Facts on the Ground

So the underground movement which everyone knows about but everyone wants to ignore and no one is willing to make a cumulative assessment about has finally gained the publicity it needs to hit the ground running: the New York Times wrote about it - on the front page of the National section at that! Now it must be true.

Young Jews in their twenties and early thirties, empowered by Day School educations in the eighties and nineties are increasingly venting their frustration with institutionalized synagogues that seem closed to change, innovation and common sense by taking matters into their own hands. They're creating minyanim that are committed to an intact liturgy, centered around aesthetically beautiful (often musical) prayer, framed by halakhic understanding.

In college they (we) learned what leadership was the hard way. "You want to pray on Shabbat?" our Hillel directors asked us. "Great, then lead the minyan."

We were the experts. The power was in our hands. Money was not an issue. When we needed guidance, we knew who to seek. And everyone else stood back and applauded our efforts: our successes and our failures.

So now, like the hilltop youth of Israel a generation ago, Jews are again taking the Jewish future into their own hands, using the models that they know so well to help them - the internet, a living room, and good food - creating facts on the ground that recreate reality from the ground up.

In so many ways, this is also what we are doing with Brooklyn Jews. Our focus is more on learning and social gathering, but our rallying cry is the same: meet our community on their level, in or outside of the synagogue building; don't allow limiting assumptions; keep trying new things.

Now's the time to read the article. You can find it here.

Now's the time to think for some answers. Now's the time to challenge the status-quo. Now's the time to think outside of the box.

Thoughts?