As Bob Dylan said, and Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff reminded the congregants of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah on Rosh Hashanah, “the times, they are a’changin.”
“As a society there is no looking back, we are always looking forward,” Rabbi Nemitoff explained.
Why are they changing? More and more people need a reason to stay connected to their congregation and to their Judaism.
Congregations and organizations all over the country are searching for ways to keep, and hopefully even expand, their membership.
Rabbi Nemitoff and the Reform congregation’s leaders hope they can strengthen what is already the largest congregation in the city’s membership through what they have called the Tefillah Team. The Tefillah Team will find ways that members can become more strongly connected to the congregation through prayer and music.
“As cherished as our prayer books and melodies are, we hear from many how they struggle with spirituality,” Rabbi Nemitoff said in his sermon. “They are not moved by the words of our prayers, by the music we sing, or by the lessons we teach. There is a yearning, a longing for meaning, connection and continuity. We believe it can be found in prayer ... words, music and meditation … here at B’nai Jehudah.”
Rabbi Nemitoff said this is a pretty “radical process” and to the best of his knowledge no other congregation in the country is attempting to do anything like this.
“We’re inviting anybody in the congregation that wants to do this to be a part of this,” he said.
This is a continuation of the shared vision process B’nai Jehudah conducted several years ago, which resulted in a published version of the congregations vision, purpose and goals. Its core purpose: “To Nurture Jewish meaning, connection, continuity.”
Its core values: “Open hearts, kedusha (holiness), derech eretz (common decency).” Its BHAG (Big Holy Awesome Goals):
“Every congregant pursues an individualized Jewish path. In so doing, the individual, the community and the world become better.”
The process of change
The process of searching for what is meaningful to the congregants began a few months ago and will continue through April.
Rabbi Nemitoff said the data collected by the Tefillah Team participants, as well as related ongoing conversations, “will shape how we will nurture our congregation’s spirituality in the decade to come.”
Those who chose to become a part of the Tefillah Team were asked to make the following commitments:
• Participate in two learning sessions, understanding traditional views of prayer and music as well as its purpose, philosophy and practice;
• Watch five 10-minute on-line videos (or DVD), where scholars explore modern expressions of Jewish prayer, meditation, music, and spirituality;
• Attend 10 erev Shabbat services between November and April;
• Complete an online (or written) and anonymous “reflection response” after each service attended.
Since the original components were put together, B’nai Jehudah’s leadership determined that anyone who attended a Shabbat service, not just official Tefillah Team participants, was welcome and encouraged to complete the “reflection response” regarding the service. All these responses, regardless of whether or not the responder is an official member of the Tefillah Team, will share how the person felt before coming to services, what their experiences were during services, how have they changed and what their experiences were as they left.
One of the most important parts of the response, Rabbi Nemitoff explained, was learning “what moved them and what didn’t move them.”
“The goal here is giving anyone who wants to the opportunity to craft and re-imagine what prayer will look like in the next decade or two at B’nai Jehudah,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
More than 120 members originally signed up for the Tefillah Team, and about 100 of them are actually following through with the commitment.
The data analysis
Another committee, led by Rabbi Neal Schuster, formerly an assistant rabbi at B’nai Jehudah who is now the senior Jewish educater with KU Hillel, and Howard Mayer, the board’s immediate past president, will tally the data.
“The analysis team will then offer reflections on the data to the clergy. Then it’s up to the clergy to begin to re-imagine prayer, in all it’s different aspects, reflecting back to what the congregation has told us,” Rabbi Nemitoff said.
Making changes
Change is never easy, but Rabbi Nemitoff said what is most amazing about this process is that all three members of the clergy are open to change.
“Whatever it is that we hear, we will do our very best to respond to it in an authentic, Jewish way,” he said.
This is not, Rabbi Nemitoff reiterated, about any member of the clergy team. It is about prayer.
“It’s about the experience,” he said. “People can respond to what we say, what we sing or what we do, but not who we are.”
To help people figure out what they like and don’t like, Rabbi Nemitoff said the clergy has taken the opportunity to experiment with prayer during this time.
“One of the things that we’ve done is engage this wonderful musician, Noah Aronson, to come in four times during the year. He came in once already and he is coming in again in February, April and May. During those times he is helping us extend what we do and take what we do and put a new flavor on to it,” Rabbi Nemitoff said. Other cantors and musicians will make special appearance as well.
“Our goal here is to find out what our style is going to look like, what it is that resonates most with people. We’re going to figure that out,” he said.
Different types of services are being experimented with as well, such as the amcha (Hebrew for people) service which was held last week.
“We will try to lead a service that’s not led by the clergy,” he said last week. “We want to all pray together and sing together and all do things in a non-leadered way. … We will just see what this feels like. … We don’t know what we will choose.”