Things that work...

Jeremy

Today, we thought we would write about the Hadar Alumni Shabbaton. This involved over 100 former and current students of Yeshivat Hadar descending on the Stamford Hilton (as the sign outside the town said: "Stamford—the city that works"). I wanted to start by reminiscing on the awesomeness of almost constant eating and/or davening. A room full of really committed, experienced people doing the shabbat morning service was something really not to be missed.

Miri

You're right, the davening throughout the weekend was really fantastic! I've never been at a more enthusiastic, engaged and song filled Sunday morning shacharit. It was also great to see the diversity and strength of the Hadar alumni community. People flew in from all over the country (which in America means they came a really long way). The faculty came without their families seemingly to spend the weekend almost continuously answering halakhic, religious and personal questions from their alumni.

Jeremy

For sure. The way I saw it, there were 2 main purposes to the weekend: (1) for the alumni to reconnect with old friends with whom they spent a summer/year/week-long programme forging community; and (2) for the faculty to see the true success of their project, to see so many people who have taken their mission of halakhic egalitarianism to heart. I remember wondering on shabbat morning what it would be like if all these people, spread as they are all over the country, were living in the same place—the Upper West Side, for example. Would that be a revolution in American Jewry, if the already successful egalitarian communities like Kehilat Hadar had all of these people in their community?

Miri

It sounds like you're implying that that would be a good thing ...? I'm not sure that's true. Being on the Upper West Side, my belief in the virtues and benefits of smaller communities can outweigh the opportunities that really massive communities have the theoretical potential to provide. If people have to work for their community it looks very different than if you can take it for granted—if everyone had the option of turning up for davening every week with exactly the same people, would it happen?

Jeremy

But that's Hadar's vision: to get those people who are really dedicated to this cause, to egalitarian halakhic Judaism, to acts of Hesed in the community, to feel bound by halakhah so that they do show up to shul, so that they do visit the sick and so on.

Miri

I think this is a beautiful vision, but that it's somewhat unrealistic when you look at involved Jews on either side of Hadar on the halakhic spectrum, and the involvement of EVERY person who has ever been through Hadar.

Jeremy

Well, they're working on this on a huge number of fronts: they have people working in college campuses, the College Winter Learning Seminar we spoke about recently,  they're trying to get into high schools, they have an executive seminar for interested community professionals, they have a rabbis' intensive—they've certainly moved beyond the model of touching 20 people to get out into the wider world. My only worry with all this is that they might be spreading their resources too thin, trying to do too much and too quickly for the institution to handle.

Miri

I wonder if Hadar's vision is relevant to Britain? Are there swathes of people who might want to be involved with something but aren't because they can't find the right institution. Should we strive to replicate visions and institutions from one communal context to another if the contexts are so radically different?

Jeremy

One of the things we've been thinking about recently is the possibility of egalitarian yeshiva in the UK. We're wondering what lessons we can take from Hadar and its mission, what we can apply in a British Jewish communal context and what might not work as well. We don't yet have a lot of answers, but that's one of the virtues of Hadar—they provide tools for answering questions without any actual answers!

Miri

Basically we've been thinking a lot about what sorts of lessons we can learn about British Jewry from America, and vice versa. More immediately, what can we bring to both communities from within the walls of the yeshiva, and how do we translate a life of torah, mitzvot and hesed into the real world...