Spotlight on CLAL
Welcome to Spotlight on CLAL. Here you will find stories about what is happening at CLAL and about the work that CLAL is doing across North America. Sometimes we will focus on a program, or a special event, or upon a CLAL faculty member's work and interests. Bookmark this page if you want to get to know us better.
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Making Pluralism Work: A Spring Intensive For Rabbinic And Cantorial Students
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
In May,
CLAL faculty led a three-day spring intensive at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a
non-denominational training program for rabbinic and cantorial candidates. Held for both current students and alumni, participants learned about how powerful pluralist cultural
changes in contemporary American society affect Jewish communities and their leaders, and
gained the opportunity to connect personal pastoral practice to the changing sociological
and cultural aspects of a pluralist America.
The first
day introduced the theory of pluralism, with Rabbi Brad Hirschfield providing the keynote
address. Entitled “Dam Building,
Bridge Building, and Well Digging,” he discussed the differences in preserving,
outreaching, and sharing Jewish thought and practice.
On the second day, the group focused on pluralist applications. Using a variety of methods including exercises,
text study, storytelling, break out sessions and group work, the seminar provided an
interactive approach to diversity training.
Using
CLAL’s Jewish Public Forum volume How is
Leadership Changing? Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard discussed how religious leaders must
consider cultural change and other new dynamics for solving problems. “As the world gets more complex, leaders will
have to think ‘out of the box’ for fresh solutions and frameworks. Where they will look to inform those decisions
– technology, societal trends, globalization, new identity formation – will
affect their ability to plan for the future.”
On the
third day, the seminar looked at the value of risk taking, mistake making and
misunderstanding. A panel of educators,
including CLAL’s Rabbi Daniel Brenner and the Academy’s Rabbis David Greenstein
and Cherie Koller-Fox, talked about their own experiences as teachers, and the challenge
of using pluralism in settings where the audience has a diversity of filters for listening
and processing information.
“At
the end of the three days, participants saw that, like the Torah, which is described as
having 70 faces, different thoughts and approaches provide an enrichment, not a dilution,
for the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Cherie Koller-Fox, Dean of Admissions and
Placement and head of the mechina (preparatory)
program. “The program was a wonderful
collaboration between CLAL and the Academy. Everyone
learned something. Participants saw that there is more than one take on an ethical
stand.”
Founded
in 1956, the Academy for Jewish Religion is the only not-for-profit, multi-denominational
seminary in the Jewish world. Graduates and
students serve both movement-affiliated and non-affiliated congregations in North America
and around the world.
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