There was an entry I wrote a while back that started with that seemed like a joke...you put a Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbinical student in a room and ask them to agree on somthing and what do you get? It was a way to set the stage to share a bit of what its like to participate in my Rav Siach program (Rabbi Discussion) that I am participating in this year with students from 8 seminaries, all studying to be rabbis. So, I'd like to offer a new form of the joke...what do you get when you put those same 30 people...Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Conservative and Orthodox in rooms with a view along the Kinneret up in the Galilee for a Shabbaton and ask them to figure out a recipe in which they can not only learn together but also daven together (pray). Now, that's a totally different kind of joke, right?
This week might have been appropriately called Inter-denominational Pluralism Testing Week of rabbinical school. The week started with a rabbinic seminar hosted by The United Jewish Communities (UJC...the umbrella for which all Jewish Federations exist under) for rabbinic students from all of the different seminaries here in Jersalem. For many of my peers this will be their only interaction, formally...and for some informally, with students from other denominations this year. Tuesday night our Rav Siach program got together to discuss three important, and definitely controversial issues, for what our Shabbaton at the Kinneret would look like...public space, prayer and 'other programming'. For a group of people who's observance ranges from not turning on and off electricity for the 25 hours of Shabbat to those of us who believe in a Shabbas jam session with guitar there was quite a lot of compromising to be had.
I think it is safe to say that heading into the Shabbaton almost every member of the group was a bit uneasy and could envision moments in which their boundaries would not only be tested but, at times, compromised.
So, we meet on a grassy knoll overlooking the beautiful Kinneret for our pre-Kabbalat Shabbat Kabbalat Shabbat...the one that tooke place before the guitar had to be put away. The students I spend my every day with all came together to start singing songs we are used to enjoying with the guitar sound. Slowly, the staff and some of the more halkhicly observant students...the token orthodox guy, the conservative male who sometimes has more traditional views than the orthodox student and his fiance, also studying to be a conservative rabbi, and the 50+ year old woman studying at a post-denominational rabbinic school (the first class to be ordained next year) who keeps Shabbat, grew up in an Orthodox family, is married to a man who recieved Smicha (ordination) from the orthodox movemeny but is now not religious at all and whose son has payas longer than my hair and has two little haredi babies all come together on the grassy knoll to show solidarity for the programming and timing of that programming that we worked together to create for this time.
As the sun went down over the Kinneret and Shabbas began we all made way to light candles before moving into the Bet Knesset, set up with a tri-chitza, which would allow for a women's section, a men's section and a mixed seating section. Now, side note...to get this group of 24 rabbinic students to agree...or at least compromise...to get to a point where we were going to pray together was a whole process so when we walked into the bet knesset and the machgiach (person who oversees the kosher kitchen) was already in the sanctuary and had more than just a few words to say about our un-kosher set up for seating, I found that we all shared a laugh together..if only he knew how hard it was for us to even get to that point. The 30 of us though were able to make our presence known and go forward as planned and the mashgiach even stayed and participated in services with us.
Daniel, our orthodox student, walked over to the men's side but all eyes lit up with pleasant surprise when he decided to come into the mixed seating section for Kabbalat Shabbat. Now, this must be noted. In our Reform communities we do not tend to differentiate between the Kabbalat Shabbat service and Ma-ariv (the evening service) because we do not live in a community that tends to daven three times a day regardless of whether it is Shabbat or not. For those communities who do, there are a series of prayers that are said every night in the ma-ariv service and the kabbalat shabbat service, although they are lumped together for Shabbat, are just a collection of songs and psalms leading up to the ma-ariv service that has a sligth difference on shabbat, but still has a similiar structure to the other days of the week. So, Daniel joined us for the Kabbalat Shabbat, just as he did for the pre-Kabbalat Shabbat Kabbalat Shabbat with guitar, and his presence brought an energy to this group...to this mixed seating section that made his move to the men's section before ma'ariv something of grace, not resentment or separation at all.
The arrangement for our prayer service, any leader could use whatever liturgy and prayer book that he or she wanted but that the traditional hatimot (final sentence of a prayer) would be recited. Throughout the weekend we had men and women lead, Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox students as shlichim tziborim (service leaders) and there was an energy that pretty quickly tranformed that nervous energy we all felt going into this weekend into something of a mosaic that was a bit all over the place at time, but was always clearly working towards something we could be proud of as a group of students who have been brought together this year to discuss pluralism and tolerance.
Saturday morning comes and whether it was a return of favor or a reaffirmation of solidarity from the other end of the spectrum, the HUC males and some of the other male students sat on the male side for Shacharit (morning service) to give to Daniel what he had given to us the night before. Many of them sat on the male side, but in front of the mechitza...we were never really separate...and the female shaliach tzibor walked right over to the men's side when she took the Torah from the ark so that they could kiss it...the boundaries may have existed physically, but in that prayer space, it didn't feel so much like they existed as strongly in the moment.
There is more to be said, and more pictures of moments to paint, but perhaps with Havdallah came a new meaning of shalom and emet for all of us. We sat in a circle with only the light from the havdallah candle to shine on our faces. I offered a challenge that we find ways to push the boundaries of our communities in the future so that we can create positive learning opportunities with other movements. I admitted my anxiousness leading up to the weekend but my gratitude for the amazing things that came out of our time together. I thanked Daniel for being the orthodox voice in a group where the scale is much more heavily weighted on the side of progressive students and I acknowledged the way in which by each person pushing their boundaries just a little bit the joke I offered at the beginning of this entry was not a joke at all but a beautiful beautiful manifestation of one Jewish community that represented quite a great deal of the sepctrum we see in our Jewish world today. Daniel responded echoing many of my thoughts and together we probably represented basically the far ends of that spectrum within our group.
We brought Shabbat to an end and then we all circled together and danced as we welcomed in Purim. We talked about the timliness of having this Shabbaton at the beginning of Purim, a holiday when we all put on costumes and tranform our looks to be someone who we may not be in our day to day life. And, in some ways, what we all did for this Shabbaton was put on a little costume and made ourselves comfortable to be in something that every day we may not choose for us and to pray in ways that don't entirely mesh with our daily ideologies but can be quite revelaing if we are able to look through a bit of a different lense and give way to the opportunity that a slight change in charachter, even for a small bit of time, can change the way we look at things for a lot longer.
An experience I would like to share a lot more about...but one that I will end for now in this entry.
Chag Purim Sameach...all my love to you...there is another entry for my lax of writing over the past few weeks. Sending all my love.
Jessy
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