Spotlight on CLAL Archive

CLAL Quarterly Report

Fall, 2001

Dear Friends, 

The tragic events of September 11th have changed our lives forever. As Jews and as Americans, our sense of vulnerability and violence has risen to a new level. Yet, as our nation attempts to recover from this crisis, the need to connect and affirm life overwhelmingly surmounts the desire to shut down and pull back. 

At this difficult time, CLAL continues to play a vital role in helping to rebuild our nation's and our people's spirit and growth. During the tragedy, CLAL faculty reached out to the New York City community, serving as clergy and chaplains at various hospitals and triage sites and speaking with groups to begin to address the horrific events. Faculty met with families, conferred with fellow clergymen, and counseled people of many faiths to give comfort and support. Many rabbis and community leaders from around the country contacted CLAL for advice about what to say to local families, community members and congregants, both as part of their New Year's remarks and privately. 

CLAL's President, Rabbi Irwin Kula, and Vice President, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, issued a statement following the World Trade Center attack which was distributed to thousands of people nationwide. Their remarks, excerpted below, were carried both in the leading Jewish press and in many mainstream newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun: 

The only firm boundary now must be between those who commit acts of terror, and those of us who don't. The events of September 11 transcend national, religious, and ethnic boundaries. We will have to reach across many such boundaries to fight the evil that now confronts us.…There is also the need for t'shuva (introspection). T'shuva empowers us. It is ultimately about our capacity to shape our future by reflecting on our past. Not repentance, but a turning inward to explore both that which we have done, and that which we have not.…This is about our roles in a world that has become so polluted with hatred.

Please join us and help send the message that intolerance, both inside and outside our community, must not be allowed. The vision we create today is the one that will shape tomorrow.  

Barbara B. Friedman, Chairman
Rabbi Irwin Kula, President
Donna M. Rosenthal, Executive Vice Chairman

NEW DIRECTIONS 

How might Jews and the Jewish tradition contribute to the wider public debate on leadership, bioethics, or corporate responsibility?  How can Jews, or members of any religious or ethnic community, embrace their particularity and still contribute to the larger culture?  How will the trends affecting America -- globalization, the impact of technology and worldwide instability -- change how Jews and others see themselves in coming years? 

For more than 25 years, CLAL has been on the cutting edge, linking the Jewish tradition with the societal shifts of the American landscape. Convening interdisciplinary seminars, conferences and consultations, and working with communities and institutions nationwide, CLAL generates new ideas for broadening the debate about the American and Jewish future, influencing the leaders who will meet the social, ethical and spiritual challenges of the next era of Jewish and American life. In addition, CLAL sustains and develops networks from within and beyond the organized Jewish world -- among rabbis of all denominations, interfaith religious and community leaders, philanthropists, and opinion makers in the fields of academia, religion, business, philanthropy and the arts. Through all of its work, CLAL builds a Jewish life, ritual and practice that is spiritually vibrant and engaged with the intellectual and ethical questions of the wider world.

GENERATING NEW PERSPECTIVES 

CLAL Explores the Future of Religion in America

On November 19, CLAL's Jewish Public Forum convened the first of a series of seminars on the future of religion in America. The program entitled “What is Religion For?” brought together leaders from many academic disciplines, faith communities and professions to consider the new and enduring questions about religion's role in contemporary life. Participants considered the moral and ethical issues raised by September 11 and its aftermath, to which religious and spiritual traditions could make some contribution. They also explored the factors that both aid and hinder the development of fundamentalism and extremism. 

This seminar is part of a yearlong project exploring the nature of religion in a changing society. The model of the “open source” software movement, in which programmers globally contribute to and draw upon an evolving operating system, will frame much of the year’s inquiry. When applied to religion, “open source” draws attention to the notion that individuals will become collaborators in creating and shaping spiritual and religious practices and rituals. 

“As we confront challenges that include not only global terrorism but technological changes like the mapping of the human genome, both Jewish wisdom and the wisdom of other religions might serve as significant ethical or moral resources,” said Dr. Shari Cohen, Director of the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL. “What is lost and what is gained when particular communities offer their wisdom -- their intellectual property -- to the broader public?  Who really owns religious traditions?”  

Later this year there will be two additional seminars, which will include rabbis and religious leaders from multiple faiths, analysts from a variety of disciplines, and writers and artists.  Several public events will also be held to bring the insights generated to a wider audience.  Cities tentatively scheduled include New York, San Francisco, Miami, and Greensboro.  The project is made possible by a grant from the Toleo Foundation of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Playing the Jewish Futures: Scenarios on Religion, Ethnicity and Civic Engagement

In times of crisis, it is tempting to limit one’s thinking to the comfortable and familiar. But it is particularly important during these times to think more broadly about the larger issues and to look for new kinds of questions, to avoid being engrossed solely in the short-term and to take a longer view into the future.

In this spirit, CLAL's multi-year project on the Jewish future continues this year. The project focuses on the question, “How will people experience and express Jewishness in the year 2015?”  Over the course of the year, the Jewish Public Forum will convene four seminars to explore the future of family and gender relations, civic engagement, religion and spirituality, and communications and education.  Each meeting is designed to shift the Jewish debate, as well as to contribute to larger societal discussions about the future of religion, community and identity in North America. Historians, rabbis, anthropologists, scientists, journalists, business leaders and others will be brought into conversation together in an unprecedented way. This year’s seminars will generate forty short essays, which will be disseminated widely both within and beyond the organized Jewish community. The project is funded through the generosity of the Eleanor M. and Herbert D. Katz Family Foundation.

Jewish Guidebook on Palliative Care

CLAL has begun work on a Jewish spiritual guidebook for palliative care for patients and their families.  Funded by the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, it builds on CLAL's groundbreaking work in the Jewish healing movement.  The guidebook will also address many of the concerns of caregivers, chaplains and health care professionals as they work with terminally ill patients.  It is the first of its kind to be developed and will be disseminated nationwide. 

CLAL faculty, in collaboration with Joseph J. Fins, M.D., the Director of Medical Ethics at the Weill Cornell Medical College, will link Jewish wisdom from traditional texts, stories and personal experiences with professional medical perspectives. The guiding principle will be to create a framework in which patients can evaluate decisions regarding their care. Topics will include self-reflection, forgiveness, facing loss, finding hope, reconciliation, coping with pain, making peace and encountering death. 

“Ultimately, our work will help doctors, patients and patients’ families to understand that the choices that are made in medical care should be made in conjunction with the spiritual needs of the patient,” said Rabbi Daniel Brenner, senior teaching fellow and director of the project.

CLAL Roundtable Series

CLAL has begun a monthly roundtable series with key authors and thinkers, making the CLAL office a place for high-powered intellectual dialogue for opinion makers, community leaders and philanthropists. In September, Werner Hanak, curator of Vienna's Jewish Museum, spoke with CLAL faculty and guests about whether the museum should have the responsibility for educating people about the Holocaust, and what it means to be a young non-Jewish Austrian in his position.  In October, Boston Globe journalist Larry Tye spoke about his new book, Homelands, which takes a fresh look at Jewish life in the Diaspora. And in November, author David Shenk discussed his new book, The Forgetting -- Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic. Reports in CLAL's online magazine, eCLAL: A Journal of Religion, Public Life and Culture, make these discussions available to a wide audience.

Expanding Jewish Philanthropy -- A Preview

The Nathan Cummings Foundation has just awarded CLAL a grant to develop the “Connections and Commitments” program, which will create a network of people concerned with expanding their philanthropic roles and examing new understandings of Jewish giving.  Drawing on Jewish texts and traditions, they will construct a personal ethics of affluence, leading them to upgrade their participation and commitment, both within and beyond existing Jewish communal frameworks.

NEW CHALLENGES, ANCIENT WISDOM 

During an evening of text study and reflection in New York City, CLAL's faculty created a program that spanned the ethical, spiritual, social, and psychological dimensions of the current crisis, challenging participants to consider questions they might not have encountered in the press or in other conversations.  Below is a brief summary of the sessions.  

Returning to Life in a World of Moral Uncertainty
Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard 

Rabbi Blanchard asked participants to consider excerpts from Shakespeare's King Lear and the Mishnah’s discussion of laws applying to mourners. Participants used the texts to explore divergent understandings of moral chaos, and tension between memory and recovery from tragedy, and to pose the question: What helps us to move on?  

Visions of Zion: Zionism and Diasporism in a Global Village
Rabbi Daniel Brenner 

Photojournalist Zion Ozeri’s photographs allowed Rabbi Brenner to start a conversation about home and homeland. The images reflected the thriving communities Jews have built in Israel and North America over the last fifty years, as well as the recent blossoming of Jewish life in Germany and the old Eastern-bloc states. Yet recent events have provoked the question: Where do we feel safe to live as Jews?  

Spirit, Ethics or Science? Texts of September 11th
Dr. Shari Cohen

Dr. Cohen chose texts illustrating two divergent responses to recent events -- a pacifist flyer asserting “Thou shalt not kill” and a sociological survey. These texts served as a starting point for asking: To what extent do social science, religion or other ways of making sense of the world help us navigate the political and ethical challenges posed by September 11th?

Tracking Dangerous Aliens Among Us
Libby Garland 

Ms. Garland gave participants historical documents from an interwar-era controversy over issuing alien identification cards. The texts provided an occasion to reflect on the parallels between past and present debates about the relationship between national security and aliens’-- and citizens’ -- civil liberties, and to pose the question: What kind of information should the government have about foreigners and citizens?

The Real Enemy and Why It Makes a Difference
Dr. Michael Gottsegen

Dr. Gottsegen used transcripts from the U.S. State Department and a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to examine the rhetoric of the war against terror and our definitions of “the enemy.” Discussion provoked the question: Whom do we trust in our coalitions?

Post-Traumatic Theology
Rabbi Steve Greenberg 

Rabbi Greenberg traced Jewish theological understandings of God's reaction to the disasters that humans cause for each other. Using a Talmudic parable, he prompted a discussion that asked: How does witnessing destruction alter our understanding of God?

Israeli and American Responses to Terror: Can Israel be a Light Unto This Nation?
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg 

In the wake of the politically motivated murder of Yitzchak Rabin, Rabbi Greenberg wrote extensively on the topic of Jewish power. Using these writings, he discussed current responses to terror and explored the ongoing question: How can Jews use power ethically?

Drawing Sharp Distinctions Without Losing Sight of the Whole
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield 

Rabbi Hirschfield used recent e-mails offering humor at Arabs’ expense to explore the rhetoric of “us versus them.” Drawing a parallel to the laws concerning the four species of Sukkot, Rabbi Hirschfield asked: How can we draw sharp political distinctions yet remain committed to the wider spiritual unity of all people?    

Making War: Koranic and Biblical Regulations
Dr. David Kraemer 

Because we have heard much about “jihad” but little about warfare in the Jewish tradition, Dr. Kraemer chose texts from the Bible and the Koran that focused on the ethics of war. Participants explored the similarities and differences, and reflected on the religious rhetoric of the current engagement, asking: What exactly is a Holy War?

Condemnation Without Absolutes: Maimonides, Martyrology and Post-Modernity
Rabbi Irwin Kula  

Rabbi Kula used a recent essay in The New York Times by philosopher Stanley Fish entitled “Condemnation Without Absolutes,” the martyrology service of Yom Kippur, and Maimonides to focus on the difficult question: Whom do we blame and why?

The Meaning of Religious Freedom
Dr. Robert Rabinowitz 

Americans often discuss freedom in national terms. Dr. Rabinowitz discussed rabbinic interpretations of freedom, as well as contemporary religious critic Diane Eck’s book, A New Religious America, exploring the question: What does religious freedom mean in a globalized world? 

EXPANDING JEWISH LEADERSHIP

CLAL Internship Program

Beginning in September, CLAL expanded its highly successful interns program of rabbis from all of the denominations -- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist -- to include doctoral students from such diverse fields as anthropology, musicology and history.  With a group of eighteen students who come weekly to CLAL to study with faculty, the program challenges the participants to debate fundamental shifts in Jewish identity, family and community life.  Rabbinical students are pushed beyond issues of pluralism -- the traditional concerns of this program -- to encounter vital contemporary debates in sociology, cultural anthropology, political science and the arts, making them better able to address the concerns of congregants and people who don't know where and how to connect.  The academics are exposed, as they would be in no other setting, to the ideas and inspiration of those who have chosen lives as religious leaders.

Playing the Jewish Futures: A CLAL Retreat in Aspen

In August, CLAL held a retreat in Aspen with a national group of philanthropists and leading thinkers to ask: How can we create meaningful lives and ethical communities in a time of great change?  Drawing on Albert Einstein's famous quote that “problems cannot be solved from the same level of awareness that created them,” the program was set up to generate new insights and awareness.

Led by astrophysicist Dr. Saul Perlmutter, CLAL's Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield, and Dr. Shari Cohen, a political scientist, the retreat brought together the best of science and religion, both of which are based on faith, optimism, and humility about human power.  Sessions ranged from Dr. Perlmutter's lecture, “Heaven through a Scientist's Eyes,” to text study and scenario planning on top of Aspen’s mountains.  Dr. Perlmutter, whose cutting edge project, the Supernovae Cosmology Project, was named “1998 Breakthrough of the Year” by Science magazine, is a member of CLAL’s Jewish Public Forum network. His words convey the spirit of the Aspen event: 

The willingness to be constantly doubting yourself and yet not let that get in the way of moving forward and trying out things...that combination is what is so exciting about doing science...and about that approach to the world....Both these elements, at least in my mind, have something Jewish to them....This element of questioning and debate is obviously such a key part of the text and commentary tradition...the understanding that you get the truth, not because any single person has the truth but because you are very open to debate and to argument and that’s the way to get towards answers and towards understanding.

Rabbinic Networks Reach Across Oceans

CLAL has begun a several month project working with pluralist groups of rabbis in New York and Israel via videoconferencing to create a seminar to be presented   at Limmud, an interdenominational conference in Britain, from December 23-27, 2001.  The conference is expected to attract close to 2,000 people.  The joint seminar will be about the multiple contemporary meanings of Shabbat.

Leadership and Community Development

Remaining deeply involved with existing and emerging leadership in Jewish communities throughout North America is central to CLAL's work.  By creating respectful, pluralist discussion and providing innovative approaches to building community, CLAL continues to help nurture a new generation of leaders and philanthropists. 

CLAL has begun to engage as a true partner in community development, working with top leadership in a variety of cities to begin conversations with representatives from a range of Jewish and professional perspectives.  From Philadelphia to Toronto to Greenwich to San Diego, CLAL is developing new programs geared to broadening the lens for what it means to be Jewish. 

“These programs break down the boundaries between so-called insiders and outsiders in Jewish life, so that Jewish institutions begin to widen their understanding of what counts as Jewish involvement, and individual Jews begin to connect their civic and philanthropic commitments to their Jewishness,” said Rabbi Brad Hirschfield. 

One good example of this is a new “Unity and Diversity” project for the New York Jewish community. Recognizing that the diversity of the Jewish people makes maintaining a sense of shared Jewish identity and community complex and difficult, the UJA-Federation of New York has awarded CLAL a grant for the design and preparation of a unique curriculum and recruitment strategy.  Working in an unprecedented partnership, CLAL and UJA-Federation of New York will plan the curriculum for use with Jewishly diverse groups based in metropolitan New York. The groups, of about 20 participants each, will meet regularly throughout the year. 

This curriculum will move beyond pluralist study sessions to provide participants with the perspective, knowledge, skills and techniques for addressing potentially divisive communal problems in more positive and constructive ways.  Rabbis of all denominations will be part of the planning process.

Edah Conference in Jerusalem

In October, Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard was invited to speak at The Edah Conference in Jerusalem, modern Orthodoxy's central conference.  The event, co-sponsored with K'Lavi Yakum and entitled “To Be A Holy Nation: Modern Orthodox Visions for the Future of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic Society,” brought together close to 700 American and Israeli lay leaders and community professionals.  Guest speakers included the Honorable Daniel C. Kurtzer, U.S. Ambassador to Israel; Ehud Olmert, Mayor of Jerusalem; Rabbi Shear-Yakuv Cohen, Chief Rabbi of Haifa; and Rabbi Michael Melchoir, a member of the Israeli cabinet. 

Said Rabbi Blanchard about the impact of the conference: “The tradition teaches us about the importance of interconnectedness and the infinite value of every life.  There must be a profound respect for human life -- even for those with whom we disagree.  It’s not just about ‘me,’ it’s about ‘us’-- and ‘us’ is very wide.”

CLAL: PRINT AND VIRTUAL

CLAL in the Bookstores

CLAL’s new book, The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL's Guide to Everyday & Holiday Rituals & Blessings, edited by Rabbi Irwin Kula and Vanessa L. Ochs, Ph.D. (Jewish Lights, October 2001), offers a highly original collection of meditations and reflections on the important moments of life -- from waking up to visiting the sick to celebrating birthdays.  Written by CLAL faculty and culled from CLAL's recent Sacred Days calendars, it speaks to the sacredness of daily living and was designed for both Jewish and wider audiences.  To purchase it, go to your local bookstore or click on the CLAL Web site link to Barnes&Noble.com.

CLAL Online

CLAL's online weekly magazine, eCLAL: A Journal of Religion, Public Life and Culture, continues to offer thought-provoking commentary on public policy, spirituality and society.  It is the main feature on CLAL's cutting edge Web site, www.clal.org, which has recently been redesigned with a new look.  eCLAL and other resources on the Web site now reach thousands of rabbinic, academic, political, communal and business leaders every week. 

Commentaries, monographs, full-length book reviews, and a broad range of roundtable discussions are among the magazine's new offerings.  Most recently, eCLAL hosted a special feature issue entitled “9/11: Dispatches from Ground Zero,” providing personal reflections and commentary on the crisis. This year, in addition to the CLAL faculty, participants from the Jewish Public Forum network, the internship program, and other key thinkers will be asked to share their insights on contemporary issues in the magazine. 

CLAL IN THE NEWS 

Gaining visibility through the media is essential for organizations trying to reach a wider audience with their issues, messages and insights.  Through the power of the press, CLAL can influence public opinion, generate new ideas, educate, and connect with a broad array of thinkers, opinion makers, lay leaders and concerned individuals. 

Working with the press, CLAL has become a solid resource for reporters and is regularly asked to comment on a variety of stories nationwide.  CLAL faculty have been interviewed on numerous topics including the impact of religion in the political sphere, the legacy of memory, and the use of religion in a time of crisis.  Articles have appeared in such places as The New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Globe, and all of the leading Jewish newspapers. In addition, CLAL faculty have written and published several op eds on both Jewish life and contemporary culture in both the Jewish and mainstream media. 

The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL's Guide to Everyday & Holiday Rituals & Blessings 

Discover how to make virtually any moment in your day a significant part of a meaningful Jewish life. 

This book offers a meditation, a blessing, a profound Jewish teaching, and a ritual for more than one hundred diverse everyday events and holidays, such as: 

Lighting Shabbat candlesBlessing your parents
Running a marathon
Visiting the sick
Building a sukkah
Seeing natural wonders
Making a shiva call
Moving into a new home
Saying goodbye to a beloved pet
Traveling
… and much more

The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL's Guide to Everyday & Holiday Rituals & Blessings is available at bookstores and online bookstores everywhere. 

Order online and support CLAL at the same time!

If you place your order from Barnes&Noble.com through our Web site,  CLAL receives a portion of the proceeds at no extra cost to you. 

Go to www.clal.org, locate the CLAL store, and place your order!

Or for your convenience click on the following link:

Click on the link below to order it now! The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL's Guide to Everyday and Holiday Rituals and Blessings, New! Irwin Kula (Editor),Vanessa L. Ochs (Editor) / Paperback / Jewish Lights Publishing

Editor: Judy Epstein 

To access the Spotlight on CLAL (and Quarterly Report) Archives, click here.

To receive the Spotlight on CLAL column (and CLAL Quarterly Reports) by email on a regular basis, complete the box below:

Receive CLAL Spotlight!