Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We celebrated our eldest daughter’s 13th birthday last week. Oren was born on a Friday during the period between sunset and nightfall — a magical hour called bein hashmashot — about which the rabbis were uncertain if it belonged to Friday or to Shabbat. It’s the quintessential liminal time in Jewish tradition and, in one of my favorite mishnayot, it’s the moment during the waning seconds of the six days of creation when God creates 10 mystical objects, including Moses’s staff, the tablets of the law, the mouth of the earth that swallowed Korach, the letters of language and the written word, the rainbow that sealed the covenant with Noah, and — of all delightfully mundane things — the first pair of tongs (if not, how would humans have made more tongs?).
Liminality is very close in mind for me at the moment, as I’m in the waning moments of my tenure as President of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Transitional times like these are always good opportunities for cheshbon hanefesh, the reflective recounting of the soul that forms the centerpiece of the High Holidays. As I look back on my five years with the Foundation, the dominant theme, which underlies everything else, is gratitude.
I’m grateful to the board and professional team at LKFLT, who’ve trusted and supported me, collaborated with me and with each other, and done work of which we can all be proud. I’m grateful to colleagues in Jewish philanthropy who, from my first day in my role, have been my teachers, thought partners, advisors, and confidantes, helping to ground me in ethical philanthropy, sharpening my thinking, and warding me against funders’ inevitable hubris. And—in the spirit of Rabbi Chanina’s observation (Talmud Bavli Taanit 7a), “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from my students”—I’m grateful most of all to LKFLT’s grantee partners, from whose work, whose commitment to learning and adaptation, and whose critical thinking I’ve benefited most of all.
I’ll circle back to my eldest daughter by way of closing. I’ve had the gift of learning with Oren as she prepares for her upcoming bat mitzvah. Her parshah — Nitzavim — overflows with wisdom, and she’s drawn from all of it in weaving together an incredible dvar torah. As we slowly emerge from these past 18 months, Oren has appropriately placed at the center of her teaching the line (Deuteronomy 30:19-20), “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life!” If what I’m taking away from this experience is gratitude, what I’ll leave is a blessing, inspired by that powerful line in our tradition, filtered through Tony Kushner’s visionary tour de force, Angels in America. As the play comes to a close, Prior Walter turns to address the audience and offers a final blessing: “Bye now. You are fabulous, each and every one. And I bless you: More life! The great work begins.”
Aaron
P.S. My last day as President of LKFLT is July 16. After that, please direct any questions related to Foundation business to Valerie Rosenberg, Chief of Staff, at valerie@lippmankanfer.org. Going forward, you can reach me at aaron.dorfman@gmail.com.
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Grants for Applied Jewish Wisdom
The following, recently funded projects apply particular Jewish wisdom to universal human questions.
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Universal Human Question
How can we promote and teach the value of constructive disagreement?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Pardes’s Mahloket Matters: How to Disagree Constructively promotes mahloket l’shem shamayim / disagreement for the sake of heaven, the ancient Jewish value of constructive disagreement, which has deep relevance today. By learning to apply this foundational concept to real-life situations, students become better prepared to meet today's unique challenges and to develop into emotionally resilient, well-informed, and thoughtful young adults.
Project
Mahloket Matters is a six-part educational series designed to empower Jewish communities to use Jewish values, text, and conflict resolution skills to constructively engage in difficult ideological and political conversations.
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Universal Human Question
How might we prevent and respond to sexual harassment, abuse, and other institutional abuses of power in the workplace?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
The work of ending abuse is a moral imperative that goes to the core of what it means to be Jewish. Grounding this work in Jewish wisdom helps institutions operate from a place of shared narratives and values thereby maximizing their efforts.
Project
Sacred Spaces’ expert consultants have found that organizations that want to jump into the work of policy development and training around sexual harassment and abuse of power need to first engage in a “readiness” phase that lays the groundwork for the substantive work ahead. To that end, Sacred Spaces and Reconstructing Judaism’s Center for Jewish Ethics are developing a Jewish Ethics Study Guide on Respect and Responsibility for use by Jewish professionals and lay leaders across the denominational spectrum.
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Universal Human Question
How might we strengthen relationships between learners and educators at all levels?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Hadar’s goal is to empower thoughtful, passionate, and engaged Jewish professionals to embark on learning dedicated to wrestling with the questions currently confronting the Jewish community and the world. Hadar utilizes one of the oldest Jewish pedagogical practices, chavruta/relational learning.
Project
This grant funds Hadar’s Pedagogy of Partnership (PoP) and its Jewish Wisdom Fellowship. PoP provides intensive ongoing training to Jewish educators and school leaders in applying its innovative methodology of relational chavruta learning in the classroom. The Jewish Wisdom Fellowship offers an intimate cohort experience to support the professional and religious growth of mid-career Jewish professionals, empowering them to apply Jewish wisdom to everything they do. Through a combination of guided learning, chavruta, and group work, the Fellowship will enable Jewish professionals to probe our tradition for wisdom that will help them and the communities they serve to navigate contemporary social, moral, and spiritual challenges.
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Universal Human Question
How might we empower people to be joyful, rigorous, nuanced, and compassionate learners, listeners, and community builders?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
With Pedagogy In Practice: A Talmud Fellowship, Hebrew College and SVARA are partnering to reimagine the way in which rabbis teach Talmud with a shared commitment to elevating the relevance of Talmud as a central mechanism for understanding, shaping, and radically reimagining contemporary Jewish life.
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Pedagogy in Practice anchors its fellows in two core convictions: 1. Everyone can learn Talmud in its original Hebrew and Aramaic language; and 2. Successful Talmud teaching must include the creation of a culture of joy, empowerment, and acceptance. These two convictions, translated into concrete pedagogical techniques by Rabbi Dr. Jane Kanarek and Rabbi Benay Lappe, will provide Hebrew College rabbinical students and alumni with the ability to teach Talmud in their communities, thereby helping them to create Jewish cultures that are simultaneously grounded in ancient tradition and creatively imagining new possibilities.
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Universal Human Question
How might we build healthier relationships in all areas of life?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
JWI's Clergy Task Force on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community has created two Jewish text-based vehicles to promote healthy relationships: Rethinking Guides, which use core Jewish holiday texts; and Shamor L’Amour (“Protecting Sacred Love”), which runs each February with Valentine’s Day as an opening for discussing healthy relationships in the context of the month’s parshiyot. Both present content in Hebrew, English, and transliteration with commentaries and conversation prompts.
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This grant supports JWI to update, expand, redesign, produce, and disseminate their Rethinking Guides and Shamor L’Amour; to create related training opportunities for clergy and laypeople; and to run a public-awareness campaign promoting both the issues and resources.
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Universal Human Question
How can social activists live with dignity, courage, and compassion to reflect the social systems they are working to create?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Kirva’s Inside Out Wisdom and Action (IOWA) Project is developing a new educational Mussar offering designed to provide spiritual nourishment for Jewish racial justice activists; offer Torah wisdom as an additional tool for experienced racial justice trainers; and help Jewish social justice organizations, synagogues, and campus social justice groups ground their racial justice work in Jewish wisdom and practice.
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Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out is a program that brings Mussar wisdom to the task of becoming antiracist in both heart and deed. The central components of the project are a 10-session curriculum and trainings developed by Rabbi David Jaffe and community organizer Yehudah Webster to integrate racial justice instruction with Mussar wisdom and practice.
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Universal Human Question
How might we confront and combat the climate crisis with integrity and honesty?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
At its most elemental, the climate crisis represents a threat to the very idea of living l’dor v’dor. Dayenu is asking: will the generations continue and what kind of lives will they be able to lead?
Project
The two most important paradigms for addressing the climate crisis are mitigation and adaptation. To that effect, Dayenu’s Lo B’shamayim Hi application of Jewish wisdom to the climate crisis is pursuing multiple strategies that fall within two broader approaches: (1) Mobilizing Jews, Jewish communities, and Jewish institutions for bold political action; and (2) Supporting Jews to live with spiritual integrity in this time of crisis. Dayenu's strategies include running spiritual-adaptation workshops, creating original content around the Jewish calendar, generating new Jewish climate music, and researching and experimenting with diverse creative modalities.
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Universal Human Question
How might we increase our empathy by better understanding the complexities of identity and belonging within society?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
All episodes of The Dybbukast explore creative texts, either written by Jews within their communities or connected specifically to Jewish experiences. The episodes then use these texts to illuminate the particularities of what it means to survive, thrive, and struggle within dominant cultures.
Project
During the pandemic, theatre dybbuk created The Dybbukast, a Jewish wisdom podcast and engagement program that combines performed readings with scholar interviews in order to explore sources of inspiration and creative texts from throughout Jewish history. Podcast episodes investigate universal issues connected to assimilation, cultural domination, and social justice. With this grant, theatre dybbuk will make this program a permanent offering.
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Universal Human Question
How might we cultivate greater compassion, patience, and gratitude through mindfulness and spiritual practices?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Inspired by the teachings of Neo-Hasidism, IJS’s core practice areas include Jewish mindfulness meditation; contemplative Torah study; tikkun middot (character refinement); and embodied practices like Jewish yoga, niggun, and tefillah.
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IJS is building on the Spiritual Resilience offerings it developed during the pandemic by expanding three programs: 1. Daily Online Meditation, in which IJS already has an average of 350 people attending; 2. Open My Heart, IJS’s new prayer podcast, which explores ways to make Jewish prayer both personal and meaningful; and 3. Jewish Yoga Studio, which offers all-levels yoga and movement sessions informed by Jewish spiritual teachings and designed to help us live with a greater sense of ease, purpose, and alignment.
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Universal Human Question
How might we work together to celebrate difference and cultivate a greater sense of belonging even in the face of racism and exclusion?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
The work JOIN does is rooted in the principles of Shabbat, which the rabbis refer to as me’ein olam ha-ba, “a taste of the world to come.” We come closer to a world that reflects our values and treats all of God’s creations with dignity by working through the realities of this messy world.
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JOIN is building the first-ever national fellowship program for training Jews of color (JOC)s in organizing. It aims to build the JOC leadership pipeline, and to meet the need for training, spiritual nourishment, network building, and embrace by Jewish institutions.
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Universal Human Question
How might we ensure that there is meaningful alignment between the contents and methods of education, so they can addresses today’s biggest challenges?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Within Jewish tradition, there are particular ways of increasing wellbeing which can be drawn from practices of Mussar, Hitbodedut, and prayer. If investigated and thought of through an educational lens, these Jewish practices can be built out to create educational methods used by educators across settings
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M² is launching two practitioner-oriented research fellowships. One is a second round of the Jewish Pedagogies Project, where Jewish texts and ideas inform fellows’ research to create new Jewish pedagogies that address today’s burning challenges. The second fellowship will address practices that can strengthen health and wellbeing in educational spaces, informed by ideas from the worlds of Mussar and Jewish spirituality
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Universal Human Question
How might we support leaders to make Jewish organizations leading places to work and serve?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
The Leading Edge team is engaged in the process of excavating a range of Jewish wisdom which they can apply to all areas of their work.
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Leading Edge will experiment with multiple modalities to bring about healthier workplace cultures by changing leaders’ behavior. These modalities include using a beit midrash model to grapple communally, and through a Jewish lens, with issues such as the persistent gender gap in Jewish leadership; learning more about the principle of dan l’chaf z’chut (judging people favorably) to foster psychological safety; and exploring how Jewish actions and rituals or na’aseh v’nishma can be overlaid with the fundamentals of behavioral science to fashion processes for leaders to improve their workplace cultures.
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A More Perfect Union Grants
The following, recently funded projects apply Jewish wisdom to strengthen American democratic norms and institutions.
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Universal Human Question
How might we counter toxic forms of division within our communities to foster a sense of belonging for all?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
One America Movement (OAM) and Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation’s (NVHC) work calls on shared Jewish identity and Jewish wisdom to overcome communal divides. The Torah itself is a political document; being a people rooted in Torah means studying and addressing politics. Additionally, peacemaking is a Jewish tradition: Rabbeinu Yonah comments on Pirkei Avot 1.12, saying: “Hillel says, ‘Be of the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving the creatures, and bringing them closer to Torah.’”
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OAM and NVHC will train rabbis to guide their congregations to healthier practices and beliefs that will help build resilience to toxic polarization. This pilot program will train 8-12 rabbis from the Reform Movement in the curriculum developed during 2020’s Faith, Polarization, and Democracy (FPD) project. The cohort will dive deep into the FPD-developed training, meet to build community, share experiences and best practices, and support each other.
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Universal Human Question
How might we build a pluralistic, democratic society in which people with political and ideological differences can live together in equal dignity and mutual loyalty?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Resetting the Table’s goal is to actualize and disseminate the Jewish wisdom of “heavenly argument” and “elu v’elu” in this moment in American history in which the inability to communicate productively across political divides has become a defining national crisis. Heavenly argument is perhaps Judaism’s most sorely needed contribution to the current U.S. public sphere.
Project
RTT will expand its community screening tour of PURPLE, a film capturing “heavenly argument” on charged issues in American life. The tour has already led to 290+ screenings in 49 states nation-wide, reaching churches, synagogues, Christian colleges, high schools, middle schools, public libraries, museums, think tanks, and non-profit organizations – from rural North Dakota, Mississippi, and Montana to Brooklyn, DC, and Los Angeles. With this grant, dozens if not hundreds more communities will use PURPLE and its accompanying Discussion Guide to build skills for "heavenly argument" across political differences and to foster greater empathy and hope for breaking through our country's divisions.
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Universal Human Question
How might we better bring the wisdom of faith traditions to bear on American democracy?
Jewish Wisdom Applied
Center for American Progress (CAP) relies heavily on the contributions of Jewish, as well as Christian, Muslim, and other religious leaders, to share their insights on how best to strengthen American democracy. Each of the faith leaders CAP engages views the work of protecting democracy as necessarily multireligious.
Project
In 2020, CAP interviewed 28 pro-democracy religious leaders from diverse backgrounds – scholars, activists, and congregational leaders from diverse geographies, religious traditions, generations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and gender identities – and asked them to articulate their core concerns at the intersection of their wisdom traditions and American democracy. Now, CAP will build upon this work by ensuring that the new framework they synthesized reaches policymakers, journalists, and other stakeholders, allowing them to better understand the coalitional landscape of the pro-democracy faith movement. CAP will also dive deeper into exploring key insights that particular wisdom traditions have to offer American democracy.
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Collecting These Times and American Jewish Life
The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) is well into its project collecting, organizing, preserving, and presenting materials generated by American Jews during the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out Collecting These Times to contribute materials or to browse any of a number of different American Jewish collection projects, including American Jewish Life.
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Collecting These Times Oral Histories
For its part of the Collecting These Times project, The Council of American Jewish Museums has now recorded more than 400 oral histories for the initiative!
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More Mikvahs
As Mayyim Hayyim develops its mikvah fellowship for clergy students, we were proud to see that it was recently featured in eJewishPhilanthropy for its plan to become a flagship that helps new communities secure their own funding and build new mikvahs.
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Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards
Jewish Scholastic Press Association recently celebrated its annual Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards. Journalists from 11 schools submitted 106 entries, and there’s a great range of work across the award categories. The Grand Prize was a tie for the first time in the program’s existence.
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Collective Compassion
Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative has launched a new website, Collective Compassion. There, young people and their parents can find mental health resources, including a comic section that introduces relaxation techniques and explains their ties to Jewish wisdom, as well as a course to help adults support people ages 12-21.
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Exploring Jewish Views of the Afterlife: Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives
In a three-part series from Shomer Collective, Reb Dr. Simcha Raphael, Founding Director of the DA’AT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy and Training, has been leading an exploration of little-known teachings on the afterlife journey of the soul found in both traditional and mystical Judaism. Sessions are self-contained. A recording will be available soon of the first session, and the next two are upcoming.
Session 1 | Afterlife in Biblical and Rabbinic Tradition: Sheol and Olam Haba | RECORDING AVAILABLE SOON
Session 2 | Afterlife in Kabbalistic Tradition: Post-Mortem Journey of the Soul, Monday, July 19, 7:00-8:30 PM ET | RSVP
Session 3 | Afterlife & Contemporary Death Rituals: Spiritual Wisdom for Today, Monday, July 26, 7:00-8:30 PM ET | RSVP
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A Reconstructionist Day of Learning on Reparations to begin the Month of Elul
On Sunday, August 8, 2021, 11:00 AM ET, Reconstructing Judaism will be holding a special Hallel service followed by multiple learning sessions on reparations to begin the month of Elul. Find more information here.
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Congratulations!
The Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Class 33 fellows were recently announced, and we were thrilled to see Jericho Vincent, leader of our grantee partner Shuva, in the cohort!
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Board Chair Transition
We are excited to announce that Mamie Kanfer Stewart is stepping into the role of Board Chair of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. For the past eight years, Marcella Kanfer Rolnick has provided tremendous vision and guidance in her service as Founding Board Chair, and she will continue to provide leadership as a member of the board as we move from strength to strength.
Mamie is a founding member of the LKFLT Board and brings to her new role years of experience in management consulting and nonprofit board service. She believes passionately that how we work is just as important as what we accomplish.
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Recommended Reading/Listening/Watching
- Pew Research Center’s Jewish Americans in 2020 has been circulated widely and been the subject of many discussions and presentations since its release on May 11. Some of the organizations that have hosted webinars/events have made their recordings available: 18 Doors and Jews of Color Initiative, Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis, and Pew Research Center itself.
- Shalom Hartman Institute’s new Sources Journal includes an interesting piece by Mijal Bitton in which she explores feminist critiques of Jewish pro-natalism and whether continuity and feminism can be reconciled.
- PACE held a fascinating conversation between Yuval Levin and Faith In/And Democracy Storyteller and Analyst Michael Wear about what makes strong institutions, what enables an institution to work across difference, and what we have learned over the last year about the role institutions play in our lives and the relationship between institutions and individuals.
- We enjoyed reading Prizmah's recent monthly newsletter focused on Race and School Culture. There are a lot of interesting articles, including "DEI in Jewish Schools: What’s at Stake for Jews of Color," by Heather Miller.
- We were interested in the mahloket engendered by Yitz Greenberg's "Judaism and the Politics of Tikkun Olam," featured in Sapir, the new journal from the Maimonides Fund and edited by Felicia Herman and Bret Stephens. Shai Held and Avi Killip both penned “disheartened” responses to the piece in which they took issue with Yitz’s arguments.
- National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy shared perspectives from multiple thought leaders in philanthropy about how the field should look a couple of generations from now.
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