Top Ten Tips for Taking Jewish Journeys
by Dr. Ron Wolfson
Jewish Living Now: A Call to Action
Editor's Note: The following are excerpts from the keynote presentation by Dr. Wolfson formally
launching the USCJ Jewish Living Now Campaign at the 1995 United Synagogue Biennial Convention.
1. Offer Warm Welcomes and Extend
Invitations.
Many people begin their journeys with a first
phone call or visit to one of our synagogues.
How are they greeted? Have you been to a
shopping mall recently? What's the first thing
that happens to you when you enter a store?
There's an employee standing at the front
entrance whose entire job it is to warmly greet
you -- to help you find what you're looking for, to
direct you to the right person, to just say "Hi."
How are people greeted in our congregations --
when they call on the phone, when they walk
into the office, at the entrance to our
sanctuaries? Who is there, not just to hand them
a humash, but to sit with a family getting up from
shiva to say Kaddish with the community? Who
is there to help someone build a sukkah for the
first time, to kasher a kitchen, to make a Seder,
to ensure a minyan.
How many of our synagogues end the Shabbat
morning service like the Library Minyan of
Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, where
members who have brought guests are invited
to introduce them to the congregation and an
announcement is made by a volunteer family
that if someone is in need of an invitation to
Shabbat lunch, they are the designated hosts?
Warm, personal greetings are indispensible
beginnings for Jewish journeys.
2. Plan Long Journeys, Take Small Steps.
The Jewish journey can seem as intimidating
and complicated as the most detailed road map.
But that's the genius of the Triptik -- organizing
the trip in small, do-able segments. We need to
provide people with their own personalized
Jewish Triptik, to help them assess where they
are on their Jewish journey and where they
might take that next step.
One of the many things I love about Brad
Artson's new book, It's a Mitzvah, is that he
presents a series of small but important concrete
steps into each mitzvah.
3. Open the Access Roads.
We know when most Jews, even the most
uninvolved and unaffiliated, intersect with Jewish
living.When do they come to synagogue? Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When else? When
they're invited -- especially to a lifecycle event,
such as a bar mitzvah, a wedding, or a funeral.
We've gotten better at providing explanations of
Jewish practices as we do them. We need to
take the next step and offer easy access for
these visitors to consider their own Jewish
journeys. How many of us know of people who,
because they said Kaddish for a parent,
renewed their involvement in the synagogue and
Jewish life? These are opportunities to make
Jews -- let's use them.
4. Give Good Directions.
When we want to adopt a mitzvah, we ask all
sorts of questions, looking for direction. And
because we are a pretty smart bunch in most
things, if we have to ask a question about
Jewish practice, we often precede the question
with something like, "I know this must be a
stupid question, but..." On Jewish journeys,
there is no such thing as a stupid question.
Have you ever wondered why most parents of
religious school kids drop off their children, a
condition my colleague Rabbi Jeff Salkin calls
"carpool tunnel syndrome?" Why won't they get
out of the car? I think they are scared: scared to
ask a question about something they think they
should know; scared to be embarrassed,
especially in front of their children. So when
someone asks a Jewish question, it's an
opening, and how we respond will often
determine whether the journey continues or not.

5. Use Guidebooks.
Like the office of Triple A, our Jewish Living Now
offices need to be equipped with the guidebooks
that can help chart the journey. I am always so
thrilled when people tell me they have found the
Art of Jewish Living books helpful to them in
taking the next steps in their own celebrations of
the holidays or in helping them formulate the
words and actions of comfort for mourners. And
there has been an explosion of user-friendly,
easy access books and resources for the
multiple routes onto the highway of Jewish
living.
I've already mentioned Brad Artson's marvelous
guidebook, It's a Mitzvah. Then there's Danny
Siegel's new book Good People; Daniel Gordis's
guide to Jewish spirituality, God Was in the Fire;
David Wolpe's Why Be Jewish?; Alan
Silverstein's sensitive volumes on dealing with
interdating and intermarriage; and many more.
6. The Road Between Synagogue and Home
Is a Two-Way Street.
We've spent the last half of the 20th century
building magnificent institutions where we can
gather as a community to celebrate Judaism.
We assumed that families were living Jewish
lives at home, when, in fact, they were becoming
increasingly dependent on the synagogue as the
place to go to be Jewish: You need a Shabbat
dinner experience? We've got one for each
class, once a year.You want to sit in a sukkah?
We've got one. No need to build your own.
Certainly, we want people to come to the
synagogue to celebrate together in community.
And they come, often in large numbers, to a
Shabbat Seder dinner or a Model Passover
Seder. But we also want them to be able to take
home what they learn about Jewish celebration
so they can enhance their Jewish living
experiences there as well. This has guided our
work in Jewish family education at the University
of Judaism's Whizin Institute for Jewish Family
Life.
7. Remove the Roadblocks.
We've got to understand what gets in the way
before we can get people on the way to Jewish
living. There are all sorts of roadblocks to be
aware of. Here's one: Hebrew. For many, it is a
foreign language that is difficult, even in
transliteration. For those with no Hebrew ability,
even a short blessing can be intimidating. That
is why I applaud the Federation of Jewish Men's
Clubs renewed Hebrew Literacy Campaign, a
perfect complement to the Jewish Living Now
project. In the meantime, we need to let people
know that they can get started on the road to
Jewish living with transliterations and English,
although Judaism in translation is a pale shadow
of a rich tradition.
Time is another huge roadblock. We all live such
frenetic lives, with many of us in dual-career
families. Who has time to prepare a traditional
Shabbat meal? Who has time to come to
synagogue? And yet, time is perhaps the most
valued commodity we have -- time for reflection
on the meaning of our lives, time to spend with
our families, When we take a journey, how to
spend our time is one of the most important
decisions we make. Our goal is to live Jewishly
all the time, but for many, finding the time is a
challenge.
Another roadblock: Conflict. Have you been on a
trip where the people with you disagreed about
where to go next or how long to spend in one
spot, or where to stay or what to eat or any
number of decisions that need to be made when
travelling with others? Well, many people who
are on a Jewish journey live with others who are
on one, too. And sometimes, there are
disagreements about how fast to travel on the
road of Jewish living.
The Jewish journey can be filled with these
detours, and there are no simple answers,
except to undersc ore the importance of
dialogue: keeping the conversation open,
looking for consensus, sometimes
accommodating and compromising, sometimes
not. But, most importantly, there must be an
understanding that when we travel with
someone else, there may very well be curves in
the road, and itwill take sensitive steering to stay
the course. People need support along the
journey, especially when they run into a detour
or a roadblock.
8. Permission and Empowerment.
There is something happening among major
segments of the community that can help us get
people into Jewish living Now. Now, more than
ever, people are seeking meaning in their lives.
The baby boomers have come of age and they
are assuming positions of leadership in our
congregations. They are an interesting lot, born
in the placid fifties, raised in the turbulent sixties,
college educated in the seventies, and
establishing their own homes in the eighties.
They are used to taking charge of their own
lives. They are used to feeling empowered to
effect change.
We need to give people permission to take
charge of their Jewish lives and empower them
with the information, skills and motivation
needed to take the Jewish journey, wherever it
leads them. I see this when I teach people about
Pesah. By all means, let's read the Haggadah.
But let's also get our heads out of the book and
answer the question of my favorite of the Four
Children, the Rasha: "What does this mean to
you?" We can offer all kinds of ways to get our
heads out of the book and engage each other in
conversation, in story, and in song. Let's not
forget that the journey should not only be
substantive and meaningful, it can be joyous as
well.
9. Jews Need Other Jews to Be Jewish.
It's very difficult to be Jewish alone. It's very
hard to take the journey by yourself. That's why
we need congregations to organize "Group
Tours." "Share the Journey" is the name of an
important study by Professor Robert Wuthnow,
who looked at the phenomenon of small groups
in American life and how they have come to
effect religious communities. Wuthnow
estimates that 40 percent of all North Americans
are involved in some kind of small group -- from
Weight Watchers to Alcoholics Anonymous,
from home-based Bible study circles to havurot.
These small groups enable individuals to find
the support they need to take the journey,
especially at times of need. This is the notion of
community writ small and intimate.This is a
challenge to our medium and large
congregations, to create multiple opportunities
Dr. Ron Wolfson is Vice-President and Director of the Shirley and Arthur Whizin Center for the Jewish
Future of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. He is principal investigator of "Synagogue 2000: A
Transdenominational Project for the Synagogue of the 21st Century" and author of The Art of Jewish
living Series, published by the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs and the University of Judaism and now
available from Jewish Lights Publishin.
for our members to connect to one or more
small groups within the congregation, and to
identify those functions of community that
enable people to continue on their journeys:
moments of prayer, moments of learning,
moments of healing personal pain and reaching
out to help heal others who are ill, physically
and/or spiritually, moments of healing the world
through social action, moments of celebration,
moments of consolation.
I want to say a word about our special
responsibility to respond to those whose
journeys have not gone well: those who are in
pain -- both physical and spiritual -- those in our
midst who are in need of healing. How we
respond to these sojourners is the true test of
our resolve, our compassion, our menschlichkeit
and our community.
10. Multiple Routes.
My final point is simply this: There are many
routes on the road to Jewish living. There are
many on-ramps and access roads. For some, it
will be enhancing their personal celebration of a
holiday. For others, it may be a search for
spirituality. For some, it will be tzedakah work.
For others, it may be moving to a new level of
kashrut observance. For some, the adventure of
Jewish living may be just beginning. For others,
the task is to respond to the challenges facing
those nearing the end of the journey.
That is why we have to write personal Triptiks
one at a time. We need to be personal mentors
to one person, one family at a time, and offer
many roads into Jewish living. Our task is to
remember this: Jewish continuity depends, not
on some commission, and not on some
institution, and not on someone else. It depends
on each and every one of us. The Jewish future
depends on you and me -- and it depends on
what we do now, right now.