LIGHTING THE WAY, DAY TWO

The first full day of the convention, a sparkling early-winter day of bright clouds and tiny patches of still-clean snow, saw large numbers of us up very early and still up very late. In fact, record numbers of United Synagogue members have come to Boston; almost 550 people have registered for the main convention, and the meetings of many of the related groups of educators and administrators have brought the total attendance to about 700.

The morning sessions included both practical subjects and Torah lishmah, study for its own sake. A beit midrash featured teachers from United Synagogue's Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center. At the same time lay leaders could get advice on how to undertake the difficult and important process of hiring clergy.

Although the topics ranged widely, some words - community, meaning, searching - were repeated often enough to emerge as clear themes.

In the Imperial Room, far more people than originally were expected came to hear about the 20- and 30-somethings most synagogues covet as members. Roger Bennett, a Liverpudlian whose impressive resume makes it hard to believe that he is just 30 - and whose funny, touching new book, Bar Mitzvah Disco, has been much in the news recently - talked about how the interviews he's done with Jews his own age has led him to believe that "there is a fertile context in North America for making Jewish meaning, community, and identity."

Although he has no magic bullet, he believes that many young Jews are looking for a Jewish community. If we can approach them properly, with the right mixture of reverence and irreverence, with old values but a new aesthetic, remarkable things can happen, he says.

That was on the mezzanine level.

At the same time, on the fourth floor, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, who 20 years ago became the first woman to be ordained a Conservative rabbi, led a workshop about Jewish spiritual direction. Rabbi Eilberg heads Yedidya, the Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction. That, she said, is a exploration of God's presence in individual people's lives.

Many people feel a deep spiritual hunger, she said; spiritual direction can help them search for ways to experience the divine that are both deeply personal and deeply Jewish. "If we believe the words of the Shema

- that God is one - that everything is connected - that awakens us to the truth of the Shema," she said.

After an afternoon of touring Boston - or of sitting quietly in the hotel lobby - the convention resumed with a reception for Project Reconnect. In the Presidential Suite, a huge series of rooms too full to be easily navigable, people who had once been members of USY or Koach, gone on programs with Nativ, studied at the Conservative Yeshiva or been at a Schechter school or a Camp Ramah caught up with each other. Loudly. So many leaders of United Synagogue started with our programs for young people! But many others have lost touch. This is our way of reaching out to them, to tell them that we still care. To learn more about Project Reconnect, go to projectreconnect.org.

Keynote speaker Rabbi Neil Gillman, a well-known theologian and philosopher who teaches at the Jewish Theological Seminary, spoke with great passion about the Conservative movement. Beginning with a tribute to Koach and USY, programs

that he said have provided the movement with its most effective recruitment tools, he said, "If there is a future, it's with those programs, Please take care of them."

Rabbi Gillman said that the Conservative movement must respond to change. Our halacha must respond to aggada - which he defines here as the broad assumptions that underlie our culture. "When aggada changes, halacha changes along with it," he said. "That's what happened with feminism."

To be a Conservative Jew is to live with constant tension, Rabbi Gillman continued. That can be difficult. "If the purpose of religion is to order the world, to turn chaos into order, why are we introducing more

tension into a tension-filled experience?" Because, he said, "embracing tension and ambiguity is good. It is healthy. But are we prepared to do this? Polar positions are always clear. The center is more complicated."

"Tension is healthy," he continued. "It's a source of vitality. We should teach our children not only that Judaism as a religion is nice, but that it is subjective, and it is interesting, and ambitious. Our model is Jacob, who wrestled with an angel and emerged both wounded and blessed. Maybe we must feel more wounded before we can feel more blessed. But we could do far worse than to be like Jacob."

Four panelists responded to Rabbi Gillman's talk. Rhonda Rosenheck, principal of the Solomon Schechter Regional High School in Teaneck, N.J., was a student of Rabbi Gillman's. "I don't worry too much about not knowing what ultimately, cosmically is true," she said. "I worry about what I

me that tension is normal. Tensions help to structure and define a group. Even in the simplest vertebrae community there are rules that govern it. I believe that in our community it is halacha.

"If we as a community recognize that many of us have those places in our lives, those portals - if we realize that we are seekers - our communities can only grow stronger."

It was late by the time the session ended, and the elevators were packed. The talk in the lobbywas heated. Nerves clearly had been struck. Today, the debate will continue.

-- Joanne Palmer