As part of our recent convention, B’yachad: Reconstructing Judaism Together, we shared this video of a new setting for Hinei Mah Tov by RRC student Solomon Hoffman. It features over 150 Reconstructionists representing 40 of our communities from across North America and beyond. The participants reflect the spectrum of our movement—lay leaders, Rabbis, Cantors, students, teachers, children, elders, musicians, singers, dancers, artists—all sharing in this collective project.
Spirituality
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Before Ritualwell was a website containing more than 2,200 liturgy and rituals crowdsourced by Jews, it was an idea of where to put dozens of scraps of paper in the drawers of offices in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Kolot: Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies in Wyncote.
In 2001, RRC and Kolot, in partnership with Ma’yan, a Jewish feminist organization, uploaded the prayers scrawled on those papers to the newfangled Internet, creating an archive of Jewish writing that filled in the gaps of liturgies and practices that historically excluded women and LGBTQ+ Jews. Community members were invited to write and submit their own liturgies and rituals.
Almost two decades later, Ritualwell has not only become a library of prayers and poetry, but an online community center for Jews looking to hone their skills through writing workshops and classes.
On January 24, 2021, Reconstructionists gathered for a virtual day of learning entitled "God?: A Reconstructionist Conversation". Videos of the learning sessions are available below.
In this time of mounting uncertainty, in which the COVID-19 coronavirus is disrupting normal life and bringing it to a near-standstill, we offer you a Virtual Shabbat Box. This Shabbat Box doesn’t contain challah or candles, but rather essays, meditations and other resources for your senses that you can download and digest for Shabbat.
“We accept the responsibility for changing and for changing this world. That is what people need to stay in hope. And without hope, there is no energy for no creative new solutions,” says Rabbi Amy Bernstein in this moving video, Tashlikh Reconstructed.
Reconstructing Judaism's support of entrepreneurship gives rabbinical students and recent graduates the funding, supervision and mentorship to turn ideas into reality. “For me, the big story is that Jews remain seekers of meaning and community. What our Auerbach grants do is create new portals for Jewish community and meaning,” said Cyd Weissman, Reconstructing Judaism’s vice president for Innovation and Impact.
Reconstructing Judaism has just rolled out Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations with the intention of hosting difficult, groundbreaking conversations that are nevertheless mutually respectful and supportive. We invite you to visit Evolve and to join the conversations!
As we continue to develop new ways to build community across time and distance, we must also continue to find ways to “be there” for one another.
Why belong to the Jewish people? Why belong to a synagogue? Why belong to the Reconstructionist movement? These are some of the most important questions that I am asked and that I, along with all of us at Reconstructing Judaism, strive to answer powerfully and convincingly.
What does Judaism teach us about how to respond to accusations of harassment or assault?
Serving Jewish prisoners in state prison, rabbinic students find new perspectives on freedom and responsibility.
In our final conversation with Rabbi Deborah Waxman, we looked at new Reconstructionist approaches to God and the language of the divine.
Our third Reconstructing for Tomorrow conversation with Rabbi Deborah Waxman focused on unpacking the ideological and practical differences between the Reconstructionist and Reform movements.
In our second session of Reconstructing for Tomorrow, we were led in a discussion about the spiritual and tangible ways we can integrate ecological values into our Jewish lives.
In our third session with author Abigail Pogrebin, we talked about taking an "Elijah moment" at our Passover celebrations: enacting change in the world in an effective and fulfilling way.
In our second session with author Abigail Pogrebin, we talked about "embracing the other" in our holiday celebrations and reinterpreting the Hannukah story to embrace this idea.
Our first session of Reconstructing for Tomorrow, led by Rabbi Deborah Waxman, began the difficult and exciting task of grappling with the history of the Reconstructionist movement and the questions of Jewish peoplehood in the future.
Rabbi Shelly Barnathan, the 2017 Launch Grant recipient, is busy creating a co-constructed network of baby boomers and empty nesters, a commonly-overlooked generation within the Jewish community. Her project, Or Zarua, features "holy conversations" over coffee and musical Shabbat dinners.
Ariana Katz, the inaugural recipient of the 2016 Launch Grant, created "Kaddish," a podcast about illness, death, and mourning in Jewish ritual traditions. Her work seeks to build an online community that "holds space at the intersection of life and death."
How do you pray, anyway? Rabbi Jacob Staub explores this seemingly simple question.
At Rosh Hashanah, as we turn to new beginnings, we seek to repent—to do teshuvah—for what we have done wrong. And we can also affirmatively foster ourselves toward resilience—toward a thriving, loving outlook in spite of whatever challenges we encounter in life. In this video, I explore themes of resilience embedded into Jewish practice.
Examination of Rabbi Kelilah Miller's papercut, "Human, Why Do You Sleep?"
Information about Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg's book
The high holy days are a time of collective and personal renewal. We ask ourselves "what do we value?" "What do we cherish?" We deepen our ongoing Jewish human project of creating a just and peaceful society and living a just and peaceful life. And we inquire "what is the relationship between the inner and the outer work of transformation?"
We meet our inner stranger when we pause. We meet our fears, our longings, our agitated heart and our peaceful soul. We tend to project our inner stranger on to the other, the ones we know and the ones we don't know. The high holiday leads us to interconnection and oneness. We meet the stranger within and without in order to rest in the One, to remember who we are and what matters. Together we walk toward that day of at one ment.
—Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg
An essay on travel to Eastern Europe, and the strangeness and familiarity found there.
Theme song to the Hashivenu podcast, composed by Chana Rothman.
In an essay that appeared in Philadelphia's Jewish Exponent, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., makes the case that Reconstructionist Judaism matters now more than ever.
In this award-winning High Holiday sermon, RRC student Elyssa Cherney explores where holiness resides.
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., explains why spirituality can be such an important aspect of mental health.
Reflections on the spirituality of impending parenthood.
