Sublime

(We named everything at Hadar a team rather than a committee, something I learned from the educational organization Limmud in England. After all, no one likes committee meetings, but everyone wants to be part of the team!)

Tzedek is built on the idea that there is a distinction between possession and ownership.

If a reflective life is meant to be more than just affirming our existing beliefs, then Torah provides the opportunity to engage with life more fully.

In such a small group, there was nowhere to hide from responsibility, and everyone’s voice was critical to the operation.

In our vision of a yeshiva, the students—adult men and women—would learn how to learn Jewish texts.

And here we come to one of the great unsolved problems in the history of the Jewish people.

a prayer community that speaks to each of its members’ spiritual longings, gives participants a sense of community and belonging, and empowers them to find in Judaism a deep sense of meaning and purpose that infuses every corner of their lives.”

The experience of prayer is greatly enhanced if the siddur is treated like so many other texts in Jewish heritage, as a starting point for interpretation rather than a surface statement of dogma.

To be clear—someone is always going to be alienated from any community.