1. How do you understand the concept of covenant in your personal spiritual life? And, what is the content of “covenant” in your self-understanding as a Jew? How has this changed over time?
2. Does the concept of covenant have any role to play in a non-theistic Jewish spirituality?
3. Have you ever broken a covenant? How was that experience different than breaking a “promise”? How is a covenant different from a contract?
4. God makes a covenant with Noah never again to destroy the earth through flooding. How do we understand that covenant today? How does it speak to Jews and to a greater humanity?
5. Is the idea of covenant as “kol yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh” (“All Israel is responsible one for the other”) still viable? Can the idea of covenant, predicated in mutuality and responsibility, survive in an emerging era of individualism and self-interest? Is the concept of covenant still relevant to contemporary Jewish theology? Why/not? … More »
Leaders by Choice
Jews by choice create their Jewish identity, for the most part, as adults. Will the increasing visibility of community leaders who have chosen Judaism — and who have a different relationship to ethnicity, history, and practice — influence contemporary Jewish life? How do Jews by choice integrate their own cultural religious history into their Jewish … More »
A Jewish Lens on Taxes
Should charitable donations be tax exempt? Do charitable donations fulfill the mitzvah of tzedakah? How do conversations about Jewish values inform your decisions about philanthropy and about creating a legacy for your family? Is the rabbinic parsonage tax allowance fair and appropriate today? Should undocumented students attending public universities or colleges be allowed to pay in-state tuition? … More »
Discussion Guide – Multidimensional Judaism
1. Questions are integral to Jewish life, belief, and practice. What are the questions you ask yourself? What questions do you ask your children and family? What questions do you ask your rabbis and teachers?
2. How do we educate for a multidimensional Jewish experience? How might an education for the “whole person,” not just the “Jewish” part of who we are, change the educational experience and our understanding of Judaism?
3. How does the question “Whom do I face?” inform your own Judaism? How do each of the six questions inform your sense of self as a Jew? How do the individual questions play off of and interface with one another?
4. How are the essential Jewish sensibilities, ethics, ethos, practices, and beliefs that inform our lives connected to one another?
… More »
Works in Progress
1. Are we each works in progress? If so, explain yourself through this frame.
2. How do we know when we have arrived at an ending? How does Judaism help us to create closure?
3. How do communities reinvent themselves as priorities and resources change?
4. The Torah is codified and stable, and yet it continues to emerge as a text and a guide. How does this tension manifest itself in study and practice?
5. Organizations — such as synagogues, schools, and start-ups — go through stages of development and, sometimes, of decline. How does the leadership distinguish between productive and unproductive chaos? What are some best practices for adaptation?
… More »
Discussion Guide – Works in Progress
1. Are we each works in progress? If so, explain yourself through this frame.
2. How do we know when we have arrived at an ending? How does Judaism help us to create closure?
3. How do communities reinvent themselves as priorities and resources change?
4. The Torah is codified and stable, and yet it continues to emerge as a text and a guide. How does this tension manifest itself in study and practice?
5. Organizations — such as synagogues, schools, and start-ups — go through stages of development and, sometimes, of decline. How does the leadership distinguish between productive and unproductive chaos? What are some best practices for adaptation?
… More »
Discussion Guide – Social Movements
1. What role have social movements — Jewish or not — played historically in Jewish collective identity?
2. Can Zionism, as a movement, regain a place in raising questions about the meaning of Jewish identity and collectivity at a moment of great political and cultural transformations?
3. How have music, photography, film, and other genres of art influenced social transformation?
4. Have today’s “change movements” relied on earlier models or has the paradigm for change shifted fundamentally?
How so?
5. Do movements need to last, or can they make a brief appearance and still have some lasting impact?
… More »
Discussion Guide – The Jewish Workplace
1. Do Jewish values inform workplace policies in Jewish communal institutions? How so?
2. Does the Jewish workplace — from day schools to federations to synagogues — provide working conditions that support young families? Are professionals appropriately compensated? Are lay leaders appropriately acknowledged?
3. Is the Jewish communal infrastructure creating avenues for the best Jewish talent and creativity?
4. Have difficult conversations about Israel been stifled in the Jewish community? How are we attempting to create an environment of trust and openness that is conducive to civil conversations of difference?
5. Jews talk about bringing passion to the workplace. How do we keep it ignited?
… More »
Discussion Guide: Communities and Synagogues
1. Have independent minyanim and communities had an impact on the expectations of what mainstream synagogues are supposed to be and do? And if so, how? Or, have these communities become part of the synagogue scene without the name?
2. How does a synagogue develop an identity — a sense of itself as an institution?
3. Is the synagogue an institution that is largely middle class or upper middle class — and, if so, does that impact the services a synagogue provides?
4. There seems to be less drive today to “belong”; how has this changed the ways in which synagogues reach out to potential new members?
5. What role does “program” play in a synagogue’s mission?
Are synagogues able to blur the boundaries between what happens within and outside its walls? Are synagogues responding to the trend that Jews today operate with multiple identities? … More »