, to question business as usual and to look to the future. The Be’chol Lashon Think Tank is a wonderful model.

 

Shabbat

Pronounced: shuh-BAHT or shah-BAHT, Origin: Hebrew, the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.