Leadership is central to the theme of this week’s Torah portion. Mishpatim (Exodus 21-24) outlines the rules and regulations that govern the people. All the rules were carefully spoken to Moses and when it was time, “Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain; and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”
The conclusion of the story, when the Israelites receive Torah, is familiar; but we don’t reach it without a crisis in leadership, first. In the middle of the story, the Israelites, who waited for Moses, forty days and forty nights, grew restless. Moses’ absence raised grave concerns about who would lead them and to whom they should pray. The Israelites built a Golden Calf to allay their concerns about Moses’ absence and about God, Whom they did not know. They worshiped the Golden Calf. It was a sin and they were punished for it.
In the midst of transformation and change, the absence of leadership can create anxiety and loss of faith. As people search for credible solutions and replacements, the community can suffer. It was true in ancient times; it’s true in modern times, too. Today, we don’t suffer from lack of leaders. We have many Jewish leaders: rabbis, cantors, educators and communal professionals. What we suffer from is changing expectations of Jewish institutions from new demands from younger generations. Theirs is not a generation that wants to be put into familiar categories we know as Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. Rather, they see themselves as post-denominational; that is, beyond categories. They prefer to fit in wherever they are made comfortable according to new and unique interests.
The challenge rests with Jewish leadership to open some familiar doors to them and some new entryways that have never been available in the past. It’s not an easy task for institutions that have been built around formal organizational structures of the past. Congregation Beth Israel, like many synagogues around the country, addresses this issue constantly and with resources that are now coming available after years of research and inquiry by leaders in the field of Jewish sociology and religious studies.
Dr. Stephen Windmueller, Dean of the School of Communal Service, at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR, Los Angeles), the Reform campus for training of rabbis, educators and communal service professionals, will speak at Shabbat services at 6:30pm, on February 12th, in the Gordon Chapel, on the subject of “Jewish Leadership in the 21st Century and an Age of Synagogue Transformation.”
His experience in Jewish communal work gives him a large vantage point from which he can see what Jewish communities are trying to do in their effort to remain viable, relevant, and meaningful not only to current stakeholders in Jewish life, but to their children and grandchildren, too. I am eager to be with Dr. Windmueller this weekend on Shabbat, and on Sunday, at Yom Limmud, our day of community learning, which is our pleasure to host this year at Beth Israel.
I urge you to make time for Shabbat worship and Dr. Windmueller’s insightful comments. Thankfully, we don’t suffer from a lack of leadership; but as it was for Moses and the Israelites, we want to be sure that we don’t have our heads “in a cloud” and that we’re not wandering in the wilderness.
From my family to yours, Shabbat Shalom.
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