Finding a Spiritual Home , livre ebook

Praise for Finding a Spiritual Home
This is an extraordinary book, a clarion call for spiritual leadership in a postethnic age-and just right for the times. Synagogue transformation is the in topic for the coming decade, and Sid Schwarz knows that topic. He blends a study of synagogues that matter with insight into what makes them so, then synthesizes his findings in an accessible but insightful summary that is bound to help synagogue leaders reevaluate their practices.
-Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman , Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; cofounder, Synagogue 2000; editor of My People s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries series
With stories both of individuals and synagogues, Sidney Schwarz shows that old religious structures can indeed become alive with new spiritual meaning and sensitive to generational change. His is an encouraging, beautifully written account of congregations in positive transition-at once inspiring and instructive.
-Dr. Wade Clark Roof , author, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation and Spiritual Marketplace
Finding a Spiritual Home is a thoughtful, insightful treatment of the synagogue, its limits and its real potential to sustain a new generation of Jews. Schwarz, an outstanding community builder and creative figure in American Jewry, skillfully interweaves human interest personal accounts and case studies in effective synagogues in his own incisive analysis. If you care about the future of Jewry, you want to read this book.
-Rabbi Irving Greenberg , president, Jewish Life Network; author, The Jewish Way
Finding a Spiritual Home is one of the most thoughtful and provocative books I have ever encountered. It chronicles the dramatic changes taking place in the Jewish community today and demonstrates their far-reaching significance. This is the right book at the right time.
-Dr. Jonathan Woocher , executive vice president, Jewish Education Service of North America; author, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews
In contrast to the volumes of literature that portray Jews as the ever-dying people, Finding a Spiritual Home offers empirical evidence of an ever-living people. Sidney Schwarz does not echo impersonal statistics but, on a grass-roots level, engages serious persons in dialogue, and elicits from them confessional testimony of the vitality of the synagogue and its limitless possibilities for discovery. These revelations are important for the morale of the rabbinic and lay leadership of the synagogue. They are the signs that point to Jewish renewal.
-Rabbi Harold Schulweis , Valley Beth Shalom Congregation, Encino, California; author, For Those Who Can t Believe
Finding a Spiritual Home is a first-rate book about contemporary synagogues in America. It provides keen insight into how synagogues fit, and do not fit, into the contemporary Jewish community. A must-read for those who are thinking about how to improve the quality of synagogue life.
-Dr. Gary Tobin , director, Institute for Jewish and Community Research; author, Opening the Gates: How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community
Finding a Spiritual Home reveals that a new kind of congregation is coming to life within American Judaism. Those of us who care about communities of faith in America-both within Judaism and beyond it-will find moving stories and many clues about what our shared future will be like.
-Rev. Dr. James P. Wind , president, Alban Institute; author, Places of Worship: Exploring Nearby History
Both the case studies and the theoretical argument in this important book stake out a claim for an American synagogue more closely in touch with the situation and the needs of America s Jews. Schwarz shows that the idea of the synagoguecommunity has already come, even if it is still widely ignored. Finding a Spiritual Home is a major contribution to ending that ignorance.
-Dr. Leonard Fein , author, Where Are We? The Inner Life of America s Jews
Sid Schwarz understands the challenges facing synagogues of the future. His account of several new-paradigm synagogues working on the cutting edge of Jewish spirituality is richly detailed and the personal stories of seekers and their paths into Judaism are compelling. This book is a must-read for all leaders of synagogues, lay and professional, who hope to guide their congregations into the twenty-first century.
-Dr. Ron Wolfson , University of Judaism; cofounder, Synagogue 2000; author, Shabbat: The Family Guide to Preparing for and Celebrating the Sabbath

To my mom and dad, Judy and Allan Schwarz, who gave me the gift of an observant Jewish upbringing and then had the wisdom to let me find my own path
CONTENTS
Preface: My Path
Acknowledgments
PART ONE
Can a Spiritually Homeless Generation Revitalize the American Synagogue?

1. Debbie s Path
2. Synagogues and the New American Jew
3. The Emerging Synagogue-Community
PART TWO
A Reform Congregation Wrestling with God

4. Nate s Path
5. Congregation Beth El, Sudbury, Massachusetts
6. Joan s Path
PART THREE
An Orthodox Community That Welcomes a Plurality of Voices

7. Carole s Path
8. The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, Bronx, New York
9. Phillip s Path
PART FOUR
Building Community Through Empowerment in a Reconstructionist Congregation

10. Elaine s Path
11. Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda, Maryland
12. Nancy s Path
PART FIVE
Dancing in the Aisles at a Conservative Synagogue

13. Mark s Path
14. Congregation B nai Jeshurun, New York
15. Tova s Path
PART SIX
The Spiritual Possibilities of the American Synagogue

16. Aviva s Path
17. Creating the Synagogue-Community
18. The Challenge of Transformation
Epilogue. If You Can t Find It, Create It:
Ten Strategies to Transform Your Congregation

Afterword
Discussion Guide
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
The Author
Index

About the Author
Copyright
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PREFACE: MY PATH
I GREW UP as a shul (synagogue) kid. Every Shabbat (sabbath), I found myself in synagogue with my father. I know that I started going long before I could walk or talk. It was simply where my family went to celebrate the sabbath.
As a small, fairly traditional Conservative congregation, those of us who counted needed to be there in time to make the minyan (quorum of ten adult males required for a religious service). This was always up for grabs. My dad, one of the regulars, made calls during the week to ensure that the requisite ten men would show up, but it didn t always work. Falling short of the ten on Shabbat morning sometimes required surreptitious phone calls urging members to come right away. Because use of the phone was prohibited on the sabbath, the men would gather around the non-Jewish custodian and tell him whom to call.
My sisters and mother would come later in the morning. It took me years to realize the many ways in which the synagogue of my childhood told girls and women that they did not count. Jewish law prevented them, at that time, from being included in the minyan; social convention signaled that the sisterhood (as the women s club was called) was where they belonged. I used to think there was some kind of rule in Judaism that women could attend only the last half-hour of a service.
That I have fond memories of the synagogue of my childhood has more to do with its familiarity than its practices. I came to know each of the handful of men who were the loyal attendees on Shabbat morning-where they would sit, the jokes they would tell, who gave out the candy, and who would shush the few kids who would show up. I knew that my dad would chant the psukai de zimrah , the early part of the service, which came before we needed the minyan and before the cantor revved up for the big crowd. I sat in awe of Mr. Drexler, a Holocaust survivor who lived behind the candy store, who read the entire Torah portion each week directly from the scroll, without vocalization notes or vowels.
I also cherished the special privileges that came my way because even as a child, I was one of the men. At first it was spending time with my dad, knowing that I could usually get him to carry me on his back as we walked home from shul , since we did not ride in a car on Shabbat. Later it was getting called up to the bima (the raised platform in front of the sanctuary) which was the center of all ritual action. The final coup was getting paid $15 to lead the junior congregation service. To a boy educated in a yeshiva (Jewish parochial school), this was like paying a sports fan to watch a ball game.
As a teenager, I thoroughly enjoyed my involvement with USY. United Synagogue Youth was the national youth movement of Conservative Judaism. The conventions, camps, and trips it organized gave Jewish teens the opportunity to take ownership of their own Judaism. I remember most fondly the wonderful spirit that we could create at a USY-sponsored Shabbat. Ironically, there is an entire generation of Jews of my age (midforties) who experienced the richness of Shabbat through youth movements and camps only to despair of ever being able to rediscover it in synagogues once they came into adulthood.
I learned an important lesson in my teen years, holding several positions of leadership in USY. A large part of the energy for what we did Jewishly came from the participants as much as it came from the tradition. Some years later, as I began to struggle with my own philosophy of Jewish life, I would again confront the issue of how much religion came from inherited tradition and how much was generated by the group experience of that religion.
Two events in my last two years of high school provided turning points in my life. Like most teenagers, I had taken much for granted-my Jewish education, my general education, my family. I did OK in school, but not great.