Given the myriad of complex challenges and opportunities facing the Jewish community today, what actions are necessary, and who should take responsibility?

We often think of leadership as a role—the president is the leader of our nation; the team captain is the leader of the team; the CEO is the leader of the organization. What, though, if we were to think of leadership as a verb? What if we jettisoned the notion of “a leader” completely and instead approached leadership as an activity in which everyone could engage?

Adaptive Leadership theory, conceived and developed by Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky, posits that leadership is an activity with a clear purpose. Leadership, they argue, is the work necessary to bridge the gap between a group’s aspirations and its current reality. That means that the work of leadership involves being brutally honest about what is working and what is not. It means being creatively optimistic and clear-sighted about the group’s aspirations—where it strives to be—and sensitively bridging the gap separating the two realms. One’s position in an organization defines one’s role and the expectations that the system has of you in that role, but it has nothing to do with the work of leadership.

If we break down leadership into its three component parts, we end up with three core activities that compose the work: Observe, Interpret, and Intervene. It is my purpose here to inspire and challenge all of us to realize that the work of leadership is the responsibility of each and every individual, regardless of one’s authority or role in an organization, and that our community will be better and stronger if each of us engages in these activities on a more regular basis. Each of these three areas of leadership can be deeply informed by the Adaptive Leadership theory of change.

Observe

The first phase of any leadership process must involve a sensitive observation of what currently exists, what existed in the past, and what is likely to exist in the future.

The present is deceptively simple to observe. Adaptive Leadership theory introduces the metaphor of moving between the “dance floor,” the realm of the action, in which you are one of the players, and the “balcony,” the realm of contemplation, in which you have the luxury of being removed from the action. You can cultivate opportunities to be on the balcony: for example, joining meetings as a “fly on the wall,” or observing a colleague’s classroom. But the real challenge is to be on the balcony while you are on the dance floor: to cultivate contemplation while in the realm of action. That ability to move between the dance floor and balcony is a critical leadership skill that profoundly enhances our powers of observation— the first necessary element in any leadership process.

The past and the future are as important to observe in any leadership process as the present. It is important to understand the history of any issue you might tackle: what things used to be like and why, what the original dream was of the organization, who was originally involved, and what their values were. The leadership work of observation must include conversations with those individuals who have institutional memory—who were part of the original design or founding team—and as much research into “the way it’s always been” as possible.

Finally, observation is not complete without an attempt to look into the future, and to engage in meaningful conversations about what is likely to be coming down the pike. The Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California, has cultivated a wide variety of foresight tools to help organizations make more informed predictions of what technological, scientific, social, and cultural changes are likely to be arising in the next 50 years, and then to make organizational change and decisions based on those likely new patterns. One such tool is looking for “signals.” Are there hints out there in the world that might give us information about how our organizations and institutions might be affected? The work of leadership involves hunting for signals that might have an implication for our leadership challenge at hand.

Interpret

The second phase of leadership is interpretation. This phase requires looking at all of that which you have observed about the past, the present, and the likely future, followed by diagnosing the “gap,” in which you admit honestly where you are in relation to where you would like to be. One powerful interpretive tool is to learn to distinguish between technical and adaptive aspects of the gap. Technical aspects of the gap are ones which require the application of skills and knowledge. Let’s say your school wants to make better use of technology for the students’ learning. There are many complex technical aspects to this work that require technological solutions, including resources, tools, and training.

But there are also adaptive aspects of the gap. These have more to do with people’s values, ways of behaving and thinking, and their identities. If your goal was to bring technology into the classroom, to keep your learning environment current and relevant, the adaptive realm would be analyzing how the introduction of technology advances and impedes learning. It would involve looking at what would need to be lost in order to make progress. What aspects of the classroom would change, and what losses would those changes incur? How will various people in the larger educational realm in which you are operating react to this? When you invite technology into your schools, are there beloved people, programs, and events that will inevitably be excluded?

In the technical realm, you interpret the literal costs and benefits of making change versus maintaining the status quo; in the adaptive realm, you interpret the emotional costs and benefits. How will this affect our identity as an institution, and will we gain more than we lose?

Leadership’s second phase, this diagnostic phase, is perhaps the most important. This interpretive pause, in which those exerting leadership challenge everyone around them to look beyond the technical aspects of the gap and to begin to address the adaptive aspects, is invaluable to creating lasting change.

Intervene

The stakes are often high when you are exerting leadership. You notice things that others don’t notice. You offer uncomfortable interpretations that challenge the way that people think and create discomfort. When we do this type of work, everything within us personally and around us systemically is yearning for resolution, clarity, and calm. Leadership work, though, involves staying in the fray.

That is why it can be extremely helpful to take a design approach to tackling a leadership challenge. Design Thinking, an approach to problem solving that evolved from product design, has been popularized in the past decade by the design firm IDEO and Institute for Design at Stanford d.school. It offers to leadership the concept of “prototyping,” or creating experimental interventions. The purpose of such interventions is to test whether or not your interpretations are on the right track. Interventions inspired by a Design Thinking approach can help you be more calm, creative, and willing to tackle complex adaptive challenges.

After careful observation and interpretation, intervention should be approached in two stages. First, imagine as many creative ideas as you can, without feeling the constraints of reality. Design Thinking offers multiple activities and tools to cultivate this skill and come up with new ways of approaching problems. Allow yourself to momentarily be suspended in this realm of imagination without the pressure of needing to make a decision. It is a finite phase, which transitions back into reality, but it is of utmost importance to dwell in that space of possibility. Next, embrace the concept of prototyping. Design a relatively low-risk, low-cost, rapid way to test if your idea is on the right track.

Your intervention should be focused on helping you get more data regarding whether or not your interpretation of the challenge is accurate. It can also help you gauge the readiness of the people around you to tackle the challenge. Creative, low-risk interventions can both help you make progress and give you insights that will inform your next steps.

Leadership work involves multiple iterations through this process. First, use the wisdom from Adaptive Leadership and Foresight methodologies to observe the current reality, the past that has defined it, and the future on its horizons. Next, interpret what you have observed. Finally, tap the creative and playful tools of Design Thinking to imagine a wide variety of possible solutions. Observe, Interpret, Intervene—then do it all over again.

It’s not only those with the most power or authority who should take care of our most pressing challenges. Let’s build our own muscles of observation and interpretation, and develop our willingness to take risks to intervene on behalf of what we all care deeply about, ensuring that our community continues to grow and thrive.

Maya Bernstein has facilitated inspiring and impactful leadership initiatives in nonprofit and educational settings for over 15 years. She draws on her expertise in adaptive leadership, design thinking, foresight methodologies, Jewish text study, improv tools, and storytelling to create unique environments in which participants become willing to take risks and experiment with new ways of thinking and behaving.

Maya is a cofounder and associate at UpStart Bay Area, which supports innovation in the Jewish community. In her work at UpStart, Maya helped launch a wide variety of cutting-edge nonprofits that are transforming the landscape of Jewish life in the United States, and consulted to established nonprofits, including the JCC Association, Jewish Federations of North America, foundations, schools, and synagogues on innovation strategies. Maya is on faculty at the Wexner Foundation and Georgetown University’s Center for Transformational Leadership. She consults widely throughout the Jewish community and has recently begun teaching improv to middle-school students.

Maya publishes widely, online and in print, on the topic of innovation and change. She is a graduate of Columbia College and Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and a 2012 recipient of the Covenant Foundation’s Pomegranate Prize. After a decade in Silicon Valley, Maya, her husband, and their children have recently relocated to New York City.

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Leaders matter. A great leader can turn around an organization, spark a movement, and inspire a revolution. Great leaders set a vision and empower others to join them on the journey. When an organization is in trouble or doing well, we look to the leader for clues as to why.

Midway into the second decade of the 21st century, Jewish educational and community leaders must understand and embrace a number of paradigm shifts that have changed our community, our workplaces, and our lives.

Perhaps the three shifts that are most critical for Jewish leaders to understand, appreciate, and embrace are the following:

1. Shift from the career ladder to the career lattice
2. Shift from single heroic leader to a leadership team
3. Shift from the Information Age to the Purpose Age

Shift from the Career Ladder to the Career Lattice

In 2011, the management consulting company Deloitte sounded the death knell of the corporate ladder.^[1] The ladder structure is predicated on a set of assumptions in the workplace that no longer represents current reality:

• Traditional family structure (i.e., Dad goes to work while Mom stays at home)
• Steep organizational hierarchies
• One-size-fits-all approach that assumes employees are more alike than different and want or need similar things to deliver results

The nature of the workplace and the worker has changed. The era of the company man starting a career at the bottom of an organization, working his way up the ladder for 30 years, and retiring with a pension is over. Organizations have evolved to become flatter, more fluid, and more flexible. Talent is more interested in a tour of duty, spending time in a meaningful role for a few years, than spending decades at one company.^[2] According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker today stays at each of his/her jobs for approximately four years.^[3] As Sheryl Sandberg put it, “The career jungle gym is better than the career ladder.”^[4]

Jewish leaders who embrace this new reality and transform roles and structures within their organizations to adapt to it will thrive. Leaders can start by identifying where there might be room for growth for talented employees within the organization and then setting a course with individuals to ensure this growth. If there is not room for employee growth within the organization, then leaders can take the bold approach of supporting professional growth, maximizing their employees’ potential during their time in the organization, and then guiding them toward a better-suited role elsewhere.

Shift from Single Heroic Leader To A Leadership Team 

Arguably the most lauded and analyzed biblical leader in our tradition, Moses required the partnership of his siblings, Aaron and Miriam, in order to successfully lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Each one of this trio brought different skills, strengths, and styles to his/her role. They were, perhaps, the original leadership team. And yet, Moses is the one who is interpreted as the single heroic leader, who, with God and against all odds, achieved incredible feats.

This concept of a single heroic leader has been the pervasive, yet flawed, wisdom that has existed in Jewish organizations for centuries. Yet this paradigm has shifted. We live in an increasingly complex world where a single person (or “atom”) cannot and should not be called upon to stand alone and shoulder the entire burden of adaptive challenges. Rather, what is needed is a leadership a team (a “molecule”) composed of different and symbiotic professional functions.^[5]

How this paradigm might translate is a senior leadership team that has a distributive approach, similar to the cofounder model in tech companies. In this approach, one cofounder may be the chief executive officer while the other is the chief technology officer. One example of this model at play in the Jewish community is Mechon Hadar, which has experienced tremendous growth and success in the last decade under the leadership of three cofounders.

Despite this evidence to the contrary, search committees of Jewish organizations often look for one superhero leader who will do everything for an organization—raise money, manage teams, recruit talent, build systems, set vision, inspire stakeholders, etc.—thinking that one leader can save an organization. Rarely do such people exist. No one person can be an ace in everything. What we need from leaders today are complementary strengths and skills to support and round out deficiencies. The fact that Moses’s brother, Aaron, acted as Moses’s voice since Moses had a stutter is a prime example of such complementarity.

Shift From The Information Age To The Purpose Age

We are in the dawn of the Purpose Age. Each part of our world has gone through a radical transformation in the last few decades. We are now converging into a new set of processes to change the way society operates.^[6] Increasingly more people, and the Millennial generation in particular, are making decisions and taking action that bring them more purpose in their lives.

Millennials (born roughly between 1981 and 2000) are more likely to take a job for meaning than money. This is a win-win for Jewish organizations, which have meaning and purpose at the core of their cultures and daily work. The Jewish community is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this post-Information Age / Purpose Age.

To dig a bit deeper into these themes, consider the following question: Are the Jewish community’s challenges to adapt to these paradigm shifts that different from other industries?

While the Jewish community faces many challenges, we are not that different from other areas of society. Perhaps the most interesting parallel may be found in the analogy to an orchestra. Orchestras struggle with many of the same pain points as the Jewish community:

• The orchestra-going public is getting older. The vast majority of Millennials don’t have much of an appetite to attend concerts in orchestra halls. Might we find parallels here to synagogues, JCCs, or family-service organizations that find dwindling participation from the emerging adult generation of today?
• Orchestra halls are expensive to maintain, sucking up resources from the annual budget. Are our brick and mortar facilities hampering our ability to innovate and thrive?
• Orchestras are hamstrung by numerous unions that may make a change strategy difficult to realize. One might find a number of unions, as well as numerous committees, in many longstanding Jewish organizations that may stand in our way to adapt and evolve.
• Finally, in terms of talent, the majority of conductors are men who stay in their roles for long periods of time. Further, there is a “pay your dues” mentality for musicians who are rising through the ranks.^[7] There is a very similar gender and generational dynamic within Jewish organizations, which may no longer be a fit or sound strategy as we seek to attract the emerging talent of today.^[8]

Great leaders know that a thriving and vibrant Jewish community needs many different players to make a rich, harmonious sound. Like an orchestra, they appreciate that the whole, truly, is greater than the sum of its parts.

Leaders matter. Those leaders who can adapt to today’s realities of a career lattice, a leadership team, and an emerging Purpose Age are more likely to see their Jewish educational and organizational dreams come true. These leaders are more likely to achieve the symphony of strengthening, empowering, and emboldening the Jewish community to meet the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow.

Gali Cooks is the inaugural executive director of Leading Edge, an organization formed in 2014 by foundations and federations to influence, inspire, and enable dramatic change in attracting, developing, and retaining top talent for Jewish organizations. Gali’s professional experience spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. 

Her career began as a speechwriter at the Embassy of Israel and a legislative assistant at AIPAC. She then joined the Harold Grinspoon Foundation as founding director of the PJ Library. From 2007 to 2013, Gali was executive director of the Rita J. & Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation. In the private sector, Gali was vice president of Operations at an education technology startup. Most recently, Gali was director of Business Operations in the Youth Division of Union for Reform Judaism.

Gali serves on the boards of Keshet and the Joshua Venture Group, and holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Learn more about The Davidson School

 

[1] Benko, Cathy; Anderson, Molly; and Vickberg, Suzanne. The Corporate Lattice: A Strategic Response to the Changing World of Work. Deloitte Review Issue 8, 2011.

[2] Hoffman, Reid; Casnocha, Ben; and Yeh, Chris. “The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.” Harvard Business Review Press (July 8, 2014). P. 28.

[3] Meister, Jeane. “Job Hopping Is the ‘New Normal’ for Millennials: Three Ways to Prevent a Human Resource Nightmare.” Forbes (Aug 14, 2012)

[4] Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, Knopf, 2013.

[5] Flanholtz, Eric G. The Leadership Molecule Hypothesis: Implications for Entrepreneurial Organizations, International Review of Entrepreneurship 9(3); Senate Hall Academic Publishing, 2011.

[6] Hurst, Aaron. The Purpose Economy: How Your Desire for Impact, Personal Growth and Community Is Changing the World. (Elevate, 2014). p. 22

[7] Thirteen graphs that show the alarming gender inequality in US orchestras today. Gender inequality in American Orchestras

[8] In the 1970’s there were blind auditions that led to some gender equity, but on a very small scale. How blind auditions help orchestras to eliminate gender bias. 

Congratulations on Joining the Vibrant JTS Community!

You are about to embark on a challenging and exciting journey. At JTS, we prize action driven by knowledge and integrity. We study historical texts in their original languages and give new life to ancient wisdom. Our values are Jewish values. We nurture open community, critical thought, and new forms of scholarship in North America’s hub of Jewish life, New York City.

We want to ensure that you stay in good administrative and financial standing as you approach orientation and throughout the year. You can keep track of what you have to do before the fall semester with the list of activities and required documents below:

Graduate Housing Form

To begin the housing application process, please fill out the housing form.

JTS offers many diverse housing opportunities for students—from a traditional residence hall to an authentic New York City apartment—all located within the Morningside Heights area or another neighborhood. Although we are unable to guarantee housing, in recent years we have been able to accommodate all applicants. We are available to speak with you about your housing options—both on and off campus. If you have further questions regarding Residence Life please contact reslife@jtsa.edu.

Immunization Forms

All enrolled students are required to submit four documents to the JTS registrar’s office within 10 days of enrollment. Please be in touch with the registrar’s office at registrar@jtsa.edu with further questions.

1. MMR immunization documentation form (completed by your physician’s office)
2. Meningitis compliance form (Find information on meningitis)
3. COVID-19 immunization documentation (immunization record will be submitted via the link below)
4. Address information form

Once the above forms are complete, students should upload the forms through their online portal. The direct link to submit your forms can be found here.

Students enrolled in the online MA in Jewish Education or the Executive Doctoral Degree are not required to submit the MMR or Meningitis forms.

Non-degree students who plan to register for 6 credits or more per semester at any time during their enrollment are required to submit these forms.

Official Transcript(s)

Please send us your official transcript(s) from all postsecondary studies by July 1, if you have not already done so in the application process. Your transcript(s) should be sent directly to our office from the institution’s Registrar’s office. These should be digitally sent to admissions@jtsa.edu.

Student Health Insurance Information and Enrollment/Waiver Forms

JTS’s Office of Human Resources offers an extensive Student Health Insurance Plan for students, their spouses or domestic partners, and dependent children. The plan is administered through the Columbia Student Medical Insurance Plan (Columbia Plan), and is underwritten by Aetna Student Health.

JTS students in our graduate level programs have access to a variety of health care services provided by Columbia Health, including primary care, urgent care, women’s health, mental health counseling, and wellness programs. The plan offered is an annual plan with coverage dates from mid-August through mid-August of the following year.

Students must complete an enrollment or waiver form each academic year, and all enrolled students must have health insurance in order to begin classes. Non-degree students are not required to submit health insurance forms. Please be in touch with Human Resources at hrdept@jtsa.edu with further questions.

Insurance forms for the 2021-2022:

• Health Insurance Packet

International Students

All enrolled international students should be in touch as soon as possible with our Registrar’s Office (Registrar@jtsa.edu) to obtain an I-20 document. We also ask that international students contact the Registrar’s office immediately to ensure enough time to obtain a F-1 VISA. We also encourage international students to obtain and submit proof of MMR immunizations over the summer before arriving for Orientation. Students will not be able to register for classes without proof of MMR immunity, which would also affect eligibility to remain in the U.S. Please also remember to stop by the Registrar’s Office within 48 hours of arrival on campus with all travel documents and to obtain some additional helpful information.

JTS Academic Calendar

This calendar, which is for the guidance of applicants, students, and faculty, is subject to change without notice and is not intended to be a contract between JTS and any person.

View the current JTS Academic Calendar

Links to other helpful pages

• Student Life 
• Residence Life
• Counseling

Welcome to List College! We are thrilled you will be joining our community in the fall.

Now that you’re enrolled, making sure you’re ready for school is a multi-step process. New students arrive on campus approximately one week prior to classes for our comprehensive orientation program, where they are introduced to all the resources that are available to them during their time at List College. Not only do we host JTS-specific programs, but we also facilitate robust programming in conjunction with our Columbia and Barnard partners. 

This page will be your guide for the start of your List College journey. We encourage you to re-visit this information often. You can keep track of what you must do before the fall semester with the list of activities and required documents below:

List College Housing Form

To begin the housing application process, please fill out the housing form. Both Joint Program and Double Degree Program students should complete the form to inform us of your housing plans for the fall. All new Joint Program students are required to live in our new residence hall.

Our residence hall was expressly designed to foster a deep sense of community and meet the needs and aspirations of List College students. On every floor you will find large, light-filled dining rooms, warm study/meeting spaces, and state-of-the-art kosher kitchens. Adjacent to the hall is a beautiful moadon, or lounge, for larger student gatherings. These common spaces invite students from diverse backgrounds to come together for Shabbat and holidays as well as the daily rhythms of Jewish life.

Should you have any questions about housing, please be in touch with Residence Life at reslife@jtsa.edu.

Immunization Forms

All enrolled students are required to submit immunization and student information documents to the JTS registrar’s office prior to May 25. Please be in touch with the registrar’s office at registrar@jtsa.edu with further questions.

1. MMR immunization documentation form (completed by your physician’s office)
2. Meningitis compliance form (Find information on meningitis)
3. COVID-19 immunization documentation (immunization record will be submitted via the link below)
4. Address information form

Once the above forms are complete, students should upload the forms through their online portal. The direct link to submit your forms can be found here.

First-Year Photobook

Each year the Office of Admissions creates a First-Year Photobook, with photos of all first-year students, along with their name, program, and hometown. You will receive your copy during orientation, and it will provide an easy way for you to meet your fellow classmates and important members of the JTS community. We ask that you send a digital headshot (JPEG or PNG file preferred) of yourself by May 25 to lcadmissions@jtsa.edu.

Final High School Transcript

Please send us your final high school transcript by July 1. Students returning from a gap year do not need to resubmit their final transcript. Your transcript should be sent directly to our office by your high school via Naviance, SCOIR, or Common App.

Student Health Insurance Information and Enrollment/Waiver Forms

JTS students in the List College Joint Program with Columbia University have access to a variety of health care services provided by Columbia Health, including primary care, urgent care, women’s health, mental health counseling, and wellness programs. For List College students in the Double Degree Program with Barnard College, health services and insurance are administered through Barnard College.

JTS’s Office of Human Resources offers an extensive Student Health Insurance Plan for students. The plan is administered through the Columbia Student Medical Insurance Plan (Columbia Plan) and is underwritten by Aetna Student Health. It is an annual plan with coverage dates from mid-August through mid-August of the following year.

All full-time and/or residential JTS students must have health insurance. All full-time and residential students are automatically enrolled and charged for Columbia Health, regardless of whether or not they waive the Columbia Plan. We therefore encourage JTS students to utilize Columbia Health services.

Students must complete an enrollment or waiver form each academic year, and all enrolled students must have health insurance in order to begin classes. Please be in touch with Human Resources at hrdept@jtsa.edu with further questions.

Insurance forms for the 2021-2022:

• Health Insurance Packet

International Students   

All enrolled international students should be in touch as soon as possible with our Registrar’s Office (Registrar@jtsa.edu) to obtain an I-20 document. We also ask that international students contact us immediately to ensure enough time to obtain a F-1 VISA. We also encourage international students to obtain and submit proof of MMR immunizations over the summer before arriving for Orientation.  Students will not be able to register for classes without proof of MMR immunity, which would also affect eligibility to remain in the U.S.  Please also remember to stop by the Registrar’s Office within 48 hours of arrival on campus with all travel documents and to obtain some additional helpful information.

JTS Academic Calendar

This calendar, which is for the guidance of applicants, students, and faculty, is subject to change without notice and is not intended to be a contract between JTS and any person.

View the current JTS Academic Calendar

Links to other helpful pages

• Student Life 
• Residence Life
• Counseling

What follows is a small section of a paper on the topic of congregational education adapted from “Heschel’s Spiritual Humanism: Jewish Education for the Twenty-first Century,” an article originally published in Modern Judaism (2009) 29 (1). I shall attempt to bring to the discussion around the reconception of the afternoon school some insights I have gained over the years from studying the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Of course only I can be responsible for conclusions drawn and suggestions made that do not come directly from Heschel, although as I think you will see, he did offer direction and guidance to the synagogue schools of his time, and did so rather forcefully.

I would suggest we start in the realm of philosophy. What is the purpose of these schools? Heschel sets us on this path with the following words:

A central concern in Jewish thinking is to overcome the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective, to reduce history exclusively to God’s actions or to man’s action, either to grace or to man’s initiative. The marvelous and the mundane, the sacred and the secular, are not mutually exclusive, nor are the natural and the supernatural, the temporal and the eternal, kept apart. The heart of the relationship of God and man is reciprocity, interdependence. The task is to humanize the sacred and to sanctify the secular. 1

Are not the sacred and the secular mutually exclusive? Somehow our entire educational system—and not just parochial Jewish schools—is convinced that they are. Heschel’s charge to “overcome the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective” represents a paradigm shift in educational thinking.

We have become wedded to a false idea, that the quantity of education our children receive determines quality. This may, of course, be so in the realm of skill acquisition. But in the realm of values, identity development, and the broader issues of critical thinking (or what Heschel might have called “overcom(ing) the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective”), quality of time far exceeds quantity. In other words we can stop feeling sorry for ourselves because we are relegated to a few hours per week and honestly face the fact that what we deliver and how we deliver it will be the index against which our success or failure will be (and already is) measured.

While virtually all contemporary educators speak of teaching “critical thinking skills” they (ironically) often practice a highly dogmatic way of thinking critically. They do not accept the necessity of thinking critically in order to force the student (and teacher as well) to reach into the deepest recesses of their beings. And they certainly do not think about the relationship between God and human (if they think about it at all) as being one of “reciprocity” and “interdependence.” Heschel’s conceptual elevation has profound implications for all power relationships: teacher and student, parent and child, citizen and government, small nation and large nation, etc. Heschel is making clear that when you break down the assumed divide between conceptual realms, you produce vital and vibrant relationships.

And then, as he often does, he drops the bombshell of his thought at the end of this already overwhelmingly powerful paragraph. The way to reach this goal of non-compartmentalization is to change the model, by “humanizing the scared and sanctifying the secular.” To sanctify the secular sounds almost blasphemous. But it is highly unlikely that Heschel could ever be accused of blasphemy. Integrating our thinking this way builds our interdependent and reciprocal relationship with God, nothing less and much more. Heschel turns the tables of our accepted way of thinking upside down.

Heschel recognized the positive power of the openness of American society. In contrast to other mid-20th century rabbis of comparable eastern European descent, he welcomed the new intellectual and social environment that America offered. America’s open society led him to imagine a significant role for himself in the social struggles of the 1960s. Rather than keeping the traditional distance from non-Jews, Heschel embraced them, considered their theology seriously, taught in their seminaries, entertained and studied with their clergy, and spoke in their churches. By being engaged within and outside the Jewish world, he could come closer to fulfilling the teachings of the prophetic tradition that so captivated him throughout all of his adult life.

In contrast, contemporary Jewish education can rightly be characterized by its insularity and an unspoken practice that is often little more than “survival training” cleaned up for the public audience by its nickname “continuity.” This model of Jewish education often consists of inoculations against threats, real and imagined, posed by the “outside world.” Heschel challenged this perception of Judaism with the following words:

The significance of Judaism . . . does not lie in its being conducive to the survival of this particular people but in its being a source of spiritual wealth, a source of meaning relevant to all peoples. 2

Heschel’s words offer a challenge to radically re-conceptualize the Jewish educational enterprise. We are not engaged in a circular and self-serving endeavor, he said, and we cannot fulfill our mission if we do not engage “the other” in curriculum, program and experience.

Seeing the Jewish school as a place to teach the significance of Judaism as a source of “spiritual wealth . . . [and] meaning relevant to all peoples” would require us to shed our fears of outside influences. It would allow us to understand ourselves with a greater sense of integrity while welcoming the opportunity to be the place where Jewish children first and most forcefully recognize the “creative” beauty in different religions, worldviews, and of course races, languages, and cultures.

Peter A. Geffen is the founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City, and in 1999, he created (and continues to direct) KIVUNIM, which became the largest Israel-based, teacher-training seminar from North America. In September 2006, he launched KIVUNIM: New Directions, a year-long post–high school/precollege gap-year program based in Israel studying about and traveling to countries around the world to learn the origins and integration of Jewish life and culture throughout the world. His career in Jewish education began with his design of the unique and unprecedented Park Avenue Synagogue High School program in 1967, where he served as principal until 1985. In 2012 he was selected to receive the Covenant Award, the highest recognition in the field of Jewish education. Peter holds a BA from Queens College, an MA in Religious Education from New York University, and a Certificate in Psychotherapy and Counseling from the Alfred Adler Institute in New York City. Peter had the honor of accompanying Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral in 1968, and has been active in numerous civil rights and social justice causes for decades.

1 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity (New York, 1969), p.159.

2 Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Jewish Education,” in The Insecurity of Freedom (New York, 1966), p. 226

INTRODUCTION

Jewish educators are often on the frontlines of change. They glimpse the future more quickly than others who work in congregations and Jewish organizations because they experience social, educational, and technological change with each incoming group or class of students. Jewish educators are typically the catalysts and designated leaders of educational change, but within a congregation or organization they frequently partner with rabbis. In this paper, I focus on a rabbi’s role in effecting change. My hope is to provide insights into contemporary leadership theory and practice that rabbis and educators who work with them can apply to any change initiative. These insights are meant to increase the likelihood of success of initiating, leading, and rooting congregational-change initiatives.

Congregational change and rabbinical leadership are integrally related. Generally, rabbinical leadership determines the effectiveness and sustainability of congregational change efforts, whether in individual congregations or as a part of a broader community coalition. Of course, excellent school and lay leaders, outside experts, and stakeholders are essential. However, a rabbi’s personal and ongoing involvement is a key success factor in significant congregational change.

These ideas are the result of my primary research on denominational and independent rabbis and congregations, a review of substantial secondary research on congregations and nonprofit organizations, scholarly literature on leadership, and extensive work with rabbis, congregations, and nonprofit organizations. While certain fundamentals of leadership are enduring, other needed attributes of leadership are emerging in today’s environment of expected transparency, immediacy of communications, disruptive technologies, and the chaos they engender.

My colleagues who have successfully transformed congregations have a repertoire of leadership stances. They practice leading in front, leading beside, and leading in the middle. They move in and out of these roles as they initiate and attempt to anchor transformational change.

LEADING IN FRONT

Every successful change effort begins with a person’s inspirational vision and passion. An effective change mobilizer maintains the passion but seeks out a core team of people who enrich it because it resonates within them. Competent stewards of congregations and organizations invest significant energy into management, a complex set of activities and skills that include issues such as board and professional leadership development and adherence to the highest professional standards of governance. Rabbis who execute these responsibilities well are fulfilling a reasonable expectation of professionalism. But effective rabbinical change leaders view stewardship as the beginning of their work.

Rabbinical leaders are tenaciously focused on a vision of how their congregations change people’s lives and their broader communities. You know them when you meet them because it feels like the vision has taken hold of them. They are unable and unwilling to let it go no matter how many times people suggest that they do. That is what I mean by a rabbi leading in front: communicating a simple, powerful, and inspirational picture of a significantly better future and engendering confidence in his or her ability to make it a reality.

LEADING BESIDE

Rabbis who effectively lead change learn that they need to move from leading in front to leading beside. In other words, they continue to directly participate in the change and implementation process, but stand far enough away so that they can also more objectively observe how the change is unfolding. As they release control of the grand vision to an initially small group and then a larger group of people, they ensure that the people who are doing the work have the necessary supports to move from ideation to implementation. They have the greatest knowledge context and content (they see the whole picture), better perceive the unanticipated gaps, and determine how to bridge them so that the process continues to advance. In their role as observer, they know how to keep individuals and groups focused on discrete tasks and guide them to see how they are contributing to something even more transcendent than any singular piece. As participants, they provide their team with momentum, modified as needed, but they do not compromise the most essential aspects of the vision. They keep the bar high when others are tempted to lower it, and challenge the group to raise it higher as they gain traction.

LEADING FROM THE MIDDLE

Leading from the front is like being the conductor of an orchestra: a hierarchically structured group of musicians with a director who interprets the music and unifies the group around it. Leading from the middle is more akin to leading a jazz band. Great jazz emerges from minimal musical structure and maximal musician autonomy. The conditions of minimal structure and maximal autonomy call for musical leaders and musicians who expect unpredictability, know when to let one another solo and when to play together, and assume mistakes will happen. But the leader understands that mistakes are opportunities for nimble adjustments and segues for continued learning. The truly incomparable jazz bandleader appreciates that innovation emerges from fusion and some confusion, finds exceptionally talented musicians, and challenges them to surpass the limits of what they believe are their own abilities. They are masters of improvisation and inhabit the domains of chaos and unpredictability. Jazz bandleaders not only thrive in disruption but also actually provoke it to prevent great musicians from devolving into great technicians.

A small number of rabbis in established congregations—and many rabbis in emerging congregations—are learning how to lead from the middle. They surround themselves with colleagues and volunteers who do not tolerate mediocrity. No one—not a staff person or volunteer—is automatically entitled to be involved in a major change effort, and these rabbinical leaders learn over time to politely say no to those who are interested in helping but not suited to the effort. They do not wait to complete 100 percent of the plan, but know that 80 percent is preferable, because they will fill in the details faster and more accurately by launching, learning, and improvising. They openly speak of mistakes, and while their volunteer leaders expect fiscal responsibility, they also understand that the pathway to excellence and success is often through trial and error. Leading in front is an established leadership attribute. Leading beside requires blending old and new skills. Leading from the middle—provoking learning through disruption and identifying and cultivating expert improvisers, may emerge as one of the more important new leadership capacities.

CONCLUSION

I offer this framework of leadership of in front, beside, and in the middle as one way of organizing enduring and emerging rabbinical leadership roles and, I believe, leadership roles in many other organizations. The truly great rabbinic leaders who change congregational life and their communities move in and out of these roles as needed; they are certainly not linear once the leading in front phase begins, but iterative. Within these rubrics, we can fill in many specific operational leadership tactics. However, for the purpose of this gathering, I hope that this leadership framework will provide helpful ideas in reconsidering congregational educational efforts and stimulate additional use ones.

I wish to acknowledge two publications that significantly influenced my thinking about jazz, improvisation, and leadership, one by Frank J. Barrett, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz (Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, 2012), and David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision-Making,” Harvard Business Review, November 2007.

Rabbi Hayim Herring (LC ’80, RS ’84), is an author, presenter, and organizational futurist, and CEO of HayimHerring.com, which “prepares today’s leaders for tomorrow’s organizations.” ™  He is a prolific author whose most recent works include Tomorrow’s Synagogue Today. Creating Vibrant Centers of Jewish Life (Alban 2012) and Keeping Faith in Rabbis: A Community Conversation on Rabbinical Education (Avenida Books 2014). He is currently working on a book titled Game On. Game Over. Congregations and Nonprofit Organizations 3.0, comparing the shared challenges of established and emerging Jewish and Lutheran congregations and nonprofit organizations. You can follow his blog at hayimherring.com or on Facebook at rabbihayimherring.

INTRODUCTION

I believe that synagogues are timely and timeless and can and should be responsive to the changing social contexts while bridging our ancient and rich tradition. The setting in which most American Jews are educated is the synagogue. Thus, if Jewish learning is to flourish we need to understand the transformations impacting that setting. I will address some of the changing social contexts in which synagogues find themselves and some of their implications: the narrative of scarcity, transactional vs. relational, the universalistic vs. particularistic focus, the nature of choice, and our changing understanding of the synagogue space and its application to congregational education.

THE NARRATIVE OF SCARCITY

Membership rosters at many synagogues and similarly, at congregational schools, have been on the decline for a number of years for several reasons, including, but not limited to, changes in patterns of belonging/ joining, individuals marrying and having families later, and a reversal of the suburban flight as many empty nesters move back to urban centers. We see this acutely in the geographical areas that experienced the most proliferation of synagogues in the 1950s and 1960s. As those running these synagogues realize that there is no quick marketing or programming fix to this trend of membership decline, panic has begun to set in. This panic and anxiety often leads to a narrative of scarcity. As resources are diminished, synagogue professional and lay leaders begin to fear any new entity that might appear in their backyard. What results from this lens of scarcity is often a pervasive and unhealthy competition. This competition can exist among synagogues or between synagogues and entrepreneurial ventures, JCCs, Chabad, or anything that appears to be a threat to the diminishing pool of prospective members.

The problem, as we are all aware, is that we continue to compete over the same third of the pie instead of applying a lens of abundance and seeing the opportunity that is ripe with the remaining unengaged two thirds of the pie. By changing the lens, synagogues could be more open to exploring creative partnerships and approaching their challenges with innovation. Synagogue change agents spend a lot of time on changing the narrative. They do this both with individual synagogue leaders and/or their boards by starting with “appreciative inquiry” and focusing on the existing assets (both material and people). In addition, they try to help synagogues uncover what their market potential is and then focus their efforts and their vision on that market. By honing in on their unique value and focusing on a particular niche, synagogues may remain stable and possibly experience growth. Trying to be one size fits all and offering something for everyone often is not good for anyone.

TRANSACTIONAL VS. RELATIONAL

Living within the larger context of a service economy has led many synagogues to become service stations—you pay for what you want and get it right away. This dynamic has led us down a rabbit hole mired in dues, abatement committees, and the erosion of the shared covenant between all stakeholders who the synagogue community is built upon. And this transactional relationship is not limited to the synagogue as a whole, but to its various components (i.e., congregational schools), which are more and more viewed as à la carte services. In Connected Congregations: From Dues and Membership to Sustaining Communities of Purpose, Beth Cousens writes expansively on this. We live in a context in which the word “community” is used freely in a wide variety of contexts, so much so that I use this word with caution. However, synagogues are in the business of building spiritual communities of purpose, and these communities must be nurtured over time on the core building blocks of relationships and what Allison Fine, author of The Networked Nonprofit and most recently Matterness calls “matterness.” Matterness is what individuals feel when they are connected to a synagogue and they feel known, valued, heard, and seen. Creating this environment takes time and intentionality; it is a practice. The trend we began to observe in the publication, Are Voluntary Dues Right for Your Synagogue? A Practical Guide, was that synagogues, in turning the conversation from mandatory to voluntary, were not merely saying, “This is a choice”—because it had been already for a number of years—but rather were saying “through your financial contribution and involvement you get to have a role in making this community happen.” While this dues model is not right for every congregation, the conversation that it evokes is most certainly critical for all. The financial model upon which most synagogues are based assumes a religious school fee built into everyone’s membership, even while sometimes adding on an additional fee for religious school families. As we see more and more people questioning the overall membership dues model, synagogues are moving toward considering alternative funding and engagement models. Congregational schools might benefit from being part of these critical conversations as they will not only be impacted by the outcome, but may have some valuable thinking to contribute given their deep connections with families and their children.

UNIVERSALISTIC VS. PARTICULARISTIC

Living in an “I” world, we have seen time and again that people seek connections with others through networks and communities, enhanced, expanded, and made more accessible by the ability to be virtual. And we have seen vast networks form to impact social change. The synagogue, rather than being seen as one of the original loci of community, is seen as antiquated and out of touch. As people lean further toward universalism, Judaism in general and synagogues specifically continue to be symbols of particularism. This dichotomy is forcing us to bifurcate our identities and the way and with whom we spend our time. In other words, synagogues become the place where we “do Jewish” and connect only with Jews, while the rest of our identities, particularly those thirsty for social change, are relegated to finding an outlet outside of the synagogue and are divorced from our Jewish selves. We are bombarded in our daily lives and through the media with images of social injustice. What if we could make meaning of these injustices and act on our values with others who felt similarly within the context of our synagogue? The clergy could speak about these issues from the bimah, the synagogue could join in solidarity with other local faith communities to address these issues, and synagogues could be the place where religious and moral obligation meet regularly and not just on mitzvah day. Now let’s be honest: to really do this means to sometimes hold in tension what we are told by our religious tradition and what we know through our contemporary sensibilities. But this authentic dialogue between the past and the present, between modernity and tradition, between the sacred and the secular can and should take place within the synagogue and its congregational school and would make both newly relevant.

OUR CHANGING UNDERSTANDING OF THE SYNAGOGUE SPACE

As our lives are increasingly mobile and virtual, it seems somewhat anachronistic that our synagogues are confined to the synagogue building. The implication is that we rarely think outside the walls of the synagogue building to meet people where they are and that we are often willing to go down with the building rather than adapt to our changing needs. In addition, we exclude, and often feel threatened by, some of the most creative modern iterations of “spiritual communities” because they don’t “look like” synagogues. In the face of changing needs, over the past year we have seen creative and innovative uses of existing synagogue buildings. Some synagogues are deliberately downsizing while others are seeking creative partnerships to share space. There are models of collaborative education, as well as models in which the education is taken out of the formal classroom and into other spaces such as people’s homes, museums, and coffee shops. For many years as synagogues were expanding, we invested heavily in prime real estate, and now that that real estate poses a real threat to our sustainability, there is an opportunity to embrace this limitation as a way to think more creatively about our use of space.

THE NARRATIVE OF CHOICE

We live in an era of infinite choice. This proliferation of options has created an open marketplace for just about everything. We are no longer in the days when the sole option for supplementary Jewish education was at the synagogue. Private tutoring, non-synagogue-based benei mitzvah training programs, and online training have grown in the marketplace. Synagogues can no longer afford to assume that families will come to the school because it is the only choice. Not only must the synagogue compete on quality, but it must also compete on price and the ability to customize or personalize the experience. There are significant implications for all Jewish educators as they consider alternative models and frameworks for engaging the 21st-century learner. As we learn from David Brooks’s article “The Moral Bucket List,” we need to focus on building both the “résumé virtues,” skills one brings to the marketplace, and the “eulogy virtues,” the ones that are talked about at your funeral. While synagogues contribute somewhat to the résumé virtues, where synagogues truly might corner the market is on helping build eulogy virtues. Synagogues and synagogue educators are in the core business of developing mentschlichkeit.

CONCLUSION

These issues reflect but a few of the changing social contexts that synagogues and their congregational schools currently face and must urgently address in order to continue to thrive. While the synagogue, on the one hand, has all of the gravitas and weight of tradition, it has also seen great change since its inception. This legacy of agility is one that we must build on in order to assure its future. Synagogues must continue to be responsive to the changing social contexts while bringing to bear all that their tradition has to offer.

Adina Frydman is the executive director of SYNERGY at UJA-Federation of NY, which helps synagogues thrive and, in doing so, seeks to advance the national field of synagogues. Prior to her current role, Adina was the director of SYNERGY Regions and SYNERGY Westchester program executive at UJA-Federation of New York. Before coming to New York in 2008, Adina was the director of Focus Israel at the St. Louis Jewish Federation, where she worked to foster engagement between synagogues and Israel. Adina received cantorial ordination from Hebrew Union College. Along with her husband Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow, she has four children and lives in White Plains, New York.