Hebrew Learning Circles

What Is The Legacy Passage Bar and Bat Mitzvah Program?

Rabbi Modek — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:55:44 +0000

An innovative educational tool designed to address the rite-of-passage needs of the minimally-observant American Jewish family. An heirloom-quality family workbook and a deck of cards, the program radically re-contextualizes the Bar and Bat Mitzvah (BM) process (preparation and ceremony). The program’s approach transforms the BM from a celebration of the child’s Jewish self to a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self - abilities, family, people-hood, and soul.

Book Cover Design

The Legacy Passage curricular tools provide the synagogue’s educator/Rabbi with:
● A well organized family education framework. A year long BM preparation course that meaningfully and seamlessly integrates the many BM strands into a coherent and powerful process.
● An artfully designed book, which is structured to neatly store the entire gamut of BM related documentation. It is intended to remain a child’s precious keepsake alongside other cherished religious books and paraphernalia.

The process incorporates three major components:
● Family and facilitator (rabbi/cantor/tutor) together clarify a vision for the BM preparation year. A shared mission is established, i.e. to transmit the family’s legacy to the maturing child - personal as well as Jewish. We thus invite the parents to be full and equal partners with the synagogue representative in carrying out a deeply meaningful and shared mission. This component focuses on conceptual clarity-making and relationship tone-setting with the BM family.

● The family takes the lead role in selecting the components of the child’s BM preparation program within the parameters of the synagogue ritual standards and values. The process of Engaged Choice (see ASEM assignment cards) allows each family to design a rite-of-passage program that focuses on their child’s strengths and interests. It further establishes and deepens the parent/synagogue partnership. The BM preparation program is pedagogically centered around two classical BM themes:
a. Legacy Passage.
b. Maturity training and celebration.

● The synagogue representative inserts into the book’s designated loose-leaf pocket information with practical advice regarding the nuts and bolts of producing their ceremony and accompanying celebration. The family need not reinvent the production wheel. The synagogue representative will offer pragmatic guidance in order to free-up family members’ time and attention toward the BM educational and emotional substance.

Why Legacy Passage?
For the majority of minimally-observant American Jewish families during the past couple of generations the BM ceremony has been a primary motivator for participation and affiliation with the synagogue. Participation with a Jewish educational system and/or prayer community whether Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, or unaffiliated has provided families with a sense of belonging and pride. The participating BM child has enjoyed the rewards of personal recognition and accomplishment. However, for many families the engagement has primarily been child focused and lasted until the youngest completed his or her BM track. This dynamic has been further compounded by the fact that many a family and their young celebrant have gone through their Jewish educational phase experiencing a great deal of incongruity, dis-empowerment, and cognitive dissonance - belonging and pride notwithstanding. As a result most BM graduates have remained alienated from Jewish communal life until, at best, they themselves have become parents. And so a diminishing cycle continues.

We have developed the Legacy Passage BM program as a response to the incongruous experience that we believe is systemic to the contemporary American synagogue BM. Legacy Passage is designed to enable a different BM paradigm. We approach BM holistically. The program treats the BM preparation period and ceremony as a Jewish celebration of the child’s entire self - body, heart, mind, abilities, family, people-hood, and soul. Our goal is to deeply engage the full spectrum of the child’s and family’s life experience, not only the Jewish “sliver”. Our premise is that each individual in the family as well as the family system as a whole already possess the ingredients for a coherent, congruent, empowered, and Jewishly authentic rite-of-passage process.

Our approach follows from the analysis that a BM program that offers a compartmentalized experience, focusing primarily on the celebrant’s synagogue skill-set, perpetuates a disconnect between the child’s Jewish communal experience and the rest of his/her life. The latter will most likely win the contest of appeal. The Legacy Passage program operates under, and propagates, the assumption of identity wholeness rather than a contest between a “Jewish life” and a “rest of life”. Legacy Passage is designed to honor the student and family for who-they-are as-they-are helping them discover and mine their extant identity resources and strengths. Most importantly our program is designed to validate and enhance the family’s wishes for Jewish connection, learning, and practice. The family chooses, we, clergy and educators, follow and guide.

We have found that the family/child centered approach provides participants with a deep sense of relevance and lasting emotional satisfaction. It is our belief that as synagogues around the country adopt the Legacy Passage holistic approach, BM standards and practices will shift to better serve the minimally observant constituency, renewing an authentic reciprocity and loyalty between synagogues and a growing number of their members.

Bring Legacy Passage to your Hebrew School today!
Contact us for details
845 348 9810 or e-mail mylegacypassage@me.com

Published and distributed by Hebrew Learning Circles, Inc. (501c3)

Home As Hebrew School

Rabbi Modek — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:28:47 +0000

Home Is Where The Hebrew School Is (By Julie Wiener. Published in The Jewish Week, NY, Dec 15, 2009)
For 12-year-old Juliet, of Sleepy Hollow, getting to Hebrew school each week requires no carpool. Instead, on Mondays at 6 p.m. she waits in her living room, and Hebrew school comes to her.
First her two classmates, Aaron and Heather, are dropped off, followed by their teacher, Rabbi Reuben Modek, a tall, gentle, bespectacled 52-year-old man who wears a Bukharan kipa.
Filing into the warmly decorated dining room, an oil landscape painted by Juliet perched on the upright piano, teacher and students settle into their chairs, setting notebooks and workbooks onto the round, wooden table before them and nibbling on the doughnuts and fruit that Juliet’s mom has set out.
While Juliet’s pajama-clad younger sister watches curiously from the adjacent living room, their mom chats in the kitchen and the family’s fluffy Persian cats prance about, the three 12-year-olds and their rabbi pull out homemade siddurs and say the Shema.
For a small but seemingly growing number of families, home-based Jewish learning — whether with a personal tutor or in small groups, like Rabbi Modek’s Hebrew Learning Circles program — is offering an attractive and convenient alternative to synagogue-based Hebrew schools.
The vast majority of American kids receiving a Jewish education continue to do so in synagogue schools, and many of these programs have dramatically restructured and improved in recent years.
Nonetheless, anecdotal reports suggest that families are increasingly turning to private teachers and tutors — sometimes arranging to observe the bar or bat mitzvah in a synagogue, but often opting instead for private ceremonies in homes, restaurants, country clubs, Israel and other locations. One set of privately educated twins recently shared a bat mitzvah ceremony at Galapagos, a gallery and performance space in Brooklyn.
Harried families trying to balance the demands of work, school and numerous extracurricular activities — as well as those who have a negative impression of Hebrew schools or synagogues — report that home-based programs enable them to obtain a more personalized education for their child in less time, with more flexibility and on a more convenient schedule than they would in a congregational program.
“These days, a temple sometimes just doesn’t fit the bill,” says Juliet’s mother, Hope, who asked that the family’s last name not be used in order to protect their privacy.
In addition to Hebrew Learning Circles, created about nine years ago, a small cadre of for-profit and nonprofit resources are springing up to serve families like Hope’s.
In some cases going the private route can be far less expensive than synagogue-based Hebrew schools, which usually require a minimum of two to three years of enrollment and temple membership before allowing students to be bar or bat mitzvahed.
Such home-based programs aren’t the only option for those seeking alternate routes to bar and bat mitzvah: in many neighborhoods Chabad, the outreach oriented chasidic sect, helps families arrange personalized courses of study and inexpensive ceremonies, although their Orthodox approach does not appeal to everyone.
Along with the growth of independent minyanim and even the increasing accessibility of Jewish resources and information online, these alternative Hebrew schools pose a challenge to the quasi-monopoly synagogues once enjoyed in the fields of Jewish education and worship.
According to Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, the trend reflects “the whole notion of personal training that has become part of North American culture.”
Individualized Hebrew schools make sense in a society of SAT tutors, fitness consultants, college application advisers, “people that help prep resumés and personal shoppers,” Rabbi Olitzky notes.
But some worry the phenomenon poses a threat not just to synagogues, but to the communal ideals synagogues stand for.
Some synagogues, like Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, are pushing back with policies discouraging the use of private tutors. “While exceptions are made for special-needs kids, the shul will not schedule bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies during Shabbat morning or community mincha services unless a child “meets the requirements for Jewish education in a communal setting.” Only day schools and congregational schools meet this requirement, and BJ’s rabbis will not officiate at the bar-bat mitzvah ceremonies of privately tutored kids.
Defenders of the home-based programs argue, however that they can be a portal into Jewish life for families that might never have considered joining synagogues. And they urge congregations to learn from, rather than deplore, their success.
“These kinds of organizations, however they are motivated ideologically, are providing something people clearly are looking for,” says Rabbi Olitzky.
The world of private Hebrew tutoring is surprisingly “hush hush” as one tutor puts it, with few tutors advertising or marketing extensively and many demonstrating a surprising lack of ambition in growing their businesses.
Nonetheless, families find teachers in a variety of ways. Some enterprising parents find individual tutors through their own personal connections or by asking around at synagogues, day schools, university Judaic studies departments and rabbinical seminaries.
In the New York area, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a number of small, young companies and organizations match children with private teachers and help families coordinate private bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies.
In addition to Hebrew Learning Circles, which recently incorporated as a nonprofit organization and which has 27 students and 75 “graduates,” there is Door To Door Tutoring, founded in 2002 by Joel Cohen, a former Hebrew school teacher who also works full time in finance, and Partners with Parents, established in 1999 by twins Laurie and Jesse Gerber. Responding to requests from clients, Door To Door and Partners With Parents added tutoring in other subjects, like math and science, as well.
In Los Angeles, Todd Shotz — a 35-year-old film and TV producer who is also a longtime Hebrew school teacher and bar mitzvah tutor — has for seven years run a business called Hebrew Helpers, mostly hiring actors and artists as tutors. He currently has 46 students, some in small groups and others one-on-one. In San Francisco the five-year-old group Jewish Milestones runs a referral service, one that not only serves families seeking an alternative route to bar or bat mitzvah, but also helps people find clergy for weddings, funerals and other lifecycle ceremonies.
Many of the people who run such programs say they have fond memories of their own childhood Hebrew school experiences and insist they are not trying to lure people away from synagogue programs.
“The synagogue should be the first try, but for some families it will either be nothing or us, and we want to give the kids and parents a positive experience,” says Laurie Gerber, whose program currently has seven Jewish studies students.
Most companies were formed somewhat by accident, by individual tutors who began getting more business than they could handle on their own.
Door to Door’s Cohen says that one private student “turned into five, five to 15, 15 to 25” until he was “tutoring every day.”
“I didn’t want to say no to these families,” he says. So he began hiring friends —young professionals, teachers, actors looking for part-time side gigs — and formed a business.
Hebrew Learning Circles’ Rabbi Modek, who has run several synagogue-based Hebrew schools, was leading a havurah in Nyack in 2000 when two parents asked him to tutor their children. More parents, hearing about the group, asked if their children could join.
“I discovered that the concept was phenomenal,” he says. “There was something about the kids’ and families’ motivation that was different, something calming about being in a home. There was a sense of ownership the kids had that they didn’t get in a more institutional setting. And it grew naturally from there.”
Rabbi Modek developed an extensive curriculum and hires college students and other part-timers, whom he trains as teachers.
Some parents get together, create their own programs and then collectively hire a teacher.
In Croton, parents Jason and Elissa Holzman joined five other families to create a havurah, which hires two Jewish Theological Seminary students as teachers. Classes for the children, who range in age from kindergarten to fourth grade, take place every Sunday morning in the homes of havurah members, with a different family hosting each week. Holzman’s next-door neighbor, whose children are older, has organized a similar program.
“Part of what is appealing about this is the opportunity to have a little more control” over the curriculum and “how material comes across,” says Jason Holzman, who attended a Conservative synagogue Hebrew school as a child.
The intimacy is also a plus.
“We’re forging a closer bond with these families than you would do in a temple.”
There is no single profile of the typical private Jewish tutoring family. According to Cohen, his clients are everywhere on the spectrum from “a day school student who wants extra attention to ‘Ohmigod, my daughter is 12, and can you help me through this process?’”
While many private tutoring families never join a synagogue, others combine the tutoring with temple membership, sometimes sending one child to Hebrew school and having another do home-based learning.
Gerber reports that her “most common customer comes in third or fourth grade because they can’t go twice a week to Hebrew school, or they have [scheduling conflicts with another activity] or a learning issue.”
“Some parents are scarred by their experience of Hebrew school,” she adds. “They want a positive experience for their children and do not want to risk it.”
Many other parents are intermarried, or grew up with no Jewish education — or, as Rabbi Modek puts it, “have allergies to organized religion and wouldn’t step in a synagogue if you paid them.”
Some are seeking more input over what the child learns.
“Every family has a very different set of needs and connection points,” says Gerber, adding that in selecting a curriculum “everyone has preferences about God, no God, Israel, modern Hebrew versus biblical Hebrew.”
Other parents seek out tutoring when Hebrew school isn’t working for their child.
Andrea Kott’s daughter enjoyed Hebrew school at the Reform temple they belong to, but after enduring her son’s constant complaints, Kott, who lives in Tarrytown, switched him to a Hebrew Learning Circle.
Not only was it more engaging for him, but it made for a more intimate bar mitzvah process. Many temples “treat bar mitzvahs like assembly lines,” she complains.
Perhaps most appealing for parents is that their children actually seem to enjoy the home-based arrangements.
“Instead of going from seven hours of classroom to more classroom, they go from seven hours of classroom to somebody’s house,” Kott says. “On beautiful days [Rabbi Modek would] take them outside.”
Susan Stremple, of L.A., recalls how her 11-year-old son Ethan, who participates in a Hebrew Helpers group, was “was so disappointed” one weekend when he had to miss a session.
Of course the relative convenience of tutoring versus Hebrew school is a huge draw for everyone, as stressed families juggle myriad modern-day demands of work, homework, commuting and numerous extracurricular activities.
“With synagogues, it’s a huge commitment,” says Ina, whose son Aaron is in the Sleepy Hollow Hebrew Learning Circles group and who found the commuting, volunteering and other requirements imposed by area temples “overwhelming to think about.” (Like Hope, she asked that her family’s last name not be published.)
Where many temples require one, two, even three afternoons of classes, private tutors often come to the student’s house once or twice a week and stay only an hour and a half.
While that may sound like a trivial amount of time, tutors and parents say that working one-on-one and in small groups, they are able to cover material far more efficiently and effectively than they would in a typical-sized Hebrew school class, where time often gets wasted with discipline issues or what one Manhattan parent calls “goofy, feel-good stuff.”
Says Kott, “When the [Hebrew Learning Circle] would get together, it’s not that kids weren’t dropping pencils and chatting. But there was more space for thoughtful process” than there would be in a traditional classroom environment.
David Klafter, an Upper West Side father whose daughter attended Hebrew school at the family’s synagogue for a while then switched to a group taught by a Partner with Parents tutor, said the small group was “more rigorous” than Hebrew school.
In addition to the rigor and convenience, parents and their children praise the informality and one-on-one relationships of the home-based approach.
“My sons were so comfortable and happy with Joel,” says Upper East Side mom Michele Teitelbaum, whose two children each studied with Cohen from fourth grade through bar mitzvah. “It was like having an older cousin around … My boys were beyond prepared for their bar mitzvahs, but also they got life lessons. Joel’s a mensch and a true role model.”
Ari Gold-Parker, a Hebrew Learning Circle grad who is now a sophomore at Harvard, remains in touch with Rabbi Modek, who he calls “Reuben,” and is still good friends with two of the other kids from the circle.
“Hebrew school age can be a really awkward, horrible time for kids,” he says. “Most people look back on that time with not-so-good memories, but having a small, informal setting with a rabbi who we liked made it feel very much not like school and helped us get engaged on a different level.”
Of course even the happiest home-tutoring families acknowledge that the setup is not perfect. Many lament that their children are missing out on the social aspect of being in a Hebrew school, and the feeling of belonging to a larger community.
“It’s a tradeoff but so far we’re pleased with it,” says Ina, of Sleepy Hollow, who recalls having a “great time” growing up in a temple youth group.
Kott, who continues to belong to a Reform temple, describes her temple as “a place you can go and physically share time and space with the people in your community,” whereas with Hebrew Learning Circles “you’re kind of in a bubble.”
“I happened to be friends with the other moms, but our paths don’t cross on a daily basis — we have to go out of our way to see each other; there’s no central meeting place.”

Transformational Bar and Bat Mitzvah

Rabbi Modek — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:58:02 +0000

Does a child really transform or even transition from childhood to adulthood when they become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah at the age of 13 or 12 as is held by Jewish tradition? Does life change for the contemporary Jewish child after his/her ceremony? How about the rest of the family? Does anything change for them after the Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony? Does the normative initiatory Jewish process today live up to its ancient promise, still echoing in our collective Jewish memory, of a transformational transition from minority to majority?

The traditional Native American youth who goes out solo into the woods on a long and challenging vision quest returns with a vision, a name, and a readiness to take his/her place among his/her community’s productive adults. The youth’s life has been transformed.

The young Biblical King David (Book of Samuel’s I, chapters 16, 17) single handedly kills a lion and a bear while out alone tending to his father’s flock of sheep. This event prepares him for the ultimate initiatory experience of his youth, defeating the giant Goliath. Thus King David is transformed into his role among the adult warriors of his people.

The contemporary American teenager mentoring with a qualified instructor toward earning his/her driver’s license is being prepared for high stakes activity along with the adults of his/her tribe. Once initiated, the teen will be entrusted with handling the potentially lethal moving vehicle, and will bear real consequences in the event of harmful misuse. S/he now has the power to kill or protect herself or others. The teen’s life is being transformed.

Is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah child’s life transformed after having successfully mastered his/her Haftorah? The experience of many suggests that not quite. But it should be. Bar/Bat Mitzvah by definition is a transformational term. Mitzvah in Hebrew has two different meanings. From the word Tzavta, company or group, Mitzvah means community. From the word Tzivah, instructed, Mitzvah means that which has been instructed or ruled. Bar, literally son, or Bat, literally daughter means in our context ‘member of’. Just as a child is a member of his/her family, so too son or daughter of Mitzvah plainly means ‘member of Mitzvah’. Thus the term Bar/Bat Mitzvah means member of a community sharing a common set of rules. Becoming a member of a morally demanding collective requires a character buildup, a transformation of one’s earlier nature.

But is stepping up to a status of greater moral demand in and of itself sufficient for maximizing the maturation benefits inherent in the Bar/Bat Mitzvah transition? Another interpretation of Mitzvah, as derived from Tzavta, company, suggests that perhaps a deeper cultivation is yet in order. Our sages tell us that Tzavta, company, could, in the context of Mitzvah, refer to being in company with God. That the rules, Mitzvot (Mitzvahs), are sacred and thus serve spiritually as the vehicles for, or the expressions of, our shared sacred values. In other words, our tribe’s Mitzvah system is structured around each our deepest capacity for existential and spiritual connectedness. When the Bar/Bat Mitzvah program addresses that capacity the Mitzvah potential is maximized and the transformation is palpable.

When we examine youth initiatory events across cultures and throughout history, whether among traditional native peoples, through the stories and characters of the the great mythologies (i.e. Bible), or in contemporary life, we find that the presence of seven programatic elements contribute to the successful and meaningful transformation of child to adult.

These elements bring about transformation in part because they interact with the initiate’s innate capacity to be “in company, Tzavta, with his/her God”. These initiatory programs help the young person confront life’s scared as well as practical edges at which moral and existential maturation is inevitable. We, the initiating adults must find the wisdom and courage to allow our maturing young-one to sufficiently extend themselves out and beyond the comfort of early parental protection and into the realm of a deliberate and growth-full challenge course.

The seven elements of the transformational maturation program are:
1.    Child being mentored by parents in the sacred values of the family and by qualified instructors in the sacred values of the tribe. By ‘sacred values’ we mean those values for which keeping one would voluntarily forefeit comfort, treasure, or life should it be necessary.
2.    Child being coached in clarifying his/her personal life mission as well as the collective mission of his/her tribe.
3.    Child being trained in the ceremonial skills, both collective and individual, practiced by the family and tribe.
4.    Child is taught how to master new practical adult life skills.
5.    Child passes endurance challenges that help him draw on newly found reservoirs of energy and willpower.
6.    Child declares his/her new set of mature commitments relating to self, family, tribe, humanity, and all living things.
7.    Child receives affirmation and acknowledgment from the family and community through ceremony, speeches, gifts of ritual garb and paraphernalia, and gifts of the heart.

At a different time and in another place a Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony and the preparation period leading up to it would have included all of these ingredients providing for a powerful and organic life transition. At the other end of the process the boy or girl would start afresh with a sense of meaning and place, an experience that eludes many of us post moderns. Many parents report about their own Bar/Bat Mitzvah initiatory process as having offered irrelevant challenges at best and little challenge in areas of concern, interest, and potential personal growth if any. The lives of an entire generation has not been transformed by our experiences with our synagogues of youth.

The original Bar/Bat Mitzvah event has had many of its transformational ingredients fall by the wayside over the course of modern history leaving us with a set of noble yet dry traditional motions to go through. Albeit many a family, while bravely stepping up to the contemporary Bar/Bat Mitzvah plate, somewhere inside continue to grasp for the original and whole-life affirming initiatory experience that they intuit should be available and accessible.

Our children deserve more than a period of exposure to an often irrelevant (to them) Jewish culture followed by our magnanimous permission to them to choose whether or not to identify once the Hebrew School “burden” is over with. They deserve more than an opportunity to march up to the Bima, snagogue podium, perhaps for the last time, to offer a substantively obscure yet polished performance to a delighted audience of relatives and friends who are all the while taking great effort to mask their ritual discomfort.

This Rabbi believes that our children deserve the full transformational initiatory experience through which they enjoy meaningful self-discovery, profound bonding with parents and adult mentors, and a gained sense of their rightful place in the Jewish as well as human chain of generational transmission.

No, a transformational Bar/Bat Mitzvah event does not exist per-se but increasing attempts are being made. And no, our synagogue traditions are not to be discarded as they hold the precious wisdom of ritual heirlooms that have withstood the test of time. The renewal of Bar/Bat Mitzvah though, is not the task of the guardians of tradition. From them we gratefully learn. It is the job of post modern families who are willing to engage their maturing children with self-honesty, who are commited to reclaiming the power of Jewish generational transmission for our times, and have the courage to take charge.

Our children are entitled to meaningful instruction in the sacred values of their parents along with the ceremonial skills practiced by their families and communities. They are entitled to help in clarifying their sense of a life mission and that of their people. They are entitled to be initiated into, and trusted with, new adult life skills and responsibilities. They are entitled to being appropriately challenged and trusted on all levels of human being: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They are entitled to the challenge of making new significant commitments relating to themselves and the world around them. The ceremony day then becomes the icing on the Babka (traditional Eastern Europian Jewish chocolate flavored cake). While for many of us our Bar/Bat Mitzvah experience has left a scant impression if any, at the end of his or her day, our child deserves nothing less than having been transformed forever.

The Paradox of Being Jewish

Rabbi Modek — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:45:41 +0000

One of the feats that many of us, progressive Jews, have to manage everyday is the paradox of balancing the universal and the particular; our worldliness with our Jewishness. Can both coexist in one person’s head, heart, and actions without twisting one’s personality into an over-baked pretzel?

I am not sure If I have the answer, as I often feel like an over-baked pretzel with extra salt as I attempt to reconcile my roles as Jew, rabbi, and passionate globalist. But, to the extent that you too live in this paradox, please know that I am sympathetic and I can assure you that you are not alone.

Lately, I have had probing conversations with families planning life-cycle ceremonies, parents concerned with educational content, or with individuals plainly sharing stirring thoughts about their own Jewish life paradoxes. These honest examinations of living as a contemporary Jew keep our Judaism and our universalism real and alive.

Caring deeply about something or someone often leads to closer scrutiny of it. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a contemporary Jewish progressive sage, once said: “It is OK to be proud of your Denomination as long as you are also sufficiently ashamed of it”. I agree and hence have been feeling deeply grateful for the opportunity to engage in lots of Big Talk of late.

In fact, exactly one month ago during Yom Kippur services we put Judaism on trial. Three congregants stepped up as impromptu Judges while the rest of us laid out a tough case challenging our own tradition. The views expressed were sharp, frank, and heartfelt. A most profound communal discussion ensued.

Well, yes, we found that we could not easily dismiss the charges. Our claims and concerns about our faith seemed to hold a great measure of validity. So we declared our beloved tradition “guilty-as-charged” but in the spirit of the holiday, we forgave her. The air was electrified with authenticity.

Authenticity, joy, camaraderie, and bold embrace of the paradox - fully Jewish? fully human? All in one “pretzel”? - That is precisely the workout that keeps our ancient tradition ever youthful, ever evolving, ever a living entity. Thank God for the paradox of being Jewish.

High Holiday Services

Rabbi Modek — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:51:01 +0000

Please join us for another year of joyful and interactive services with Rabbi Reuben Modek and Cantor Lisa Sokolov.

Rosh HaShannah,
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
9:30am to 12:00pm
Immediately followed by Kiddush and Tashlikh at Hook Mountain parking lot (our location is nearby).

Yom Kippur
Monday, September 28th, 2009
9:30am to 1pm

Suggested tax deductible contribution (we are now a 501c3 not for profit):
Rosh HaShannah: $50 per person
Yom Kippur: $50 per person
Children under 13: $15 per child per service
Maximum: $130 per family per service
(No one turned away for lack of funds. Please contribute from your heart as appropriate to your means)

Beautiful Nyack Location

Advanced reservation requested

Contact:

845 641 1107 (leave message) or hlcoffice@mac.com

We look forward to sharing these special celebrations with you.
Warmly,

The Production Team

P.S.

How would you like to join the high holidays production team? Next meeting is on Sunday September 13th, 7pm to 8:30pm. Logistical roles are available for setup, close-down, greeting table, etc. Your help is needed. If you can’t make Sunday’s meeting, please let us know if you can help out on the day of either event.

We are seeking teen volunteers to staff our child-care program during services, who will earn community service points toward fulfilling their school’s requirements. Please call 845 641 1106.

Can you chant from the Torah, blow the Shofar, drum, play a musical instrument? We have a role for you. Contact Rabbi Modek at 845 348 9810.

Feel free to invite a friend.

Transformational Bar and Bat Mitzvah

Rabbi Modek — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:45:52 +0000

What is the Legacy Passage Bar and Bat Mitzvah program?

Rabbi Modek — Sun, 24 May 2009 15:50:52 +0000

Legacy Passage is an innovative Jewish educational tool designed to authentically address the rite-of-passage needs of the minimally observant American Jewish family. A heirloom-quality family workbook and a deck of cards, the program radically re-contextualizes the Bar and Bat Mitzvah (BM) process (preparation and ceremony). The program’s approach transforms the BM from a celebration of the child’s Jewish self to a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self - abilities, family, people-hood, and soul.
The Legacy Passage curricular tools provide the synagogue educator/Rabbi a well organized framework for a year long BM preparation course that meaningfully and seamlessly integrates the many BM strands into a coherent and powerful process. The artfully designed book, which is structured to neatly store the entire gamut of BM related documentation, is intended to remain a child’s precious keepsake alongside other cherished religious books and paraphernalia.
Three major components:
1. Family and facilitator (rabbi/cantor/tutor) together clarify a vision for the BM preparation year. A shared mission is established, i.e. to transmit the family’s legacy to the maturing child - personal as well as Jewish. We thus invite the parents to be full and equal partners with the synagogue representative in carrying out a deeply meaningful and shared mission. This component focuses on conceptual clarity-making and relationship tone-setting with the BM family.

2. The family takes the lead role in selecting the components of the child’s BM preparation program within the parameters of the synagogue ritual standards and values. The process of Engaged Choice (see ASEM assignment cards) allows each family to design a rite-of-passage program that focuses on their child’s strengths and interests. It further establishes and deepens the parent/synagogue partnership. The BM preparation program is pedagogically centered around two classical BM themes:
a. Legacy Passage.
b. Maturity training and celebration.

3. The synagogue representative inserts into the book’s designated loose-leaf pocket information with practical advice regarding the nuts and bolts of producing their ceremony and accompanying celebration. The family need not reinvent the production wheel. The synagogue representative will offer pragmatic guidance in order to free-up family members’ time and attention toward the BM educational and emotional substance.

Our approach follows from the analysis that a BM program that offers a compartmentalized experience, focusing primarily on the celebrant’s synagogue skill-set, perpetuates a disconnect between the child’s Jewish communal experience and the rest of his/her life. The latter will most likely win the contest of appeal. The Legacy Passage program operates under, and propagates the assumption of identity wholeness rather than a contest between a “Jewish life” and a “rest of life”. Legacy Passage is designed to honor the student and family for who-they-are as-they-are helping them discover and mine their extant identity resources and strengths. Most importantly our program is designed to validate and enhance the family’s wishes for Jewish connection, learning, and practice. The family chooses, we, clergy and educators, follow and guide.

History
The program evolved from our experience with tutoring and ceremony leading with approximately seventy students over the course of the past near decade. While serving members of Congregation B’nai Torah of Orange County NY (Conservative style) and Hebrew Learning Circles (www.hebrewlearningcircles.com) home-study-program participants since 1998, we have been searching for ways to address the ethno-spiritual needs of the minimally observant Jewish family. The all-in-one workbook and card deck concept emerged organically in 2006 as we began organizing our, and others’, best practices into a coherent pedagogical unit. The ASEM assignment-cards system has been met with great enthusiasm by our students ever since we introduced them in 2007. The assignments have been providing us invaluable opportunities for heuristic Jewish education. Our participating families have continually been our best teachers.
Since the start of 2009 we have been working diligently to prepare the program for publication and widespread use. Presentations about the Legacy Passage unit at the Ohalah Rabbinical conference in January 2009 have been received with enthusiastic interest. The wealth of useful feedback has helped us further fine-tune the Legacy Passage Family Workbook and the Legacy Passage Facilitator’s Edition in preparation for publication. Recent presentations of the curriculum to a select group of Rabbis and Jewish educators have stirred-up honest reflections, great discussions, and subsequent enthusiastic interest in the program.

LOVE AND BARLEY: A LESSON OF THE “OMER” RITUAL, by Rabbi Gershon Winkler

Rabbi Modek — Sun, 24 May 2009 15:37:36 +0000

We are now nearing the end of a seven-week period known as “the
counting of the Omer,” reminiscent of the ancient 49-day ritual
of the barley offering we once practiced as we counted the days
between the onset of Spring and the advent of Summer — between
the holiday of Passover and the festival of Shavuot (Leviticus
23:11) — between the time we wiggled our way out of the chains
of bondage in Egypt to the time we received the Torah in what
is now Saudi Arabia. Omer means sheaf, as in a sheaf of barley,
the first growth of Spring.

What exactly was the ritual of the sheaf offering? They would
reap the first Spring growth of barley and gather the sheafs in
baskets that they would then bring to the Temple Court. There
they would singe the barley in such a way that the fire would
reach all the grains. Then the smoking barley was spread across
the floor of the Temple Court to be cooled off by the wind.
Once the grasses were cooled, they would grind the barley so
that the grain was separated from the husks. From the grain,
they would then measure a tenth of an ephah of flour which was
in turn sifted through thirteen filters before it was finally
offered up on the altar (Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 10b).

How did the Kohayn facilitate this ritual? “He would lift up the
barley offering and wave it, first forward, then back, to ward
off severe winds; then toward the sky, and then toward the earth
to ward off severe rains” (Midrash Pesikta D’Rav Kahana 8:5).
The second-century Rabbi Shimon bar Lakish remarked: “Let not the
ritual of the Omer be a light thing in your eyes, for it is
through this ritual that God promotes harmony between a man and
a woman” (Ibid.).

Fascinating. Lift up a handful of barley and wave it forward and
backward, then up and down, and not only will you ward off severe
winds and rains, but you will also improve your relationship with
your partner. Wow. What a religion.

And of all things: barley! You’d think, maybe a pomegranate or
a handful of chocolate-covered peanuts. But barley? What is this
obsession with barley? Forty-nine days of barley is enough to
ward off anything, including an appetite for barley.

Listen to this one: “If one dreams of barley, it is a sign that
one’s sins have been forgiven. Rabbi Zeyra longed so much to
leave Babylon and relocate to the Land of Israel, but he
refrained from doing so until he dreamed of barley” (Talmud
Bavli, Berachot 57a). And finally: “When the jar is empty of
barley, conflict comes knocking on your door” (Talmud Bavli,
Baba Metzia 59a).

Barley represents first love. When Jeremiah the Prophet interviewed
God on an ancient rendition of “In-Treatment”, he asked what it
was that touched God the most about God’s relationship with the
Jews. The reply: “I remember the love of your youth, our first
date, when we first fell in love, when you threw all caution to
the wind and followed me into a wilderness, into a place of no
promise, no potential, no seed. I remember when your love was
unconditional, hinging on nothing but the purity of what you
felt for me and I for you. When there was nothing between us
but innocent trust” (Jeremiah 2:2). Jeremiah jotted some notes
on the clipboard and then inquired: “You mention all this
innocent love you felt from us and toward us. What do you mean
by this?” God took in a deep breath and let out a Tsunami that
wiped out four hotels in the Caribbean, and said: “The best way
I can put it, is that it was like a First Love, a Genesis, absent
anything that ever was. Sort of like the first growth of Spring,
the first yield of the earth in Spring: so precious, so magical,
so marvelous, that if anyone were to interfere with it — pow!
To the moon!!” (Jeremiah 2:3).

These two passages in the sacred writ of the Hebrew prophet
Jeremiah says it all. The first yield of the earth is like the
first love you’ve ever experienced. Not your first boyfriend or
girlfriend, not your first romance, but your first love, meaning
the first time you actually felt like, wow ! this is the real
thing and nothing can be more real.

Barley. Your first date. Your first love. The first move of earth
in her romance with sky, responding to the rains of winter,
reaching for the sky in total faith, in total innocence and
trust, after which all else follows suit and emerges. Next, the
wheat declared: Okay, barley took a chance. And it’s okay. Let’s
come out of the closet. Grass followed next. Oats, alfalfa,
little budding leaves peered hesitatingly from the tip of twigs,
saw that it was okay to take a chance and respond to the call
of sky, to the impregnation of rain, to the love of Creator for
Creation. And every single day, every single phase of that season
of new beginnings, of fresh unfolding, we celebrated at the
Temple Court with sheafs of barley, offerings of first love.
And we sent her message outward to the world, inward to our
selves, up toward the heavens, down toward the earth, shoo’ing
away any harsh winds or rains that would come between us, that
would try to stunt the magical emergence of fresh love, of
renewed creation. And we went home to our partners and didn’t
see them the same old way we had gotten used to seeing them. We
saw them anew and remembered the love of our youth, our first
love that we felt with them. And we built on that, every day,
counting each phase of its unfolding for seven weeks until we
could feel ourselves standing at the foot of Mount Sinai
marrying our early love to our spiritual love, our earthly
partnership to our heavenly partnership. And yes, of course
your sins are forgotten when you dream of barley, because you
have become so completely transformed, you have emerged from
the constraints of Egypt, the constraints of Winter, and there
is nowhere else to go now but toward full blooming and total
blossoming. And if you have been hesitating to leave Babylon
for Israel, the barley in your dream shook you out of your
stupor and moved you out of the hard wood of twig into the
soft, lush, color and fragrance of leaf.

Sift your barley thoroughly. Thirteen times at least. Thirteen,
corresponding to the thirteen attributes of God’s compassion,
the compassion that created this life to begin with, your life.
As is written at the very beginning of Genesis (my translation):
“In First Gift [emerging from within Primordial Thought, the nameless
unknowable mystery manifested of itself] Many Forces who then
created the fire-waters (sky) and the coalescence (earth).”

After all, Creation was the First Gift. And still is. And to
remind us of this, we celebrate barley.

And remember. Never ever let your barley run out. Ever. Or trouble
might come knocking on your door.

Rabbi Gershon Winkler can be reached at elkmesa@walkingstick.org. For more information about Rabbi Winkler’s books and programs go to www.walkingstick.org

The Matzah of Caring

Rabbi Modek — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:48:25 +0000

A few weeks before Passover during the end of the second world war a Hasidic Jewish refugee in Russia chanced upon a then scarce batch of Shemurah Matzah flour, a type of Matzah flour that would uniquely qualify for the strictest standards of Passover observance.

Excited by his amazingly good fortune, the Hasid rushed to bake as many Matzas as he could squeeze out of the limited amount of flour. Once done, the Hasid happily sent messages to all the strictly observant Rabbis in his area inviting them to pick up the precious holiday commodity. However, he also stipulated that due to short supply he could only provide three pieces to each Rabbi on a first come first serve basis.

In no time whatsoever representatives from the different communities arrived at our Hasid’s residence to collect the generous gift of Shemurah Matzah. One of the messengers, though, displayed a particularly brash attitude. He fiercely proclaimed that three Matzahs were not enough and that his Rabbi had insisted on receiving no less than six pieces of Matzah in spite of the original stipulation. After quite some arguing the Hasid abided by the unusual request and begrudgingly made the exception.

The day before Passover had arrived and lo and behold at our Hasid’s doorstep for the second time appeared the difficult messenger. “I came to explain why I insisted on receiving six Matzahs” he stated. While not entirely happy about the man’s repeat visit, the Hasid asked his visitor to “please go on”. “Do you have any Shemurah Matzah for yourself?” asked the visitor. “No” replied the Hasid. “The supply was too short and the need too great. I did not keep any for myself”. “My Rebbe new that you wouldn’t, and asked me to secure an extra three pieces for you” said the messenger as he pulled out three Matzahs from his pack and handed them back to the Hasid. “That is why I had to insist on six Matzahs. On behalf of myself and my Rebbe I wish you a sweet and happy Passover”.

How do we become truly liberated? Not only by reminding ourselves of our collective experience of slavery through the observances of Passover. Not only by providing for those less privileged than ourselves during Passover. But also by acknowledging and caring for those who go out of their way to care for us and for others around us. May we all merit liberation of body and spirit as we turn our holiday observances into opportunities for true caring and heart felt connecting.

RAISING THE BAR AND BROADENING THE MEANING OF BAR AND BAT MITZVAH

Rabbi Modek — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:43:53 +0000

How do we transform the Bar/Bat Mitzvah rite of passage from “a celebration of the child’s Jewish self” to “a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self”? We designed the innovative Legacy Passage program to do exactly that through engaged-choice. Parents and child are invited into the process as full partners as they choose from a wide range of meaningful engagement options.

The entire Bar and Bat Mitzvah process from beginning to end streams through three stages: training, ceremony, and celebration. Could each one of those stages become in and of itself a life changing experience that effects the child’s healthy emotional development as well as strengthen family bonds?

Our answer is a resounding yes. We view the Bar/Bat Mitzvah experience as a powerful and necessary rite of passage that contributes to the family and child’s overall well being. We begin by asking parents and child to consider the very essence of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process, which is the passing of legacy from elders to youngster. Just as we, adults, have been shaped by the legacy of our parents – their values, beliefs, stories, unique skills, and important projects – so too our children will be shaped by ours. The life experience of many suggests that one’s Jewish legacy is part of a greater personal and universal whole. What would it look like then, if we passed down our entire legacy package to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah child, not only the Jewish traditional content? This question is our starting point.

The Legacy Passage program is designed to facilitate conscious, deliberate, and heartfelt transmission of a family’s treasured legacy to its young. Since each family’s legacy is unique, each Bar and Bat Mitzvah process, from its inception to the party, is custom designed in close collaboration with the entire family. We help the child’s elders engage with him or her as significant mentors. A set of intelligently challenging and fun assignments help the Jewish child try out and achieve new levels of maturity and connectedness under the guidance of his or her mentors. The ceremony and party thus celebrate the child’s special abilities, the family’s self defined values, the gift of Jewish people-hood, and the soul residing within.

This rite of passage, channeling a loving transmission down the generations, then becomes the soil in which the child’s future holds root. Our Rabbi and expert tutors are more than Jewish-educators. They are coaches who consider Jewish tradition as it uniquely applies in the context of each child’s whole life. Isn’t that exactly what the Bar and Bat Mitzvah rite was originally intended to be?