This Ritual Life Archive
Welcome to This Ritual Life.
Here you will find out about ways to enhance your holiday experience, to celebrate or mark a meaningful life cycle event, and to deepen your experience of the everyday.
To access the This Ritual Life Archive, click here.
Building a Pluralist Jewish Community…
When we build pluralist communities, unified and guided by Torah, we will be an or la’goyim, a model for the world.
Meditation:
A central challenge to our world is to affirm so many strong particular identities within the context of a larger human identity. We are challenged to be on the avant-garde of humanity: How remarkable it is to be alive, to be sustained, and to arrive at this moment in time, a moment worthy of blessing.
Ritual:
(Leaders who are prepared to build pluralist Jewish communities may wish to present the following text to their communities so they can read it aloud and study it together before the first meeting of the year or before an encounter of factions who would wish to increase their harmony. )
1.Shma Yisrael: Listen more and speak less. Move beyond your own circles, listen to the many voices that seek to be heard, reflect non-defensively on the variety of reactions, and diagnose the situation without being pulled into the anger. Help others to do the same. Be prepared to offer proposals that can incrementally improve the situation.
2. Am Yisrael Chai: Know how and where to articulate anger. Choose the right places to fight the battle. Argue, but civilly and lovingly. Develop the capacity to hear the truth of critiques, even when they are embedded in distracting anger. Become expert in understanding the sources of the anger of those who disagree so you can respond to the root causes. Affirm: we are one people with one destiny.
3. Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek: Understand the dynamics of power. Attempt to create change through the political process, building popular political support for your initiatives.
4. Ahavat Yisrael: Be loving. Be insistent. Be patient.
Blessing:
Blessed are You who gives us the wisdom to engage in loving debate.
Am Yisrael Chai.
When we are with each other, Israel lives.
Teaching:
Every dispute which is for the sake of Heaven in the end will be permanently established. And every dispute which is not for the sake of Heaven in the end will not be permanently established. What is an example of a dispute for the sake of Heaven? The dispute between the House of Hillel and he House of Shammai. And what is an example of a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and his band.
(Pirkei Avot 5:21)
Ben Zoma said, "Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone, as it is said, ‘From all who would teach me, I have gained understanding’" (Psalms 119:99).
(Pirkei Avot 4:1)
"These and these are both the words of the living God." The rabbis of France asked: How can it be that both opinions be the word of the living God, since one says that a certain thing is prohibited and the other that it is permitted? They answer that when Moshe went up to the heavens to receive the Torah he was shown 49 ways of prohibiting and 49 ways of permitting each thing. When he asked God about this he was told that this is to be entrusted to the sages of Israel in every generation and the decision will be in their hands…"
(Commentary on Eruvim 13b by the Ritba)
"For the building is constructed from various parts, and the truth of the light of the world will be built from various dimensions, from various approaches, for these and those are the words of the living God…It is precisely the multiplicity of opinions which derive from variegated souls and backgrounds which enriches wisdom and brings about its enlargement. In the end all matters will be properly understood and it will be recognized that it was impossible for the structure of peace to be built without those trends which appeared to be in conflict."
(Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Olat Raya, Vol. I, p. 330)
Learning how to argue about what is most important, and appreciating that all our arguments are for the sake of heaven, will be crucial if we are to translate our new condition into a vital, rich and meaningful Judaism, Jewish people and Jewish culture.
(Irwin Kula)
Am Yisrael Chai.
When we are with each other, Israel lives.
(CLAL Faculty)
CLAL's National Jewish Resource Center develops and publishes rituals that
help to bridge the gap between our contemporary lives and the ancient wisdom of the Jewish
tradition. We invite you to become a partner with us in thinking about the place of ritual
in our lives and in developing new ritual resources for our time. If you are interested in
being part of this exciting endeavor, visit with us in the Ritual Resource Area
of the CLAL website by clicking here.
To access the This Ritual Life Archive, click here.
To receive This Ritual Life column by email on a regular basis, complete the box below:
