Renewing Judaism’s final session Wednesday 5/28: Future
TOMORROW: Renewing Judaism: Future
Wed, May 28, 7pm ET
Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28 at 7pm ET / 4pm PT, join us for the third and final session of The Shalom Center and ALEPH's Renewing Judaism series. This session will focus on Judaism’s future and what it might mean to renew Judaism for the times ahead. It will feature Rabbi Jericho Vincent, Yehudah Webster, Rabbi Zvika Krieger, Ana Levy-Lyons, and Rabbi Nate DeGroot.
Registration provides access to this live program and to the recorded video of the two previous webinars. Anyone who previously registered for the program will receive a reminder email with the event Zoom link on Wednesday morning as well.
Renewing Judaism: A brief history
In the long shadow of the twentieth century—after the camps, after the bomb, amidst war and wonder—an ancient Jewish innovation sprouted forth. Not a return, but a rupture. Not a restoration, but the possibility of renewal.
In basements and living rooms, forests and kitchens, the Chavurah movement blossomed. Torah was read in circle, prayer aimed for revelation, God’s pronouns multiplied, and communities across the country - networked and distinct - simultaneously shaped and shifted leadership, song, silence, and presence into something befitting of—and actively shaping—its era.
A generation less concerned with what Judaism was, and more invested in inviting one another to co-create what it might yet become. Bake the challah. Rewrite the blessing. Find God in the compost. In the broken heart. In the interbreathing. In the merging and emergings.
In a world of black and white, Judaism began to shine in technicolor.
One of the places where that technicolor shined brightest was Philadelphia in the 80’s, when Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi and Reb Arthur Waskow lived near each other as neighbors, community members, and dear friends
Reb Zalman had founded P’nai Or in 1978 and Reb Arthur had founded The Shalom Center in 1983 and both of them knew that a renewed Judaism must fuse together each of their specialities - mystic creativity and sacred activism. So in 1993 they merged organizations and formed ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Jewish Renewal’s home for training spiritual leaders, gathering seekers, and midwifing new forms of communal life.
For more than thirty years, ALEPH has done just that, while in 2003, The Shalom Center heeded its prophetic call to reestablish itself as its own organization. Today, ALEPH and The Shalom Center each carry forward part of their shared Aquarius DNA. After all, renewal is not a movement, but movement itself.
Now the spirals are curling again.
In this new era—post-pandemic, mid-collapse, amid new awakenings—we feel the mycelial threads reconnecting in refracted relationship. Renewal now, again, as always, the way Life lives.
YH inhales.
VH exhales.
With each breath we are renewed.
A space where something new might begin again.