March 26: Vision Statement Drafting Continues

At this Wednesday's meeting, we spent a full two hours with the first draft of the Vision Statement. Two committee members will now rework the first draft, and hopefully pretty soon we'll have a draft that we feel ready to show the community. At that point, we'll want your recommendations for further additions and revisions, so stay tuned!

Shabbat Values

Rabbi Lauren drew upon our discussions and came up with a list of values to inform the vision statement and policy. She added in two further values, which appear at the end of this list.

• Rest/menucha
• "Creative Rest" from creative work/melacha
• "Delight" in Shabbat/oneg shabbat
• Shabbat as beloved (bride)/shabbat kallah
• Reminder of Creation/zecher l'ma'ase vereishit
• Reminder of Redemption/zecher l'tziyat mitzrayim
• Holiness, Setting Apart/kedusha
• "Making" Shabbos--human agency/la'asot et hashabbat
• Respect (all rest on Shabbat)/kavod
• Observe and Remember/shamor v'zachor
• Peacefulness/shabbat shalom
• Emulation of God (Imitatio Dei)/halicha lashem
• "Resouling"/shavat vayinafash
• Intention/kavanna
• Partnership with the Divine/brit
• Community/kehillah
• Personal Reflection/hitbodedut
• Torah Study/talmud torah
• Prayer/tefillah
• "For the honor of Shabbat"/lichvod shabbat
• Appreciation of Creation, Nature/teva
• Beautification of the Mitzvah/hiddur mitzvah
• For Educational Purposes/l'shem hinuch

Moving Toward a Vision Statement

After extensive education and discussion about Shabbat throughout history, we are transitioning to creating a vision statement and policy. Before that, we briefly discussed the background of the Reconstructionist movement.

Mordecai Kaplan, the founder, sought to develop a philosophy of Judaism rather than a whole new movement. In his view, contemporary Jews did not believe literally in the revelation at Sinai, nor in the divinity of halakhah. By contrast the Reform Judaism of his time was rather assimilationist and had taken on many Protestant values.

He believed in the centrality of Jewish peoplehood, and this permeates the entire movement. Reconstructionism focuses on the community, which is the locus of authority for ritual and ethical guidelines. Studying past traditions is essential when determining what they mean for us today. For instance, some people base kashrut (dietary laws) on ecological grounds.

We then looked over the Shabbat policies of other congregations. We observed how a good policy requires careful balancing of values and explains its guidelines in terms of those values.

Some important questions in developing a vision statement for Kol Tzedek are:

• What values will inform our vision?


• What activities do we want to encourage?


• What should be the attitude toward Shabbat?

To get the process rolling, each of us came up with a five-minute vision statement.

Mar. 12:The five-minute vision statement

For the Mar. 12 meeting, we read texts about how Jews in the Reconstruction movement balance the details of ancient Jewish law (Halacha) and modern life. We also read Shabbat vision statements from several Reconstructionist communities, and noted how they vary in their specificity and tone. Since the next task is to create a very rough draft of our own vision statement, we all took five minutes at the end of class to offer one sentence (or three sentence) versions of a vision statement that tries to incorporate the values we want for Shabbat at Kol Tzedek. Here's what the six of us generated, but we are eager to hear from the rest of the community. Have five minutes to brainstorm a sentence about what you want from and for Shabbat at Kol Tzedek? Please click the comments field below, and then post your own five-minute Shabbat vision statement draft....


Five-Minute Shabbat Vision Statements:
1: At Kol Tzedek, we aim to create Kedusha, the holiness of Shabbat, with our communal practice.

2: Kol Tzedek is a welcoming community (Kehillah) which encourages diversity in all aspects of personal and communal life.

3: I would like to see people develop a personal (as well as communal) meaningful Shabbat practice and for Kol Tzedek to cultivate opportunities for people to explore traditional and innovative Shabbat rituals in a safe environment. I would like Kol Tzedek to offer as many 'ways in' to Shabbat life as possible that speak to individual needs: meditation, walks in nature, study, prayer, social opportunities, dancing. I want Shabbat to be an experience of joy/ delight (oneg), depth and meaning, transcendence and connection to God. I want to make sure we emphasize this at Kol Tzedek and in people's homes through communal meals and prayer.

4: Shabbat at Kol Tzedek should consist of both a brit with Hashem and with our community; a day of hitbodedut (personal reflection) and a day of Simchat Kehillah (celebration of community.)

5: Kol Tzedek encourages Shabbat practices that balance learning, celebration and tradition and make possible regular community interaction.

6: In our community, we encourage observing Shabbat in way that respects tradition and also contemporary values. Shabbat should be a 'sanctuary in time'--an occasion for creative rest, community, prayer, Torah study and delight.

Feb. 27: A Full Day's Shabbat

At the meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 27, we began by noting that while some American Jews think of Shabbat as a Friday night event, others stick more closely to a full sundown to sundown Shabbat, structured around three meals: Friday night's Erev Shabbat; Saturday morning; and Saturday evening's Havdallah service. Each of these three pieces has its own key theme. These are, respectively; Creation (embodied in the Shema) Revelation (Ahavat Olam) and Redemption (Mi Chamocha).

Friday Night is most closely associated with a family meal and celebration of Shabbat's commencement; the Saturday morning with Shul, learning and a more community-focused luncheon, along with rest and more learning in the afternoon; and finally the mixture of melancholy and hope at the Saturday evening Havdallah closing service. There is certainly interest in facilitating a full day's Shabbat at Kol Tzedek, and we'll continue discussing how we can make it possible for more of the community to experience it.

Though we plan to continue studying Shabbat at each meeting, we're now moving steadily towards drafting a Vision Statement. Here's what Rabbi Lauren wrote to our group over email before our most recent meeting:

The "Kol Tzedek Shabbat Study Group" will engage in visioning, asking what positive practices/practices we wish to make normative. What do we hope people will gain from observing Shabbat with us? What kind of "Shabbat culture" do we want to foster? What values can Shabbat teach us that will help us make our lives more meaningful? The group will draft a vision statement about Shabbat observance/remembrance/celebration in our community.

The KT Shabbat Study Group will consider what "ta'asehs" (thou shalts) and "lo taasehs" (thou shalt nots) we need to institute as a community to support our vision of Shabbat. We may engage in additional study on specific issues under discussion at this particular phase. After we have engaged on the various policy issues, the group will create a document of policy recommendations for review of the board. Establishing a documentation subcommittee will likely be a useful way to craft draft policy statements between meetings.

We concluded with a short passage from this week's Torah reading:.

And Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel” (Ex. 35:1) Our rabbis said, ‘From the beginning of the Torah until its end there is no portion in which is found the phrase ‘and he assembled’, except here in conjunction with Shabbat. This is to teach that the Holy Blessed One said to Moses, ‘Gather large congregations and speak before them about the laws of the Sabbath, so that the leaders of future generations may follow your example and gather congregations every Shabbat -- in order to teach the words of the Torah, and to decide for the children of their children what is permissible and what is prohibited. By doing so they will glorify My great Name among My children.
(Yalkut Shimoni, Vayakhel)

(Thanks due to Jim for the mtg. minutes which improved this post)