Spiritual Journeys Lead Back to the Synagogue
From The United Synagogue Review, Fall 1998
A friend of mine is connecting with her Jewish roots. She is enthusiastic about what she calls her spiritual journey: she is noticing God all around her, counting 100 blessings a day, and lighting Shabbat candles. I asked her if she has found a synagogue community with which to experience prayer and study. "My journey has nothing to do with a synagogue! This journey is between me and God," was her adamant answer.
So it seems to many. Spiritual quests are seen as internal and solitary. Yet Jewish spiritual quests can be something more. Hillel told us, "Do not separate yourself from the community" (Pirke Avot 2:5). Like my friend, many turn away in order to seek solitude and connection to God, but Judaism tells us that life is with people. We cannot cut ourselves off from life, but must enter deeply and fully into it. Connection to God in Judaism is only complete if it leads the seeker back to community, to action.
What is the synagogue's role? It must do more than accommodate individual strivings of seekers who somehow find themselves there. It must awaken and enhance spiritual journeys. This idea is one of the fundamental principles of Synagogue 2000, a transdenominational project challenging sixteen Reform and Conservative synagogues across the country to enhance their positions as spiritual centers.
Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, New Jersey, has participated in this experiment for the past two and a half years. One of the key elements of our work has been journey groups. Neither committee meeting nor class -- not quite think tank and certainly not group therapy -- a journey group is a gathering of synagogue members who learn together on a regular basis to further their spiritual journeys. Individual strivings of "seekers" are supported, but in true Jewish fashion, these journey groups work to ensure that individual journeys lead back to the synagogue and its community.
The very work that we do in journey groups focuses us on the synagogue in two ways: individual change and institutional change. In the trusting, powerful circle of a journey group, each individual experiences a microcosm of what an ideal larger community could be. We are all changed. We share this vision with our family and our circle of friends and so the change ripples out into the congregation. This happens. Individual transformation leads to community transformation.
Institutionally, change happens because the texts and ideas we study focus on needs in the community. For example, we have studied healing and many group members now practice what we learned by becoming more active in our synagogue's Caring Committee and practicing bikkur holim not just with friends and family but with community members as well. We studied ways of changing the ambiance of a synagogue and many members now find that they are more conscious of guests and strangers on Shabbat morning, reaching out to greet and introduce people in a truly welcoming way.
The formula of journey groups is deceptively simple. Each meeting begins with a niggun (a simple repetitive tune) and a Dvar Torah. Next, group members check in; that is, we take turns around the circle sharing our ideas and listening to one another. Check-ins can be focused on the topic to be studied or they can be a sharing of personal experiences. The group then studies the topic of that journey using ancient and modern texts, either in hevruta or all together. Currently, two groups are running at Congregation Agudath Israel; one studying healing and the other, prayer. Each meeting closes with a niggun as well.
While the formula is simple, the rationale of journey groups is more complex. Twice a month, we carve out sacred time and place by means of music, Torah and listening. In journey groups, we learn to listen to each other's stories; indeed, we learn to listen. We learn that a visit to a person in need of healing, and extending a welcome to a stranger, are the work of imitating God. Armed with such knowledge, we pursue our individual spiritual quests. Because the focus of the learning from the outset is growth in both the individual and the synagogue, our journeys take us not toward solitude but toward the synagogue community.
The synagogue is there to greet us and to help new seekers begin their own journeys. Rabbi Alan Silverstein of Congregation Agudath Israel explains: "Synagogues should strive to offer multiple access points for potential seekers. If we recognize that Jews at different stages of their lives bring different backgrounds, aptitudes, and concerns to spiritual journeys, then the pathways must be pluralistic."
Congregation Agudath Israel, like many synagogues, provides many "access points" that have the potential to be transformative. On Shabbat mornings, congregants can discuss the parasha of the week in an early class or study it during the Torah service with printed commentary handed out by the rabbi. At the extended kiddush, people can choose to study prayer or to sit in a close circle with the cantor and sing zemirot. During the week, congregants study Talmud in homes, in havurot or at workplaces. Healing services, groups for new mothers, bereavement support groups, and medical ethics study groups all provide potentially transformative moments. The closeness to God and community that develops among a group of congregants devoted to the daily minyan is perhaps the most obvious example of all.
Individuals on spiritual journeys have the potential to change the synagogue. It is the responsibility of the synagogue to harness the spiritual energy of its members by initiating and supporting spiritual quests.
The author has served for the past three years as co-chair of the Synagogue 2000 Committee at Congregation Agudath Israel, Caldwell, New Jersey. She has been Department Chair of Guidance Services at Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union for the past five years and will enter Rabbinical School at JTS this September as a Wexner Graduate Fellow.
