…Just recently after my husband died, Rabbi [Sharon] Brous conducted the most meaningful and respectful funeral service I have attended in the last 40 years.

In the days following the funeral, not only were members of the IKAR community present for all seven days of shiva, but my refrigerators and pantry were filled with the food that they provided for me and my family.

The people who came to my home were young professionals with demanding work schedules and young families, yet they made the time to daven with us and comfort and support me and my family during a very difficult time.

…These serious and thoughtful Jews find meaning not only in prayer and ritual, but in their commitment to healing the world one day at a time and in supporting both the spiritual and secular community in which they live.

Renata Landres
Los Angeles

It’s easier said than done to expand one’s social networks and create a greater level of comfort for davening when you enter a room and see people with either a lot more or a lot less gray hair than you have. But, I do agree with Eli’s statement, that getting people of different ages together for a shabbat or yom tov meal, outside of services, is the best way to build intergenerational community—or any community, for that matter. Chabad’s focus on bringing people together for a shabbat meal is intentional—they’ve learned that’s how social ties form organically. What would happen if every “regular” synagogue member invited an inactive member for a shabbat meal? I bet it would completely change the climate of the synagogue. Synagogues can adopt this practice from Chabad and many of these other emergent communities. This is not rocket science, there is really no (or little) expense involved and any synagogue theoretically could implement this basic Jewish value in short order.

As to Hyim’s point about rabbis thinking of themselves as leader of communities and not institutions, you are right on! My semikha (rabbinic ordination) is from a specific denominational institution. But it never proclaims that I am rabbi only to those with ties to that denomination. So it’s a welcome thought for rabbis, regardless of whether or not they have denominational loyalty, to remember their broader responsibility to the larger Jewish community. (And this applies to all Jews who care about community and not just rabbis.) I have a lot of empathy for my rabbinic colleagues who don’t have the resources they would like to have to serve their congregations and are challenged by the notion of reaching out beyond their synagogues. But we all need to stretch a little more on behalf of the future Jewish community.

This exchange has been refreshing because unlike other issues (think about the destructive “inreach-outreach” debate about intermarried families), it shows the possibilities of accepting polarities as a sign of a health. As Shawn implies, it isn’t that one form of community is better than the other; it’s just that each kind of community emerges for different purposes, that each has a place on the communal landscape and that each can learn from the other.

What can we do to create more opportunities for this kind of dialogue? And, to Justin’s point, are there other suggestions about how to help synagogues and generation-specific emergent spiritual communities become more intergenerational? I am concerned that there are so few places left in society where multiple generations can interact, and that there are broader societal forces which tend to divide generations. All suggestions are welcome!

That said, Hadar, and the other independent minyanim, are overwhelmingly populated by young people, as our study found. In my experience, this is because of a few factors:
1) Most of these minyanim were started by people in their 20s and early 30s, and therefore their social networks were in their 20s and early 30s. As a counter-example, some of the independent minyanim started by people in an older generation (Kesher Minyan, no longer existing in Manhattan, or Shachar in Riverdale) attract people mainly in that generation. This is the result of natural social networks, not any particular policy by the minyanim.
2) People not in their 20s and 30s for whom these minyanim are attractive from a worship standpoint already have a primary community. While they may visit a minyan on a particular week, and even prefer the davening there, their Jewish social/communal life is already built in a synagogue.
3) People don’t like going to places that don’t reflect their age group. I can’t tell you how many dozens of times I have heard from people older than 35: I wish I could go to Hadar, but I end up raising the average age! My question to that statement is: what makes you uncomfortable about being in a room of people who are younger than you? (FWIW - college students in NY have the opposite concern: everyone in this room is over 21, so I can’t come). More critically, if people in this age bracket organized, they could come in groups, eliminating this problem. The minyanim would welcome it, from what I have seen. (I have found a disproportionate percentage of aliyot, the chief means of welcoming someone ritually in a worship service, have been given to people older than 35). This factor is the exact mirror of what keeps out many younger people from synagogue: no matter how good the programming, if there is no critical mass of people their own age, they stay away.

I think the real challenge for increased intergenerationality (Shawn’s term) is to expand people’s social networks. Once we start inviting multiple generations to Shabbat meals, and forming real relationships, uniting for prayer, study and social action should be much easier.

However, there are many communities committed to exploring new institutional models entirely on their own: Hadar, IKAR, Kavana, Kavod House, and others all are building innovative communities that seek to stand and be met on their own terms. I’m sure you would agree that we should be giving communities such as these the space (both physical and moral) they need to find new sustainable institutional models.

As to Justin David’s comment about intergenerationality (forgive the neologism), I should point out the diversity the S3K-Mechon Hadar study revealed: the rabbi-led emergent communities are far more intergenerational than indy minyanim and
alternative communities. We can’t generalize and say, “emergent equals monogenerational.” There again, I think it’s a question of style and preference; surely the broader Jewish community is large enough to encompass multiple styles and preferences.

And Rabbi Shafner: amen - may it be so speedily and in our days!

Their composition and their existence does challenge us to do business differently. But I believe that whatever changes we make are not to capitalize on the membership of these minyanim. Rather, they are to change ourselves for the better.

That being said, my challenge to these independent communities is this - what is sacrificed by not being intergenerational? Ultimately, does a “niche” community run the risk of its own insularity by not opening itself up to those who are older, not on a particular academic or professional track, etc?

Synagogues can do things that niche communities can not. But just as synagogues have been changed by havurot over the past generations, so we are poised for new changes now.

My two shekels.

Kol tuv,

Justin David