Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka has been selected as one of 28 Jewish faith communities to participate in the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Tikkun Middot Project. As a participant, Temple Beth Sholom has been awarded a $7,500 grant to implement its plan to infuse mindfulness and character development throughout all aspects of its community. The Institute for Jewish Spirituality will train clergy, lay leaders or both from each of these communities in mindfulness practice as part of this ground-breaking initiative.
“Being part of this initiative is very exciting,” noted Rabbi Debbie Stiel in the congregation’s monthly newsletter.
“All of us will have an opportunity to help shape this program that will then be used by other congregations. At the same time, we will benefit over the next 18 months from the curriculums for adults and religious school that have already been created by IJS. We will create opportunities to study together, dialogue, reflect and grow. And while all of this is happening, we will be hearing about best practices at the other participating congregations and sharing our successes with them.”
Rabbi Stiel explained that middah (middot is the plural) is the Hebrew word for character trait. While we all possess the same character traits (middot) — for example humility, faithfulness, patience and kindness — we exhibit them in different amounts.
“ ‘Tikkun middot’ is a Jewish practice of focusing on a particular character trait in an effort to become more aware of how one is applying that quality and then working to increase or decrease it in your life as you see fit. Thus, if we were focusing on patience, one person may feel that they need to increase their patience in stressful situations and another may feel they want to work on being patient with themselves,” she explained.
Tikkun middot practice also includes studying Jewish texts that relate to each middah to learn how our Jewish tradition or faith can help us with this quality. Rabbi Stiel said the goal of tikkun middot practice is to become more ethical, kinder and better people.
“We hope to decrease negative behavioral patterns through our introspection and work. When this program gets underway we will focus on learning about one middah a month together as a congregation,” she said.
In late February, Rabbi Stiel and one or two members of Temple Beth Sholom will attend an orientation retreat in New Jersey. As part of the program, approximately 60 leaders from the selected 28 Jewish communities (which includes synagogues, a rabbinical seminary, Hillel and JCC), will then engage personally in an intensive, 10-month program of integrating mindfulness with the cultivation of specific core middot or ethical and spiritual qualities, such as humility, patience, honor, mindful speech and trust.
In a recent phone interview Rabbi Stiel explained that the leaders of these institutions will do their own study in chevruta (pairs or small groups) learning about the middot and the different texts that support them. She explained they could learn about such things as patience, anger management, kindness or faith.
“We’ll learn about those middot from the perspective of Jewish tradition. We will use the thought-provoking questions that IJS is very good at asking to reflect on how those traits are active in our lives and how we want to use them,” the rabbi said.
She said all this is similar to Mussar training, which has also become popular. (Mussar can be defined as a treasury of techniques and understandings that offers guidance for the journey of our lives.)
“I recently attended the URJ Biennial and leaders of congregations that have done Mussar training said it brought their members closer together. It gave people a chance to study together and share openly with each other about aspects of life that were meaningful to them. My hope is that it will do that here as well, that it will help to bring people together on a more personal level.”
After the leaders have done their study, Rabbi Stiel said they will then bring what they have learned back to the congregation. First they will train a core group of 10-12 leaders in the congregation.
“Then it will trickle down from there, and those leaders will add the middot mindfulness into things that they are part of in the congregation,” Rabbi Stiel said.
For example Rabbi Stiel said the idea is for the adult education chair to incorporate tikkun middot into adult education meetings and programs. Social justice leaders, religious school teachers and other congregational committee leaders will do the same thing.
“We will try to get it into the congregation in as many ways as possible,” Rabbi Stiel said.
“Once we start introducing it to the whole congregation there will be a middah of the month and it will be brought to the congregation in a number of other different ways. It will be in the bulletin each month and it will probably be talked about from the pulpit some. There will be some art projects for both adults and kids related to the middah of the month. We will find different ways for all of us to study it and to learn together,” Rabbi Stiel continued.
Several members of the congregation, including Jerry Fireman, Mark Kaufman, Patty Kahn, Lorne Ruby, Susan Zuber-Chall and Laurie McKinnon helped Rabbi Stiel with the grant application.
“I had participated in the IJS clergy program in the past and then when I heard about this grant opportunity I took it to some of the leaders in our congregation and they were very excited about it,” Rabbi Stiel said.
Because the congregation is in Topeka where the Menninger’s Institute was for many years, a number of its members are people who are psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers — people the rabbi explained who “are very interested in the life of the mind.” So different parts of the project excited different people in the congregation but “everybody thought this was a wonderful opportunity.”
“Judaism teaches that life is an opportunity to grow and to do God’s will. The middot are one approach to these goals. And I hope that this initiative will help all of us to deepen our Jewish knowledge, to draw closer as a congregation and to explore a personal, and perhaps long term, middot practice.”
