Time for a ‘courageous conversation’ in Pittsburgh
From January through March, I had the privilege of traveling the country on a self-described sabbatical “listening tour.”
In 12 weeks, I visited some of the American Jewish community’s most innovative congregations and minyanim; I shared conversations with rabbis and lay leaders recognized for innovative thinking, planning and programming in contemporary Jewish life.
What did I hear? What did we speak about?
Across the country and across denominations, there is a vital and transformative conversation under way. It’s in the early stages, to be sure, but it’s dynamic and bold; and already there is a strong sense the conversation is long overdue. To be sure, not every rabbi and lay leader is yet on board, but the most forward-thinking and creative Jewish leaders are actively participating in what professors at the Harvard Business School called a “courageous conversation.”
What are “courageous conversations?” Simply, they are conversations that take place in a period of sustained uncertainty, wherein the most challenging and important topics are discussed forthrightly. After all, the reasoning goes, when reality gives way to a new normal, one cannot afford to shy away from talking about matters of ultimate import and significance.
Certainly, we have reached such a time in Pittsburgh.
In recent years, significant national Jewish institutions have shut their doors; others have merged or pooled resources; still others have explored collaborative arrangements that were once unthinkable.
Long-held denominational loyalties are fraying; mergers between institutional bodies of our major Jewish movements are being openly discussed and new partnerships and paradigms are being explored and tested in nearly every Jewish community across the land.
As I listened to some of our nation’s most insightful rabbis and Jewish leaders discuss their dreams and concerns for the future, three common themes emerged:
• The Jewish community’s infrastructure has been forever altered by late 20th- and early 21st-century demo- graphic, sociological and economic forces;
• In a search for relevance and meaningful self-expression, a new generation of Jews with vastly different expectations than that of earlier generations is all but leaving the established Jewish community behind;
• In spite of any present-day successes we may be enjoying, we fail to recognize the nature of our entire community’s circumstance at our peril.
Bottom line: We live in difficult and challenging times, and we are all in this together. Not a single Jewish institution is immune from these pressures, and therefore any success currently being enjoyed is necessarily temporary. Since no single congregation can solve its problems alone, we must join together in common purpose.
Our most insightful and fearless professionals and lay leaders appreciate these difficult truths. But how to proceed?
Let us begin by acknowledging that every assumption upon which Jewish life has long relied is now suspect. As the assumptions upon which we have built our financial models, budgets and future prospects for sustainability are undermined; as new patterns of affiliation and new demographic and sociological realities redefine what we can expect going forward; and as every Jewish organization in our city is already grappling with what all this, coupled with such great economic uncertainty, will mean for our communal structure, staffing and program priorities, the sa- cred ground upon which we have built our house is shifting beneath our feet.
Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, has noted, “More and more American Jews are indifferent to denominational labels …[and] will not hesitate to move among movements and individual rabbis as they engage their own personal religious and communal quests.”
Therefore, he continues, “the tasks that denominational Judaism in America confronts are essentially identical: to make Judaism relevant, compelling, joyous, meaningful, welcoming, comforting and challenging to American Jews who have infinite options open before them, yet still ask that human needs for meaning and community be fulfilled.”
Clearly, were we to rebuild our community from the ground up, we would never organize our community in the ways it is designed today. Take religious education, as just one example.
Is there any justification for every congregation continuing with its own stand- alone school? Our curricula are essentially the same (even between denominations this is true; after all, Hebrew is Hebrew). And because we all employ senior staff to oversee our programs, maintain expensive physical plants and, in many cases, share the exact same faculty (employing them on consecutive days!), every congregation loses money on the arrangement. Of course, similar questions could be asked with regard to life- long education, pastoral care, even (egads!) worship, to say nothing of the high costs of communal affiliation.
Are we so committed to outdated paradigms and our own institutional egos that we would sooner perpetuate what Sigmund Freud referred to as the “narcissism of small differences” than partner with our neighbors for the betterment of our community as a whole?
We who care most about the future of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community can no longer afford to rest on our laurels. Nor, for that matter, can we risk hiding behind exaggerated distinctions between our rabbis and programs. We have too much in common and the immediate costs and long-term stakes for our sticking with the status quo are simply too high.
Just imagine what we could realize if we stopped competing with ourselves.
This is not to say breaking this pattern will be easy. Overcoming the challenges, which beset each and every congregation in our city and suburbs, will require every rabbi, professional and lay leader to put the communal good ahead of their respective (and our collective) ego, so that rather than focusing on what any one of us stands to lose, we might dedicate ourselves to that which augurs best for the ongoing success and ultimate survival of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community as a whole.
That’s what I hear, and that’s what I say. What are your thoughts? Let the courageous conversation begin.
(Rabbi Aaron Bisno, senior rabbi of Rodef Shalom Congregation, recently returned from a three-month sabbatical.)
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