"A Captain without a Ship, A Rabbi without a Shul"

Did I mention I'm betrayed?
I used to be the king
But now I am the fool
A captain without a ship
A rabbi without a shul!

From the Song, "Betrayed" from the musical The Producers

After serving congregations for over twenty years, I decided last year to be a rabbi without a shul. I left something very familiar and very comfortable. There is a certain prestige which comes with serving a congregation. You have one sixtieth (the rabbinic term for a small dimension) a being a king. You are ruler of the bimah, and decisor of halachah. To many you are indispensible as the officiant at the ritual milestones in their lives. Local journalists call you for quotes ; communal leaders request your invocations at gatherings. You get paid more than all the other employees at the synagogue. You have your name on the top of the marquis.
But in truth a rabbi at a shul can become a ceremonial king who is so distracted by the demands of serving a community with endless needs that he no longer remembers why he went into the rabbinate. I woke up in the midst of a congregational crisis to realize that to save my commitment to being a rabbi I had to leave the congregation. But more than leave, I had to find a different way to serve the Jewish people.

In the months after I announced my resignation from my former congregation I reviewed the lessons I had learned as a congregational rabbi. I thought about the reasons that people fall away from or never connect to congregations. I reflected on the constraints of a pulpit rabbi and the structure he works in. I wondered why there is so little Torah in contemporary congregational life.

What emerged from several months of Heshbon Nefesh (soulful reflection) and innumerable conversations with friends and colleagues was a new model which required rabbinic leadership, but was not a synagogue. From the perspective of a year later I will enumerate a number of central insights that led to the founding of Panim Hadashot-New Faces of Judaism. These insights have become more clear over the year as we attempted to implement them in the form of programs and learning.

1. Placing the Emphasis on Learning Over Prayer

The first insight was that the contemporary synagogue had lost the capacity to instill a love of learning. Most congregations define their success on the popularity of their communal worship. The measure of a good member was if he or she was a regular at services. The modern synagogue was organized around worship, yet the dirty little secret was that the great majority of the congregation did not attend and many of those who did attend did so for every other purpose other than to pray. After fifteen years of leading learner's minyans, teaching prayer to converts and congregants I realized that intentional prayer is one of the hardest aspects of tradition to inculcate in others.

What would it be like to build community around learning instead of prayer? Judaism is a tradition which is sustained by a seemingly limitless number of great texts, Torah, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, philosophy. Why not help Jews to make a profound connection to their great texts, open their minds to the profound conversations over the ages. Why not model ongoing learning as an authentic mode of commitment and create an institution which supported people in their desire to learn and grow.

By putting the emphasis on learning, could you open up Jewish life to people with diverse backgrounds who would share the commonality of exploring a text filled with meaning. Wouldn't this be a way to help disconnected Jews to gain a respect for Judaism by showing the great depth and playful quality of our literature.

2. The feast around the table is the bubbling spring of Jewish life.

The most transforming Jewish experiences in my rabbinate were around a Shabbat table. Yet the demands of congregational life make it a secondary dimension of a rabbi's life. What would it mean to build an institution that focused on modeling and sharing Shabbat table feasts that truly inspired a love of Shabbat and Judasim. What would it mean to create Shabbat experience in home that helped people rediscover rest and joy in their overbusy lives? What would it mean to teach a Judaism of kugels, of songs, of salting hallahs, of storytelling, and holy conversation?

I realized that I wanted to build a rabbinate that helped Jews rediscover the home-centered beauty and holiness of Jewish life, giving people the spiritual tool box to bring Shabbat into their homes and among their friends and family. We forget how many Jews have lost touch with these traditions. We forget how Shabbat has vast potential to bring meaning and connection back into our lives.

3. Sharing Our Judaism in an Open Society

I believe that Judasim is a remarkable religious and moral teaching. I chose the rabbinate because I wanted to dedicate my life to teaching its message. But I cannot do this alone. I seek to empower Jews to live and share their Judasim along with me. The reality of synagogue life is that it is structured as a local community to serve its membership. Jews don't join a syangogue to serve the Jewish people. Many join the synagogue to be served.

What would it be like to create a model of Jewish life in which Jews would come together to serve and support other Jews and interested non-Jews in gaining a deeper understanding of its message and way of life. What is wrong with Jews being excited about being Jewish? What is wrong with Jews wanting to share the beauty of their Shabbat with others? We do not live in a ghetto anymore. We don't have to be afraid of the outside? We do not have to be ashamed of our tradition.

The implications of this approach brings us back to the first insight: the emphasis on learning. Jewish learning must help Jews be able to articulate the central teachings of Judaism to themselves and to others. We are no longer living in a time when most Jews grow up with in culturally and religiously rich Jewish home. Most of our Jewish upbringings are thin in practice with shaky, poorly defined values.

There is content to Judaism. It is more than food and feelings. The capacity of Jews to share a joyful and thoughtful Judaism is the key not only to our wellbeing as a community, but also our standing in an open and democratic society. I am trying to build an institution where the content of Judasim is taken seriously while we live out our Jewish lives joyfully.

Then why did I chose the name Panim Hadashot-New Faces as the name of this new model? I was inspired to use this talmudic term because it is associated with a very lovely but little observed tradition in the liberal (Reform, Conservative, Renewal) community. It is a longstanding Jewish custom to extend the joy of a wedding into the week with parties at which blessings were recited over bride and groom. In order to celebrate and bring joy to the couple we are required to bring in new faces-panim hadashot. This custom embodied for me a Jewish value of sharing joy. Judaism is not a religion which focuses on teaching an exclusive truth. It is, instead, concerned with creating relationships between people and God of meaning, commitment, and hope. We want to share our joy, with others in our community and beyond. Cultivating that joy and sharing it with others through learning and celebration is the focus of Panim Hadashot.

So I am a rabbi without a shul. But I am a rabbi who has rediscovered his purpose. Dayyeinu. Over the year many others have come to share the vision of Panim Hadashot. There are many other insights that are emerging from our efforts. I hope you will join us for one of our programs and support our efforts to bring new life to Judasim in the Pacific Northwest.

Shalom, Rabbi Dov Gartenberg