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This year is Havurat Shalom’s Jubilee – our 50 th year! In celebration of which, this newsletter shares some of the members’ and alums’ thoughts on turning 50 and the 50 th reunion we had in May.
Notes on the 50th Reunion
by Larry Rosenwald
The 50th reunion was for me an intense, exhilarating experience. I count myself fortunate to have been there - in prayer, in conversation, in song, as speaker, as shaliach tzibbur, as listener. I haven’t often felt so alive in community as I did over that long weekend. I wish I could bottle that feeling and drink from it as needed, though of course the essence of the feeling was precisely that it was transient, that it couldn’t be bottled but only experienced, at that moment, in that place, with those people.
In that context – and it really is in that context, not detached from it, not negating it – I’ve found myself pondering one question in particular since the weekend, a question about the difference between the standpoints of the founding and early members and those of present members. (It may be pertinent that I am on the one hand of the same generation as the founding members, a bit younger than some, the exact age of others, and on the other hand a relatively recent member of Havurat Shalom, having started coming in 2003 and joined in 2004.)
Some of the most eloquent statements made during the reunion were made by founding members, a good number tinged with melancholy. David Roskies’ Tablet essay, which as he told me he wrote because he couldn’t attend the reunion, was among them, evoking a lost utopia or paradise. Michael Strassfeld said during the reunion’s final session, “we’ve come to the end of traditional prayer.” Also in that session, Art Green referred to Havurat Shalom as his community in exile, which I took to mean, the community he felt he was an exile from. He also said, or at least my notes record him as saying, “we have not succeeded . . . Orthodoxy is in the ascendancy . . . We were too purist.” Other early members had more cheerful assessments, though I seem not to have recorded them (because it was shabes, perhaps, or because by temperament I’m more drawn to gloom). What all of those assessments have in common, though, cheerful ones and gloomy ones alike, is a desire to sum up what is past, which can be summed up precisely because it is past.
For current members, the Hav is present. Our assessments of where we are need to be formulated with present and future tenses, and summing up feels less urgent than taking stock or changing course, e.g., continuing with the unfinished siddur project, figuring out less rigidly gendered modes of calling people for aliyot, taking care of present members in need, keeping the house in good repair.
Thinking about this opposition, I was suddenly aware of something else, something that I found illuminating. I’ve gone to, and loved, all of my high school reunions. When we go to such reunions, we are reuniting ourselves with people with whom we shared a particular moment in time. That moment was always going to be finite, bounded, since we were always going to stop being students in that high school; we made no choice to leave, we could not stay, we just graduated. The nostalgia we feel at such reunions, the intense memories that surface and become the substance of our conversations, are shaped by the fact that our departure from our shared experience was necessary, a matter of growing up.
The Hav is different – less like a high school, more like a utopian community. The decision to leave was indeed a decision, as is, for the current members, the decision to stay. Sometimes the decision to leave is almost inevitable, of course; one leaves the area, one leaves the congregation. But often it’s a decision that has been made freely and deliberately, in relation to one’s sense of oneself or one’s family, one’s relation to Jewish law and Jewish observance, one’s relation to utopia or paradise or gan-eydn. A good many people at the reunion were, one might say, exiles by choice, not having graduated the way high school students do, not having been banished as Adam and Eve were, or as Jews have so often been. One kind of story I’d have loved to hear more might be called, “why I left the Havurah;” and maybe it should have been in counterpoint with the other and opposing story, “why I’ve stayed [notice that here too the verb tenses need to change, from past to present perfect] at the Havurah.”
Which ungratified curiosity doesn’t make me in the least ungrateful for the gifts and illuminations the reunion offered; rather it makes me look forward to future conversations and future reunions, future experiences of this blessed and beloved community.
Speaking of Israel
By Heidi Friedman
For many years, certainly since before I joined in 1992 or ’93, the Havurah deliberately avoided discussing Israel. We were afraid that it would be too contentious a topic. In fact, this was made explicit years ago when Larry Rosenwald asked, “why don’t we ever talk about Israel?” And he was answered, “we’re afraid it’s too contentious!” However, the organizers of the 50 th reunion decided it was time. They set up a panel on Israel, chaired by Mona Fishbane. And, still hesitant to open a potential can of worms, they directed the panelists to be non-political. So, Bella Savran, Alfie Marcus and Seymour Epstein shared their interesting, but largely non-political, experiences of Israel. After hearing these very stories of alums, many of us felt it was clear that it is our moral responsibility to at least discuss the complex political aspects of Israel - Israeli settlements and security, the rights of Israeli Arabs, the rights of Palestinians, the obstacles to peace. So, a second discussion of Israel was hastily planned for later in the day. And at that second talk, Leora Zeitlin suggested we could take up a special collection for Israeli tzedakah. In consultation by text with Betsy Batya Kallus in Israel, we decided to send tzedakah in honor of the reunion to Tsofen, Sikkuy, Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development, and Hillel Levine’s workplace, the International Center for Reconciliation.
After hearing Shira Freewoman, Larry Rosenwald, Art Green and some of our next generation, young adults Amalia Kelter Zeitlin and Lev Alden Grey, speak eloquently about the past, present, and possible future of Israel and American Jewry’s relationship to Israel, I left determined that the Havurah will at least talk about Israel from now on, no matter how difficult the discussion might be. We’ve started with perhaps the easiest of possible Israel discussion topics for us: what prayer for Israel, if any, do we want to have in our davening? And although I will encourage us to continue on to more difficult topics, having heard more about the early history of the Havurah at the reunion, I think it’s fitting that our automatic emphasis and concern is still, after 50 years, on davening.
Jubilation
(On Turning 50)
In the year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to what you had. --Lev. 25:13
All things return to their first owners:
the slave returns to being free,
the rivers flow back to the sea,
the greenness of the leaf into the light of sun,
the many turns back into the One.
Ideas return to their conception,
the omelet becomes its eggs,
laughter turns back to the gleam within the eye,
and music to the timbrel and the sigh.
And friendships turn back to their first encounters,
wars collapse into first slaps and rage,
and commerce changes back to needs and means,
and wisdom turns back into pain.
The prime of life becomes a second childhood,
the lion’s roar becomes the mewling of the cub,
the empire becomes a clearing in the wood,
the ship of state, three paddlers in a tub.
Philosophy returns to poetry and song,
the conundrum back to quandary and doubt,
the epic back to unrest in the skies,
Beethoven’s Ninth to psalmist’s shout.
And memory becomes anticipation,
and waking life becomes a dream,
experience returns to innocence,
the salmon struggles back upstream.
The tapestry returns to weaver’s loom,
the world in all its fullness to the mind of God.
And history, which now seems spent and through,
returns to the potential, to begin anew.
- Joel Rosenberg, 1993
A Few Thoughts on Money at the Hav
Heidi Friedman
At the 50 th reunion, Sharon Strassfeld and Felicia Mednick led a group discussion on money. Sharon stressed the importance of transparency around finances in the family, and Felicia talked about how in the US, we do not talk about money. In that light, a few transparent stories of the Havurah and money, filtered through the lens of my particular biases and imperfect memory.
When I came to the Havurah in the early 1990s, there was a sliding scale suggested for one’s dues which was capped at $500. As $500 became less than it used to be, the question was raised, why this cap? Some felt the cap was not fair. So, the business meeting started to talk about what the new dues structure should be. This turned out to be such a contentious topic, that we had to shelve the discussion to cool off. Then, rather than return to the question of dues directly, we had a period of time when during the business meeting we had text study on money in the Torah. Eventually, this led to our current dues policy of an $18, half-shekel terumah/poll tax equivalent (Exodus 30:13), and if you can afford more than that, a sliding scale based on contemporary progressive practice, but also on the prescribed hata'a or sin offering (Leviticus 5:6-11). The sliding scale’s levels are the descriptions: struggling, just barely making it, doing okay, comfortable, very comfortable and extremely comfortable. Members self-identify where they are on this scale, and no one has to ask permission of anyone regarding the amount of dues that they pay. There is no application for financial aid or dictum that you owe according to your taxes.
Another money question from the 1990s: would it be possible to have comfortable chairs? From today’s vantage point, it seems obvious that good chairs are a necessary requirement of an organization that offers public services and has had hundreds of people show up for Kol Nidre. But at the time, there was a lot of concern about whether we could spend what seemed like significant money to replace what we termed the cruel chairs (riff on Steve Martin’s cruel shoes?). The cruel chairs had been picked up off the street by the first Havurah members. They were uncomfortable for those who opted not to sit on the floor, but still usable. Eventually, we bought new chairs and even managed to put the cruel chairs out on the curb, whence they came, and were perhaps rescued by some young, counter-culture idealists starting a new religious community…
And speaking of things a shul needs, a money crisis blew up when Brandeis took back the small Torah scroll that had been on permanent (we thought) loan to the Havurah. A Torah scroll is expensive. Did we really need two scrolls? Yes, we did. Was it okay to spend a lot of money to buy ourselves a Torah scroll? Maybe not. In the end, we were fortunate to be able to get a scroll from a shul that was selling some of theirs for the reasonable price of $5,000, provided that we spent an equal amount in tzedakah. We did this by making a long-term loan of $5,000 to the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization’s Nehemiah Project.
Aside from these occasional, specific discussions of things that cost money, when I joined the Havurah and for many years, we mostly didn’t talk about money. Most of us didn’t want to think about it, professed not to be able to understand it, and were relieved that Aliza did the treasurer stuff and it seemed like there was always enough money. Then came 2008. Carolyn was treasurer then and she suggested to the business meeting that we needed an austerity budget. This was sobering, but fortunately, for people who sit on the floor and question the need for chairs, going frugal was not that difficult.
Now, looking at a budget report is a standing item on the business meeting agenda. This was partly inspired by my hearing the Dali Lama say that transparency in finances is of the utmost importance. We all try to pay attention to the money that comes in and what we spend it on. We make an annual budget that we mostly stick to as the year progresses. And the majority of the money that comes in is donations made by Havurah alums.
In the money discussion at the reunion, Ellen Krause-Grosman talked about how each of us has both privilege of some kind and is also oppressed in some way at the same time. Someone who might have the privilege of wealth might also have the oppression of being a woman in a sexist society. Someone who might be oppressed by poverty or financial insecurity might have white skin privilege. In describing this, Ellen also pointed out that having access to friends or family with privilege confers privilege on you. And now I see that the Havurah certainly benefits greatly from having the privilege of access to alumni and alumnae with wealth.
The Havurah’s newest move towards having and relating to money is that we’re starting an endowment fund in the hopes that down the road proceeds from it can flow into the operating budget. To kick it off, the Havurah has just bought two $1,000 mini bonds from the city of Somerville. In this way, we support the city that supports us, even though we don’t pay taxes. (And if you want to donate to the endowment, please feel “free”!)
At the reunion money discussion, Felicia described the cost sharing process Achiot Or used to pay for its retreat in a way that was fair for everyone. It involved candid sharing of one’s finances with the group, assessing financial needs and talking about the feelings all of this stirs up. (This methodology was once written up in Bridges, if you want to know more about it.) I remarked that the reunion was paid for with a less public, less process-y version of cost sharing in that everyone was encouraged to pay what they could and here we were. ( continued next column)
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