Reconstructionism and Spiritual Life II

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Reconstructionism and Spiritual Life IIA
Conversation About Spirituality
  PEARL Providing Education and Resources for
Leadership For Part One see
http//jrf.org/node/3112
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
Transformative Judaism for the 21st Century 101
Greenwood Avenue Beit Devora, Suite 430
Jenkintown, PA 19046 215.885.5601 / fax
215.885.5603 www.jrf.org

• Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Rabbi Richard Hirsh, and Rabbi
  Rachel Gartner
• May 4, 2011-800 p.m.-915 p.m.

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An Opening Prayer c- Rabbi Shawn Zevit, May
2011

• We begin our holy work
• In space and time
• This moment, this Eternality.
• Open our hearts, Dear Gd
• Open our eyes, our mind
• To be present to this process
• Of building sacred community
• Be the strength and resilience
• Energy, creativity, and wisdom
• Compassion, love, and confidence
• In being and becoming
• In leadership and service
• For all of us who share
• This wonder-filled exploration
• Called Life.

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Jewish Tradition and Spiritual SeekingRabbi
Richard Hirsh

• Reconstructionist Judaism is respectful of
  traditional Jewish observances but also open to
  new interpretations and forms of religious
  expression. As Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan
  (1881-1983), the founder of Reconstructionism,
  taught, tradition has "a vote, but not a veto.
  Reconstructionists share a commitment to making
  Judaism their own by finding in it joy, meaning,
  and ideas they can believe. We continue to turn
  to Jewish law and tradition for guidance, if not
  always for governance. We recognize that in the
  contemporary world, individuals and communities
  make their own choices with regard to religious
  practice and ritual observance.
• We live in an age of spiritual seeking, a time
  in which the search for transcendent values and
  deeper meanings invites many of us back to our
  own religious traditions, to rediscover the rich
  insights of those who came before us on the
  spiritual journey. Reconstructionist Judaism has
  always been open to new approaches to thinking
  about God, to alternative ways of experiencing
  the Divine in our lives, and to honest wrestling
  with the inherited insights of our ancestors.

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Exploring Judaism - Staub and Alpert Living as a
Reconstructionist, p. 79

• Recent studies suggest that there are different
  spiritual typesSome people find holiness in
  analysis and study. Some experience God most
  readily in social justice or interpersonal
  relationships. Others find transcendence in
  observing the natural world or experiencing the
  creative process. There is even a spiritual type
  who best connects to God and religious life-
  remaining true to God by smashing the idols of
  religious hypocrisy No individual is purely one
  of these types, but each of us has greater
  propensities in some directions than others.
  Viewing Judaism as a religious civilization that
  encompasses all these paths, Reconstructionists
  affirm the validity of each of them and seek to
  encourage one another as we each find our own
  way.

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Belonging to a Democratic Jewish Community in a
Post-Halakhic Age http//jrf.org/showresrid140

• If halakha is defined as the Jewish process of
  celebrating, creating and transmitting tradition,
  Reconstructionist Jewish communities would
  certainly fit within the framework of
  halakha.But if halakha has the meaning of a
  rigid body of law, changeable only under very
  rarefied circumstances, most Jewish people,
  including Reconstructionists, no longer accept
  its binding authority. While Reconstructionists
  are lovers of tradition and support community
  celebration of the Jewish sacred year and
  life-cycle events, we also believe that the face
  of the Jewish community is changing and that
  individuals have the right to adapt Jewish
  tradition to new circumstances.Reconstructionist
  communities challenge Jews to participate fully
  in our shared Jewish civilization. From building
  a sukkah to appreciating Jewish music, from
  caring for the Jewish young and old to leading
  Torah study - community members should experience
  Jewish civilization in our day as fully as they
  experience secular civilization.Judaism will
  continue to be a dynamic civilization only if we
  choose to participate, create and transmit
  vitality to future generations. Reconstructionist
  rabbis work in partnership with committed lay
  people to formulate guidelines that serve as
  Jewish touchstones for our times. These
  guidelines are presented and democratically
  considered in Reconstructionist communities as
  standards for enhancing the Jewish life of the
  individual and the community rather than as
  binding laws.

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I. From Conception to Perception(Commentary
R. Richard Hirsh)

• A. Rabbi Larry Kushner Spirituality is a
  dimension of living where we are aware of Gods
  presence. (Eyes Remade for Wonder, p. 153)
  Reverence is the only option.
• B. Rabbi Art Green  The proper question is, Do
  you consider yourself a religious person? How do
  you express that religiosity? What is the
  relationship between your own spiritual life and
  the symbols of Judaism? In what sense do you use
  the word God or its Hebrew equivalent in your
  religious life? (Art Green, symposium in
  Commentary August 1996, p. 42)
• COMMENTARY, Richard Hirsh     What I want to
  introduce here is the place from which we look
  i.e., religion as a human project, not a divine
  revelation not a different way of being but a
  different way of looking. So, much of theology
  presumes to tell us something about God and much
  of spirituality often foregoes even asking any
  questions about God and simply assumes God too
  easily. A Reconstructionist approach to
  spirituality could start from an interior
  assessment of what may be just below the surface,
  and a naming of that through Jewish symbols and
  language. Ultimately, reverence is a posture,
  an attitude, an assumption encompassing a sense
  of wonder, appreciation, newness, and challenge.

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II. Spiritual Practice as a Means of
Cultivating a Perceptual Framework

• A. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan The pragmatic method is
  concerned with the effect the words of the writer
  had on the inner life of the people or the way
  what he said workedThe pragmatic method, seeks
  to identify the direction which the thought first
  formulated by the writer has taken. It tries to
  get not at the static truth but at the dynamic
  truth. It is this method alone which is of
  actual aid in the religious life of a people or a
  group.
•  
• B. Abraham Joshua Heschel The Biblical words
  about the genesis of heaven and earth are not
  words of information but words of appreciation. 
  The story of creation is not a description of how
  the world came into being, but a song about the
  glory of the worlds having come into being. And
  God saw that it was good. This is the challenge
  to reconcile Gods view with our experience. The
  demand, as understood in Biblical religion, is to
  be alert and open to what is happening. What is,
  what comes about. Every moment a new arrival, a
  new bestowal.  How to welcome the moment?  How to
  respond to the marvel?  The cardinal sin is our
  failure to sense the grandeur of the moment, the
  marvel and mystery of being, the possibility of
  quiet exultation. (What Is Man?)

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II. Spiritual Practice as a Means of
Cultivating a Perceptual Framework (R. Rachel
Gartner commentary)

• COMMENTARY, on Kaplan, R. Rachel Gartner
• effect the words of the writer had on the inner
  life of the people
• Pragmatic approach to spirituality Spiritual
  practice is about cultivating an ever- evolving
  perceptual framework (or perspective) for
  experiencing and interpreting what happens in our
  individual lives as part of what happens in Life
  as such. A framework which, over time, allows us
  to weave a given experience into it, see how a
  given experience fits into it or sometimes even
  re- shapes the framework or experience and our
  understanding of Life. The question of whether
  or not that framework reflects an objective
  reality about Life is interesting to me on some
  level, but is not really in the realm of
  perception, rather it returns us to the realm of
  conception. This realm and its questions are not
  primarily what I am compelled to investigate as a
  religious practitioner and as a rabbi. However,
  whether or not that perceptual framework is
  empowering, comforting, ennobling is a pragmatic
  concern, and one that interests me profoundly
  both in my life and in my rabbinate.

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II. Spiritual Practice as a Means of
Cultivating a Perceptual Framework (R. Rachel
Gartner commentary- contd)

• the direction which the thought first formulated
  has taken, the dynamic truth
• To my mind, truths of the human/trans-human,
  natural/trans-natural experience are not exactly
  dynamic but the way we experience these truths
  is. Truths like things come and go there is
  pain there is resilience and so forth are in my
  mind in some essential way not dynamic, but the
  way we experience and interpret them is dynamic
  and the way they show up in our lives and
  communities is dynamic.
• religious life of a people or group
• This cultivation can be a communal seeking and
  cultivation of an empowering, comforting,
  ennobling perceptual framework, or an individual
  one. In my work, I am most interested in the
  intersection of the two. The two intersect in my
  work primarily through in-depth deeply personal
  engagement with liturgy/text either in Spiritual
  Direction or in group meditation and sharing
  sessions. The way I practice Spiritual Direction
  is not at all about teaching concepts, rather
  its about helping people develop perceptual
  frameworks, informed, when appropriate, by Jewish
  teachings and texts. I engage texts when they
  feel to me like they connect with the emerging
  perceptual framework of the directee and might
  help deepen or take that perceptual framework to
  a new place.
• One way I do this is by creating contexts in
  which life and Jewish text can intimately mix,
  mingle and ultimately (hopefully) morph so that
  ones life illuminates the meaning of the text,
  and the text can come to illuminate the
  meaning(s) of ones life/Life.
• Religious life of the group is enhanced through
  the cherubim model it comes out in chevurta and
  other larger groups in the conversations and
  what passes in between participants.

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II. Spiritual Practice as a Means of Cultivating
a Perceptual Framework (Commentary on Heschel, R.
Rachel Gartner)

• Here, Heschel interprets the biblical account of
  genesis of heaven and earth not as a factual
  account that fits into a neat conceptual
  framework of how the world was made. Rather, he
  interprets the biblical account of heaven and
  earth as
• (a) being reflective of the thought first
  formulated in the writer and,
• (b) meant to induce in the listener the effect
  on the inner life of the listener a specific
  perceptual framework in this case a perceptual
  framework of appreciation, newness, welcoming,
  sensing of grandeur, marveling at mystery, quiet
  exultation.

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III. From Conception to Perception Ways of
Knowing(Commentary Rabbi Richard Hirsh)

• Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan God must not merely be
  held as an idea He (sic) must be felt as a
  presence if we want not only to know about God
  but to know God...There is a difference between
  knowing God philosophically in His manifestations
  and experiencing Him religiously in worship.
  (Mordecai Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern
  Jewish Religion, chapter God Felt as a
  Presence, p. 244, 249)
• COMMENTARY, RH  1) Kaplan Reconstructionism
  do not only know the god idea or talk about God
  only in an academic, analytical or intellectual
  manner. The religious quest is to experience
  something that places our personal-temporal
  lifespan into a larger context.

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III. From Conception to Perception Ways of
Knowing(Commentary Rabbi Richard Hirsh, contd)

• B. Rita Nakashima Brock Heart knowledge, the
  deepest and fullest knowing involves a union of
  body, spirit, reason, and passion. What we get
  from our hearts is true, valid information. For
  we know best by heart. (Journeys by Heart)
• COMMENTARY, RG Perceptual frameworks are not
  constructed through information, argumentation,
  scientific facts, or even religious dogmas.
  Rather, they are built on intuition, unitive
  experiences, feelings, and ultimately what,
  borrowing from theologian Rita Nakashima Brock, I
  call heart knowledge.

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IV. Cultivating Perception The Meeting Place
between Personal Experience Jewish Expression

• Kaplan When we worship in public we know our
  life is part of a larger life, a wave of an ocean
  of being the first-hand experience of that
  larger life which is God.
• (KOL HANESHAMAH Shabbat Vehagim p. 57)
• http//stores.jrfbookstore.org/-strse-Prayer-Books
  -cln-Kol-Haneshamah-Series/Categories.bok

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V. Separation Connection(Commentary Rabbi
Richard Hirsh)

• A. Marcia Falk I would describe my own
  experience of the divine as an awareness, or a
  sensing, of the dynamic, alive, and unifying
  wholeness within creationa wholeness that
  subsumes and contains and embraces me, a
  wholeness greater than the sum of its parts
• (Marcia Falk The Book of Blessings, p. 419)

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V. Separation Connection(Commentary Rabbi
Richard Hirsh, contd)

• B. Danny Matt once explained the relationship
  of the World of Separation and the World of
  Unity this way we have a word for leaf, twig,
  branch, trunk, roots. The words make it easier
  for us to categorize and comprehend reality. But
  we must not think that just because we have words
  for all the parts of a tree that a tree really
  has all those parts. The leaf does not know, for
  instance, when it stops being a leaf and becomes
  a twig. And the trunk is not aware that it has
  stopped being a trunk and has become the roots.
  Indeed, the roots do not know when they stop
  being roots and become soil, nor the soil
  moisture, nor the moisture the atmosphere, nor
  the atmosphere the sunlight. All our names are
  arbitrarily superimposed on what is, in truth,
  the seamless unity of all being. And that is when
  the World of Separation gives way to the World of
  Unity. It lasts for only a moment, the twinkling
  of an eye. Then it's gone and we're bounced back
  into this World of Separation."  (Rabbi Lawrence
  Kushner, Kabbalah A Love Story)

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V. Separation Connection(Commentary Rabbi
Richard Hirsh, contd)

• COMMENTARY, RH What I want to stress here is
  the fundamental decision we are challenged to
  make -- whether life is primarily defined by
  polarities, opposites, distance, dissonance or
  whether it is primarily defined by unity,
  contact, the one versus the two. Are we
  apart from or a part of? This too is
  primarily an act of perception and position and
  decision but one that conveys an
  investment/faith in the ultimate nature of
  things.

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Personal Spiritual Connection

• Throughout my life, I had searched for a
  spirituality that felt right for me. I had
  belonged to a number of synagogues and read many
  books, but never found a community or a
  philosophy with which I could identify. But
  during my first Shabbat service at Kehillath
  Israel, I had a sense that I had finally found a
  'home.' A class called 'God and Spiritually - a
  Reconstructionist Approach' helped me affirm
  intellectually all the positive feelings I
  experienced on my first visit to the synagogue.
  During the class I realized that the entire
  community was helping me validate my own
  intuitive, spiritual perceptions. I am very
  grateful that Kehillath Israel has turned out be
  a place that nurtures my spirituality through
  experience and education. - Member, Kehillath
  Israel, Pacific Palisades, California
• "For me there is no separation between
  spirituality and living. Spirituality is at the
  core of Life . -Debbie Freidman, zl, Lilith
  Magazine 1988

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Further Resources

• Reconstructionism http//jrf.org/reconstructionis
  m
• Reconstructionism Today Articles
• http//jrf.org/resources-librarytid512showR
  eligious Values
• Who Is A Reconstructionist Jew?
  http//jrf.org/showresrid140
• Reconstructionism and Prayer http//www2.jrf.org/
  rt/article.php?id159
• Audio Programs http//jrf.org/heart-mind-spirit
• FAQ's on Reconstructionist Approaches to Jewish
  ideas and Practices
• http//jrf.org/showresrid487
• How To Successfully Integrate and Use
  Reconstructionism in Synagogue Processes
• http//jrf.org/pearl/2008/how-to-successfully-int
  egrate-and-use-reconstructionism-in-synagogue-proc
  esses
• What Is Reconstructionism, Anyway?
• http//jrf.org/resources/files/What20is20Recons
  tructionism.pdf

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Further Resources

• http//jrf.org/resources-librarytid35showSpi
  rituality
• http//www.rrc.edu/ethics-center/publications/publ
  ications
• http//stores.jrfbookstore.org/-strse-Prayer-Books
  /Categories.bok
• (Omer Series available at http//jrf.org/pearl)
• http//jrf.org/pearl/2009/growing-the-soul-of-your
  -community
• Omer Project "A House of Prayer for All
  Peoples" Diversity in Growing Sacred Community
• Omer Project Spiritual direction "Growing
  God-ward"
• Omer Project Varieties of Spiritual practice
• Omer Project Liturgy and Prayer
• Omer Project Growing Self and Community through
  Creativity and the Arts
• Omer Project Tikkun L'eyl Shavuot The Many
  Paths to Revelation of Torah
• Omer Project Growing Spirituality in Education
  Learning Across the Lifecycle
• Spirituality and Social Justice
  http//jrf.org/showrtrid673
• Re-inventing Synagogue Life and Prayer
  http//jrf.org/showrtrid508