I. Introduction
Many Voices. One People.
Last year, in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, a group of forward-thinking rabbis worked with CLAL in making these words a reality. National Unity Shavuot, as you will read in this guide, "showed that participants were able to put aside their denominational differences in the interest of increasing Torah study. May such efforts continue to grow." (Jewish Week, May 21,1999)
This guide has been put together in hopes that you, in your community, will join with the many others around North America (and now in Great Britain and Israel) who are making pluralist study and celebration a yearly ritual on Shavuot. If you have already been involved in this work, let us know! A postcard is enclosed and we will include your information on our special Web site, www.Shavuot.org.
If this is a new program for your community, or even if you've done something similar in the past, the texts and insights in this booklet will help to spark ideas to build a program. There are two study guides, tools to help in cross-denominational dialogue, and tips on writing press releases. There are also descriptions of the past year's programs, and a list of the rabbis who made them possible. Check it out. And may your chag be a time of revelation.
Kol Tuv,
Rabbi Daniel Brenner
II. Planning an Event
What makes for a good cross-denominational forum (and what doesn't)?
Most of you have probably sat on a panel of rabbis somewhere - either at a Hillel, or Federation, or perhaps a synagogue - and have faced the typical questions: "Who is a Jew?" "What is the role of women?" "What relationships are kosher?" - and the list goes on. The questions are essential to Jewish life, but the short answers we can give on the spot often end up being more divisive than we would like. And even if we do give an answer that illuminates the discussion, it is still a long uphill battle to break the stereotypes that people come to expect.
The trick is to think creatively and expansively about how to get to the questions behind the most politicized of issues. A good example of this was the way in which the rabbis that CLAL brought together last year in New York planned their National Unity Shavuot event. One of the rabbis proposed that we do a program on conversion related to the themes in Ruth. "Conversion?" another rabbi said, "That will only lead to an argument!" A third rabbi chimed in, "Well, why not? We should choose a topic which will be heated-why else do we do this?" Someone else said, "Is that the way we want to present ourselves in front of the community?"
So how did it work out?
Rather than drop the issue, someone suggested that we place the topic in a much larger context - the idea of "Jewish Journeys." Since conversion and the story of Ruth certainly comprise one of those journeys, those who wanted to focus on that could do so. But there are so many other journeys -Journeys to Orthodoxy, to secular life, to learning, etc ...which speak to the personal experience that is often ignored in a debate over who is in and who is out.