Synaplex and S3K
I have very mixed feelings about corporate and narrowly synagogue-focused initiatives such as these; but, be that as it may, they are engaged in the same work as we are, and they are established, with funding, momentum, and practical ideas. We should be watching them:
Any others, and any insights/reactions with respect to these?
posted by Yoel Natan @ 8/15/2006 05:06:00 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
B"H
These movements are going in a totally different direction. Let the mainstream movements they are meant for focus on them.
Actually - we're not focused entirely on mainstream movements ...check out S3K's Working Group on Emergent Sacred Communities to see what I mean....
B"H
Hi Shawn, I appreciate this post of yours, as S3k is indeed doing something beyond the mainstream. I sort of got caught off gaurd this morning after weeks on end of travel so my, er, choice of wording was off. In fact, the moshav is attempting to provide infrastructure to empower exactly the kind of thinking S3k's working on... nevertheless, this moshav project is an animal of a different stripe-- more to come!
(and thanks for calling me on my sh-t, my chevrusa already prodded me out today on it, I just hadn't had a chance to update my post)
Peace to you my friend, good to meet you!
B"H
Although, I will add that while the creative brain trust of this group is impressive (I know many of you personally and have housed Margie in my home) I think that the project is more "mainstream" than it seems. The very fact that 13 of 18 "select leaders" are rabbis reflects this. Are there no hazzanim, maggidim, spiritual directors, creative artists, or farmers invloved-- beyond the five heavy-weighted bios, that is? I'm challenging you, as I have challenged Jew 2.0 not to forget the presence of the populists working amongst you, as they are many and equally passionate about this work we do.
Just who is a select leader anyway? And who is a populist-- and can any of us be both? It's a good question to ask, I think when modeling communal leadership.
Sarah,
This is an interesting conversation for me because it's clarifying something I've tried to express for some time.
A key factor for us in identfiying the members of the Emergent Working Group has been the question of whether or not these leaders are seeking to establish sustainable communities. This is not to imply any judgment of more episodic or less "communal" expressions of Judaism, but rather is a reflection of S3K's own mission, which centers on synagogues/congregations and other sacred communities.
So an interesting theoretical question - with respect to many of these groups, both lay-led and rabbi-led - is this: what is the primary goal? The creation of a sustainable community? Meaningful rituals? Signficant experiences?
All of these are important, clearly, but I suspect that different innovators will answer this question in different ways, and will understand "communal leadership" in different ways.
Reading your own (very interesting) website, for example, I would venture to say that the creation of a bounded kehillah as such is not a direct goal. At least, my impression from your website is that you are much more concerned, in the first instance, with creating meaningful rituals and significant experiences. If those rituals and experiences motivate participants to get involved with a synagogue or other sacred community, so much the better, but that seems, at least as I read your site, not to be a first-order goal for you.
So - we are not interested in rabbis per se. My article in the June issue of Sh'ma (avaialble online at shma.com), differentiates among independent minyanim, "parashuls," and synagogue/synagogue replacements. We are most interested, I would say, in community-builders -- those who build synagogues, synagogue-like groups, and other sacred communities. Again, this is not to suggest that synagogue-like communities are not the only valid sacred communities out there -- but that is where our focus is.
Not everyone in the Emergent group is necessarily a community-builder all the time (there are exceptions to the rules), but the goals of the Working Group itself are focused on community-building.
Hopefully this is coherent for 11:58pm after Shabbos....
Shavua tov,
/Shawn
B"H
Shawn, shavua tov, shalom shalom.
That was in fact quite coherent for late night motzi shabbos!! I too find this dialogue to be clarifying-- but I beg one more day to get home and give you the focused response your comments merit. Until then I will say that no one is more interested in building community than I, it is my whole life's passion and the ENTIRE focus of the Moshav project itself. If my personal website indicates otherwise, or if maggidim as a class seem otherwisely focused, it is because we are, among other things, building community at the level of Klal Yisroel. A primary goal of this emergent midrashic community is to create sustainable AND replicable models of Jewish community for the shifted age that we have moved into. My own take on this is that sustainable community starts with our inner work and radiates outward as fractals through our individual kehillot all the way to klal yisroel and beyond... but then as I said earlier I would like another day to arrive home and settle before expanding this idea. This then is a teaser (heh-heh).
Peace to you friend, this has been a good meeting, I look forward to more.
Brachot!
Sarah,
Of course - take as much time as you need!
Just to clarify - nothing I wrote should suggest anything other than than concern, by you or me or anyone else, for the Klal Yisrael community as a whole. That said, as you point out, your primary (though certainly not sole) constituency seems to be Klal Yisrael most broadly, rather than what you call "individual kehillot" or what I called "bounded kehillot" (or bounded sacred communities), however those boundaries are defined.
How does one build a sustainable midrashic community - that is understood as such by its participants, not just its creators - without bounding it in some way and without creating some kind of organized kehillah?
Are we working on different pieces of the same puzzle? Or are we calling the same pieces by different names?
Best,
/Shawn
B"H
Actually, we are working on a bounded kehilla! As for working on the same or different pieces of the puzzle... I suspect both.
Just got home this evening, exausted-- let's see what Yel Natan has just posted.
Are we working on different pieces of the same puzzle?
Yes and no.
We are working on different pieces of the puzzle in this sense: S3K is primarily focused on adapting community models of the Exilic Diaspora for life in the Post-Exilic Diaspora, whereas Moshav HaAm is primarily focused on adapting the Diaspora community's habits to approach and to construct community structures with Post-Exilic intention.
We are working on the same piece of the puzzle in that both enterprises envision Diaspora communities with functional infrastructure for the Post-Exilic consciousness.
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