Last year, at CAJE 30, we took a crack at excellence in congregational learning. We identified the creation of Jewish sacred community as the ultimate goal of our entire educational endeavor. It is an awesome goal–in every sense of the word.
Once set to the task of moving in that direction, questions begin to arise. Not least among them, this–What must a person know in order to be a good citizen of the Jewish sacred community?
Surely, no one whose heart inclines them to participation will be excluded. There will be no metaphysical exam testing the sincerity of each yearning soul.
Nonetheless, if our educational efforts are toward its creation, what will the Jewish sacred community mean? What will it stand for? Who will lead it? By what values will it be guided? With what voice will it be prepared to speak? And when it speaks, what wisdom, what knowledge, what tradition, what insight will inform its message?
As today’s educators, we are the midwives of tomorrow’s sacred community. In our efforts to fashion the learning community that must precede it, it falls to us to give ear to the voices of the past, which speak to us through our rich, varied, sometimes difficult texts–texts that often demand rigorous learning and deep discussion before their message can reach us.
It also falls to us to try, with all the courage and insight we can muster, to give ear to the voices of the future. What challenges will they face that will benefit from a Jewish perspective? What issues of the spirit will demand a Jewish response? Will their ears be attuned enough to distinguish the attenuated echo of the voice heard at Sinai from the omnipresent electronically delivered messages of contemporary culture?
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Thus CAJE 31.
We will wrestle again with what it takes and what it means to be Jewishly literate.
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