Operation Reconnect: What We Heard
April 19, 2010
Operation Reconnect is a year-long, Havurah-community-wide process through which we will reconnect ourselves with each other and with our origins as a vibrant, participatory community, and restore our roots in Jewish values and history.
This is being done through a three-step process: 1) Interviews with a significant portion of Havurah members provided information on broad areas of agreement about priorities for the future. The Operation Reconnect Committee analyzed those interviews to isolate and list those priorities. 2) Parlor meetings in April and early May are eliciting group discussions to confirm the themes of greatest interest and help set priorities from among the programming ideas arising from the interviews. 3) A congregation-wide meeting on May 16 will present these findings and information about our plan to implement them.
Remaining parlor meetings are scheduled for April 19 and 25 and May 2. We encourage all Havurah members to attend one of the parlor meetings and the May 16 congregational meeting. What follows is a synopsis of the one-on-one interviews that were held earlier this year.
What We Heard in the Operation Reconnect Interviews
You told us that you are drawn to Havurah because you experience:
- A sense of community. Havurah is a safe, happy and affirming place for most people. This sentiment was articulated by a woman who described the times when her daughters went through their bat mitzvahs. She felt connected to other families in this process and appreciated the involvement of her daughters’ friends. People also commented on the variety of workshops and education programs offered by the education director, including a recent program on death and dying, as being meaningful and not pedantic. Others mentioned the role the Rabbi has played at critical moments of life change, such as offering a special blessing for an unborn child. Many people cited the impact of participation in Shabbat School and the lasting relationships that had emerged out of that experience. Many congregants noted the powerful impact of music in their experience at Havurah.
- A feeling of welcoming. We bring together a relatively diverse, Jewish-identified population, a wide range of belief systems and a wide range of experience with the religion, including a lack thereof. One person mentioned the impact of the Rabbi dropping everything to go to the courthouse to support the sanctioning of gay marriages. Many described opportunities to participate at their own ‘level’ of familiarity with Judaism, having a role in the High Holidays or learning as they led their Shabbat School class. Another person identified the ‘trust’ given to members to pay what you can for membership without requiring documentation. The acceptance of interfaith marriages among membership was also commonly mentioned as a characteristic of our welcoming environment.
Yet you described a Havurah that has become fragmented over time and challenging to connect into – especially for new members:
- People participating in Shabbat school experience Havurah mostly with people participating in Shabbat school. The same is true for people attending services who only see people in that context. Long time members continue to experience relationships with long time members, but no longer recognize anyone when they attend any number of events. These congregants want to engage with other members and participate, but find it difficult to overcome their feeling of being unconnected.
- The staff and their responsibilities are not well-known. There is a sense of an inner circle making decisions, such as who should participate in certain events or which Social Action projects should be emphasized, without a sense of how and why these decisions are made. Some interviewees would like more access to the Rabbi especially as they enter the congregation.
- Access points into Havurah are not clearly defined, nor easy to navigate, especially for newcomers who need to better understand what ‘joining’ means. New members do not understand the structure of Havurah, and the synagogue suffers from not knowing the talents of its membership. Some people wondered if the Rabbi knew who they were, others wanted to participate in services but did not know how to. Still others expressed a desire to connect with Havurahniks living in the same neighborhood but can’t find that information easily. While the overall sentiment towards Shabbat School was positive, there were clear statements about the uneven quality of the experience. Frustration with the wide range of teaching styles led more than one person away from the experience.
- Spiritual life, as might be expected, drew some of the most impassioned comments from congregants. Many people were moved by a more traditional delivery of services. Others prefer non-traditional services. Still others noted a lack of energy around Friday night and Saturday morning services. People raised questions about what the role of politics should be, if any, in services.
Still you expressed great energy around Havurah. You are willing and sometimes eager to make it a more dynamic place. You have some great ideas and some simple ideas for how to do this which we will talk about today.
We heard your desires fall into four overarching categories. Suggestions for concrete changes in programming and the function of Havurah will be discussed after providing these parameters for those suggestions. You want:
- A stronger community marked by clearer points of access. We need better membership (re)orientation, greeters visible at events, the opportunity to meet in mini-havorot and a richer adult education program. All of these points of access will be enhanced with greater emphasis on intergenerational participation.
- More transparency of process and greater accountability. Activities and the people running them need clearly stated goals, along with a sensible and workable communication structure. Everyone needs to know who is responsible for what.
- Increasing clarity around spiritual life issues, driven by a spiritual life committee which is already forming. Spiritual life issues, including low attendance at services and difficulties in getting leaders for Friday night services, have been identified as a concern over the last several years. The findings of Operation Reconnect reinforce that this is an area that needs to be addressed, and Rabbi Liebling has strongly recommended that we should establish a Spiritual Life Committee. We are in the process of getting a committee formed, and if you want to participate on that committee please let Herman Asarnow or Rachel Shimshak know.
- More Social action that is local in nature. You are proud of Havurah’s support for global issues, but you desire a deeper and wider engagement with local needs where participants, especially children, can more easily engage and see the results.
In addition, we want to build on the work done by the group that submitted the Music Grant this year. Unfortunately, we did not receive the grant funding, but we want to form a Music Committee to take that proposal, identify the top priorities and begin to move forward on strengthening music within our community. We believe that it fits with the findings from Operation Reconnect of music being a key way that people feel a connection to Havurah.
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