Partners: Equity, Income and the Jewish Dilemma

A few years ago, as an associate in a AmLaw 100 law firm, I was consumed with the concept of partnership and how best I would be able to achieve the status of partner. Partnership seemed like a far and distant nirvana – once I got there everything would be wonderful and unencumbered by further desires to achieve a level of status.

Now, a few years later as a partner in that same firm, my naiveté is gone.  Partnership is not nirvana, far from it. It involves its own opportunities as well as challenges and it is filled with all sorts of issues and encumbrances that sometimes make associate life (in retrospect) look like nirvana.

Chief among the issues one faces as a partner in a law firm is the recognition of the fact that while we refer to ‘one partnership’ there are often two types of partners – equity partners and income partners.  For those law firms that distinguish between partners, each partnership arrangement varies in terms of the division of the rights, responsibilities and economics of the dual classes of partner. But fundamental in the division of the two is that equity partners have actual ownership equity in the partnership, while the equity partners do not. Accordingly, the ability to influence the partnerships decision-making and fundamental actions are often tied to whether one is an equity partner.  Nonetheless, on all other matters of course and in the day-to-day functioning of a firm, the distinction is rarely acknowledged and all the partners refer to one another as partners, regardless of partner status.

But on many firms, there is one fundamental impact of the distinction between equity partners and non-equity partners.  Non-equity partners recognize, inherently and oftentimes explicitly, that they are not true owners in the business.

And they act accordingly.

Now what does that mean?  Maybe they are less loyal to the firm when other opportunities arise.  Maybe they are less-likely to feel like they need to make investments in the firm (with time or money) than they otherwise would if they were equity partners. Perhaps they may even fall into the habit of using “us and them” language and acting as part of a group distinguished from those who have a deeper sense of ownership in the firm.

So why the essay on partnership?

Because it is a word we use in the Jewish community to describe almost every element of Jewish existence. We are in a partnership with God.  We are in a partnership with our spouse. We are in a partnership with others in the community. We are even in partnerships between organizations (Federations/affiliates), between communities (Partnership 2000) and between large centers of Jewish life (Israel/Diaspora). But in the context of our use of partnership in the community setting, we often miss a critical question.

Do Jews in our community think of themselves (and conversely, do we think of them) as equity partners or income partners in the broader Jewish partnerships that we seek to maintain? In other words, do they individually view themselves as owners in this great Jewish endeavor or are they of the opinion that they are one of the ‘others’ that are partners in the broader experience  (maybe benefiting from some ‘income’ of Jewish experience) but nonetheless distinct from those that truly have ownership in it?

My guess is that Jewish communal life has a lot of income partners that need to be transformed into equity partners. Just go read the blogs, talk to the unengaged or marginally engaged and look to the state of Jewish philanthropy at a grass-roots level The attitudes of income partners permeate Jewish life today.  There are plenty of Jews that truly believe they are in a partnership with Jews around the world, but they nevertheless inherently understand that global Jewish partnership to have levels of status and influence. They resist and challenge this community partnership structure, but ultimately their frustration only reinforces it.

Therefore we need to enable the transformation of our understanding of Jewish communal partnership on multiples levels and through multiple strategies.  We need to make sure Jewish life isn’t perceived to be owned only by its prime benefactors (whether it is Federations, foundations or other substantial philanthropists) but is truly understood to be owned by all of us.  We need to make sure Jews get a sense of ownership that transcends whether or not the send their children to day-school, go on Federation missions or give to Jewish causes,

And that desire for a sense of ownership must permeate each aspect of Jewish engagement, ranging from the language we use to the tactics we deploy. How telling is it that in many of our Jewish institutions volunteer leadership and other community members often are required to wear nametags that designate them as guest or visitors. Why not have name tags that identify these individual Jews as owners. They are aren’t they? Don’t we want them to think of themselves as owners – especially as owners of the future of their Jewish community?

When we move to a model where we are cultivating a sense of ownership at every level, everyone feels like they have some equity in the Jewish people. They are less likely to migrate away from the Jewish experience because they feel like it is THEIR experience, not somebody else’s experience they are just visiting. Their sense of partnership is truly deeper and they are unlikely to fall into the us/them dichotomy because there is only a great sense of ‘WE.’

And to that end, WE need to strengthen Jewish partnership on individual and communal levels. But we need to do so by cultivating the individuals to be impactful partners.  Ones who have a sense of ownership, not just income.

Because that makes all the difference.

On Jewish Peoplehood – The right word, the right concept?

In my spare time I endeavor to be a good student of Jewish communal issues – the language we use, the approaches we take and the ongoing combination of the two. Recently I have been considering the ongoing dialogue about Jewish peoplehood. Like other ‘buzz words’ before it, the term ‘peoplehood’ has taken on a life and dialogue all its own. In the few years those who are concerned with the future of the Jewish people have, at least in part, rallied around the exploration of what ‘peoplehood’ means in order to discern the paths forward for the Jewish people.

And I have recently been reading essays on ‘peoplehood’ from some of our global Jewish community’s finest thinkers. Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, Leonard Saxe, Rabbi David Gedzelman, Rabbi Joy Levitt, Dr. Alan Mintz, Professor Douglas Rushkoff, Rokhl Kafrissen, Ruth Ouzana and Yossef Israel Abramowitz each wrote thoughtful essays on peoplehood in the Spring edition of Contact, a publication of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. Before that, I read The Peoplehood Papers published by UJC that included thoughtful essays by Dr. Shlomi Revid, Dr. Misha Galperin, Jay Michaelson, Einat Wilf, Barbara Lerner Spectre, Ahava Zarembski, Alan D. Hoffman, Jonathan Ariel, Eric Levine, Wayne Firestone and Gil Troy. I have read countless books on the subject and topics ancillary to it. And I have tried thoughtfully struggle with the question of how one can best understand the Jewish experience and the opportunity embedded within that experience.

Now I am not classically trained in Jewish thought, history law, social services or education. Nor am I an academic or a Jewish communal professional. Everything I have leaned is the result of my (reluctant) congregational schooling as a child, my experiences as an adult learner (including my experience in the Wexner Heritage program) and as a constant reader. It is important that I share that information because what I am about to say needs to be put in the context of my limited knowledge – I am humbled by what I do not know – and therefore this statement is made in the most humble of ways.

I think we are getting it all wrong in the way we focus on ‘peoplehood’ as a centralizing term of the Jewish experience.

The Open Center and the Honor of Shabbat

For the past week the big news in Jewish Atlanta has been that the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA) is expanding its hours of operation so that it will be open during Shabbat. The public reaction started last week with the announcement by the MJCCA, continued with the obligatory sermons in shuls across the community and reached its crescendo with a cover story in this week’s Atlanta Jewish Times titled “Open on Saturday – JCC decision to open on Shabbat draws mixed reactions” and devoting three and one-third pages to discussing the topic.

Reactions may be mixed in the community – but mine is not. I think it is the right decision.

On Problems, Prizes and PaRDeS

There is an interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times about the use of competitive challenges and financial prizes in prompting innovative solutions to technological problems. The article discusses the model used by Innocentive, described in the article as “a company that links organizations (seekers) with problems (challenges) to people all over the world (solvers) who win cash prizes for resolving them.”

Seekers. Challenges. Solvers.

Sound familiar?

Now this model is by no means entirely novel, competitions to prompt solutions have been around for a very long time. But what has changed is the way technology can facilitate these competitions. In an ever-shrinking world where technology facilitates rapid communication and collaboration, these competitions are now accessible to everyone who has an interest, some knowledge and creative itch to combine the two in exchange for a chance at some money.

And we have seen evidence of this trend in our Jewish community – just this year Brandeis University and the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation sponsored a competition for “the next big Jewish idea” of how the Jewish community can transform itself. The prize in that case, won by Yehuda Kurtzer (a Harvard doctoral student), was the appointment as the Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Studies – a two-year visiting professorship at Brandeis with a commission to publish a book. In that competition, 231 applicants submitted their “big ideas” (myself included), validating that, at the very least, there are people who believe in their “big ideas” enough to compete with them.

But what I wonder is whether this model of developing big solutions as part of big competitions is the right one. While it is important to think big – isn’t it just as important to think small? Yes, we have big systemic challenges, big communal issues and big existential concerns. But we have small problems too – small problems in need of answers. There aren’t competitions for the small, tactical ideas. There aren’t many prizes for the solutions that face our communities on a day-to-day basis. In searching for the big ideas, are we luring our bright thinkers too far astray from the most proximate and precise needs of our community? As was exceptionally well-stated in a recent column in the Jewish Daily Forward by Noam Neusner, “[p]erhaps instead of commissioning yet another book about the future of the Jews, we ought to hire people to organize fundraising dinners lasting two hours or less — now that would be a true stroke of genius.”

In Jewish learning, when we look to understand the meaning of biblical text we are studying we oftentimes use the PaRDeS method of interpretation, approaching the challenge of the text by means of the Peshat (the literal meaning), Remez (the allegorical meaning), Derash (the midrashic, homiletic meaning) and Sod (the mystical meaning). Using the PaRDeS methodology, when faced with the challenge of a text, we have four paths to finding a solution. Each one no less valid than the other, each one worthy of the ‘prize’ of understanding.

Juxtapose the PaRDeS approach to meeting the challenges of text to the competitive model of meeting the challenges of our community. While the latter is nuanced, taking into account a variety of approaches each with an equally rewarding result, the latter requires a selection of an exclusive answer – one that is more valid (however validity may be defined) than the other.

What if rather than creating competitions, we challenged Jews to look at our community challenges through the nuanced prisms of Jewish understanding? Perhaps if, rather than hand-wringing about the need for big-thinkers to compete with big ideas, we motivated individuals to create bite-sizes ideas to solve bite-size problems? If we did that then perhaps our Jewish problem-solvers, using whatever methodologies they might choose, literal, allegorical, moral or mystical, might find deeper Jewish meaning in their search for solutions. And we would benefit from their ideas, small and big.

And who knows, cumulatively all of these small ideas might add up to the achievement of one really big idea – the redemption of the Jewish people.

A New Model?

So there is an interesting pair of posts over at Rejewvenate in which the blogger responds to my ‘Jewish Builders, Not Fixers’ post and then riffs a bit about tikkun olam. But the question the blogger asked in a comment to my post is… so what do I suggest is the new model of Jewish communal life?

Great question, and one that I think about often. I agree with Rejewvanate’s articulation of the status quo of Jewish Federations as a ‘needs based’ model – linking those ‘who have’ with organizations and initiatives ‘who need,’ particularly a financial need (whether it is for social services, education or other engagement and ‘continuity’ initiatives). A review of illuminating history of the Federation system, its colorful participants and its substantial (and meaningful) impact, makes it clear that during its evolution, and in its prime, the Federation system responded to needs of the Jewish community (and I use that term broadly) in a way that could not have been undertaken but for that system.

Critically, I do not agree with those who might argue that the Federation system is beyond repair and should be ignored as an ancient relic from a time in our past. I think there is an important role, a vital role, for Jewish organizations that create connections between those ‘with’ and those “without “and facilitate the financial impact of those connections. Federations are important institutions, but are nonetheless a product of their time and its place, and therefore their relative importance must be placed in a broader context of today’s American Jewish community. As a result of this shifting relevance, we should allocate our energies appropriately. Although we must continue to build Federations in a way that helps adapt them to current trends in Jewish living, structurally we can’t depart too significantly from their core mission, lest in the process they suffer from doing too much but with an impact that is too little. In addition, we must create new tools – while Federations are an important tool in building community, they are only one tool in the model – not the whole model.

So what is the new model? One, part of the new model must include morphing Federations into more broadly relevant organizations (perhaps not even being referred to as Federations) that don’t stick with the methodologies, biases and limitations of their needs-based orientation, but adapt to the Jewish communal dynamics of the late ‘00s in startling speed and adaptability. Without losing sight of missions, Federations must remodel themselves into flexible organizations with permeable walls, not hierarchical structures that build communities not only by engaging financial assets of Jews, but by empowering the Jews themselves in building community engagement.

In essence, we need to put the “move” back in the Federation movement. Federation staff should be distributed within our communities rather than centrally located and move among the community – helping instigate, challenge and incite Jewish building and creativity. The strength of communities should not be measured by dollars alone but by the numbers of those engaged, the number of ways in which they are connected and the depth of meaning in which those connections reinforce themselves. We should modify our language at Federations and refine the tone in which we speak that language. Lay leadership needs to be challenged forcefully to lead, and professional staff need to be dynamically challenged at all levels to deliver professional (and self-rewarding) excellence. And just as importantly, volunteer leaders and professional staff should each hold the other accountable for the success of their joint initiatives. That, together, is part one of the model.

The second part of the new model includes creating other service organizations, synagogues, religious and spiritual communities, learning, and social initiatives, however informal or formal (i.e. independent minyanim might eschew the label of organization, nonetheless are organizations in their own informal way), that harness the technologies and sensibilities of modern Jewish life in this ‘Bowling Alone,’ ‘Jew Within,’ blog-reading, Facebook-friending and hyper-diverse era. Jewish life has become ‘bursty’ – most of us engage in bursts of episodic communal Jewish activity and some of us experience more consistent activities that create longer-lasting and individually-oriented socio-religious experiences. Our Jewish communal infrastructure needs to be able to respond to these ‘bursty’ demands and needs to have a flat leadership dynamic that leverages the urge to create in this era of mega-creativity.

Binding these two parts of the new model together must be an element that is old as the Jewish people themselves – Jewish learning. The new model must be imbued with a sense of Jewish learning that is not just a goal (and not just a predicate) but also an inherent element of the development of Jewish communal life. Our organizations must be learning organization. Our leaders must be learning leaders. Our creators should have a sense of the Jewish context of their creation and our Jewish skeptics should use their learning to enhance the impact of their skepticism.

Refining the old. Building the new. And learning the Jewish importance of each.

I will think and consider further, but I think that is one approach to the development of a new model of Jewish communal life.

Reality Check

While several of the posts on this blog have been personal ponderings about Jewish life here at home in the United States, today’s despicable terrorist attack in Jerusalem is an important reminder that while we may wonder how to improve ourselves as a community, there are individuals who are dedicated to destroying us as a people. And we must be vigilant.

Just over a year ago my wife and I were walking along on King David Street, talking with friends and busy making our plans. Tonight we are praying for those who were injured in today’s mayhem… the mayhem in those very same footsteps we walked.

That is the lot of the Jewish people – to plan and to pray.

May our plans be realized and our prayers be answered.

Builders, Fixers and Tikkun Olam (A Response)

So it seems like my “Jewish Builders. Not Jewish Fixers.” post generated some interesting feedback from a few individuals. I have a few posts to react to some feedback I received, but first and most interestingly was a comment from Jameel, who correctly points out that there is room for both fixing and building the Jewish community. But then he states, after an observation about the significance of tikkun, an interesting proposal:

“Maybe it should be the 80-20 percentage – 80% should be fixing, and 20% should be new building.”

An interesting thought, although I disagree. And it is not because I think that the percentages should be reversed, although I do think that putting such a low percentage on true innovation is imprudent. Why I disagree with Jameel is because I think a more sensitive analysis of what tikkun means is needed, because I think that we oftentimes use the concept of tikkun as a crutch when the more bold approach is to not fix an organization, but to create around it. Now I have to admit I have been thinking about this concept recently because of the excellent recent article by Hillel Halkin in the July-August, 2009 issue of Commentary magazine. In the article, titled “How Not to Repair the World,” Mr. Halkin articulates an interesting analysis of the textual and modern conceptions of tikkun olam, and ultimately makes a critical argument against the more clichéd use of the term by the progressive left. Now I consider myself more on the progressive left side of the political spectrum, and I generally find some of Mr. Halkin’s arguments to be a bit stuffy, but I can’t help be a bit persuaded by his reasoned analysis about the casual use of the term tikkun in modern contexts.

In partial agreement with Mr. Halkin, I find that I too am critical of the position that can often be found in the Jewish community that says we are obligated to blindly repair Jewish communal institutions for the sake of tikkun olam. This argument is often articulated such that individuals feel the essence of repairing that which is already built is the essence of Judaism. Yes, there is an element of this that is true, and as Jameel points out, we are reminded of the responsibility to perfect the world when we express it in the Aleynu each day. But I would also argue that so much of our modern organizations urges for their leaders to undertake acts of tikkun are based on an overwrought, self-serving and ultimately self-defeating reliance on a twist of he Lurianic conception of tikkun olam.

In the Lurianic approach, it is thought that we as Jew must gather up divine sparks and help return them to their place. But what if these sparks are to be found outside the organized Jewish community – shouldn’t we be seeking them out using new methods, approaches and experiences? Or are these sparks only found within the institutions that exist today? Rather, in gathering these sparks, aren’t we empowered with the act of creation – truly recreating what was – not simply fixing what is? I would suggest that the Jewish olam, and the olam in general is bigger than the existing Jewish organizations. By creating new efforts and recreating the essence of unity that once was (rather than spending a majority of time fixing existing organizations that represent what “is”), perhaps then we are truly gathering the shattered vessels of light that can bring about the unity of our people.

Yes, by fixing Jewish organizations, we might be engaged in an act of tikkun, and that is an important responsibility we have as a community. But in the act of creating, of building Jewish life in a myriad of new and diverse ways through new and innovative initiatives and organizations, perhaps we are then truly undertaking tikkun olam.

By building, not just fixing.

Jewish Builders. Not Jewish Fixers.

In many of my recent discussions with Jewish peers, volunteers and Jewish community professionals I have noted a consistent theme of concern for the state of the ‘organized’ Jewish community. Nevermind that many of these individuals operate firmly within the organizations that make up the so-called organized community (federations, foundations, agencies, etc.); they nonetheless lament what seems like a steady ossification of institutions and bureaucratization of leadership. These conversations sound more like a refrain of “can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” with each individual having their own prescriptive remedies for the health of Jewish communal organizations or the Jewish community as a whole.

However, just as much as there is a steady outpouring of energy by Jews to remediate the challanges and opportunities of Jewish life through groups, organizations and initiatives, oftentimes the consistent response of the “organized” community to the lamentations of these young Jewish activists is to develop a ‘strategic plan’ or a ‘new agenda’ – each developed with the requisite number of volunteer stakeholders and professional strategists. The substance of these efforts is the development of organizational approaches to reengineering or refocusing of the organization to meet the needs, challenges or ‘strategic opportunities’ facing the organization. The desired result being to engage the young leadership of the organized Jewish community to become ‘fixers’ of that which needs fixing.

I believe the orientation of these organizational activities is wrong. We don’t need fixers, we need builders. And critically, the Jewish activists of today don’t want to be fixers either – the essence of their desire is to be builders of Jewish community in their own distinctive ways and focused on their own distinctive interests.

This is nothing new. At the now legendary 1969 General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, a group of students (enabled by their own self-organization and coordination through the North American Jewish Students NETWORK, an outgrowth of the World Union of Jewish Students) were exceptionally effective in disrupting not only the proceedings, but also the staid tenor of the GA. The tone and approach of the students was not destructive, but constructive – appealing to the need to build more vibrant and responsive Jewish institutions in response to what the students perceived as a stagnant and unresponsive system. As a representative of the students chosen to speak at the GA by his peers Rabbi Hillel Levine expressed the sentiment of the students in a manner that still resonates today, stating (with respect to how the students viewed themselves):

“…we see ourselves as more than children of our times; we see ourselves as children of timelessness. We see ourselves as your children, the children of Jews who with great dedication concern themselves with the needs of the community, the children of those who bring comfort to the afflicted, give aid to the poor, who have built mammoth philanthropic organizations, who have aided the remnants of the Holocaust, who have given unfalteringly to the building of Israel… We are your children, and I affirm this, but we want to be not only your children, but also builders. We want to participate with you in building the vision of a great Jewish community.”

Builders. Not fixers.

And this is the state of affairs today as well – almost 40 years later. Engaged Jewish young adults (and within that category I include anyone who considers themselves young) want to build the vision of their community in the distinctive way that resonates with their individual perceptions, needs and talents. They may want to work in partnership with the ‘organized’ Jewish community, and they may even want to work within it. But the idea of simply ‘fixing’ it is uninspiring at best and disengaging at worst.

They want to build. Not fix.

And while it is partially semantics, the ‘organized’ community must be sensitive to the subtleties within the voices of Jewish innovation that can be found working outside the ‘organized’ community today. Rather than demanding to be builders (they have taken that role on themselves), they are asking the organized community to build with them. To not cleave to closely to what clearly must be fixed, but to also believe that certain institutions must be reimagined, reinvented – rebuilt.

In 1969, the students at the GA bypassed the option of woeful ambivalence and, rather, took the option to present an impassioned appeal to the ‘organized’ Jewish community to think differently about the vision of building a stronger Jewish future. Almost 40 years later, students and young adults are facing a similar option.

What will they choose? And how will we respond? Will we ask them to be fixers? Or will we embrace and support them as builders?

Builders or fixers. We should choose like our future depends on it. Because it does.

Nehutai

A few readers of this blog have inquired about the Nehutai initiative that I submitted as part of the competition related to the Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis. I am happy to forward a copy of that document on request, but for convenience I have also stored it for individual download HERE. The Nehutai initiative was developed shortly after my circulation of the Federation 2.0 White Paper which can be found HERE and my corresponding essay on the need for Jewish communal risk and ruah, a version of which was published in the Atlanta Jewish Times and can be found HERE.

New York, New York – It’s Up To You?

So I have just come back from a brief visit to New York City, where I had a series of meetings with some tremendously talented and thoughtful individuals who are making an impact on the local and national Jewish community. Much of my notes from those meetings will be the genesis of several posts on this blog, but one of the overarching perceptions I took away was that, while much of the ‘organized’ Jewish community was quick to point out to me that a substantial portion of the community development that is occurring in NYC can’t be replicated elsewhere (on the assumption that the size, strength, wealth and diversity of Jewish life in New York made it a uniquely fertile place for Jewish innovation and experience), many of the grassroots/entrepreneurial Jewish innovators believe that their work is at least conceptually transferable if not specifically replicable.

Atlanta is certainly no New York (and most native Atlantans would prefer to keep it that way, thank you very much). But the question should be asked, why can’t Atlanta have the same level of innovation and creativity with respect to Jewish life that takes place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other centers of Jewish life? Anyone who observes Jewish demographic trends can easily recognize the tremendous growth the Atlanta Jewish community has seen in the past ten years as well the potential for equally impressive growth in the future. Included in that growth is the influx of creative, spiritual and artistic individuals who want to innovate Jewishly, whether on a personal or communal level. And Atlanta by no means is a community without resources. So why then should we not believe that a culture of Jewish creativity can’t take root in Atlanta in a manner similar to the culture that permeates Jewish life in New York City? Even if it we can’t replicate the creative culture of New York, shouldn’t we at least be inspired by it? And if we are inspired by it, what initiatives and strategies should we use as a community to actualize our own Jewish Atlanta creativity in a way that makes sense given the contours of our community?

Notwithstanding what the song may say, it’s not up to you New York, New York. It’s up to all of us – including those of us in Atlanta.

People of the (Face) Book – Part 2

Continuing on the Facebook thread, after only a week of experience I continue marvel at the joys of interacting virtually with current friends and renewing connections with friends from my near and distant past as well. But notwithstanding the constant curiosity that envelops my Facebook experience, I can’t help but critically analyze the experience as well. After all, if I am about ready to endorse social networking as an important source of inspiration when developing new approaches to engage Jewish people, perhaps I should recognize some of its limitations first. In summary, here are a few of the things about the current state of electronic social networking (as exemplified by Facebook) that I think are due further consideration:

Friends vs. Acquaintances – It does make a difference. When I was a teenager my grandmother Hilda would come and spend the summers with my family. I can still recall one afternoon where I was trying to explain to my grandmother how I had to go out of the house to see “all of my friends” for the afternoon. In response, my grandmother was explaining to me that I would be prudent to always remember that I had many acquaintances but only a few are truly friends – and that knowing the difference between the two was important.

Fast forward to today on Facebook. Every connection and relationship is a ‘friend’ and there is no way to categorize someone as just an acquaintance. That guy that sat next to me in chemistry in 11th grade – is he really a friend? Especially as compared to the person with whom my wife and I see socially a few times a month? On Facebook they are both ‘friends’ even though clearly the former is merely an acquaintance. And examples go on and on. Absent some other deeper connection, a friend of a friend us truly only my acquaintance, right? I don’t believe the distributive property of friendship applies in that case. How about the person who I know only in passing, who I have never seen socially and who has very little in common with me except that our children go to school together. Is he a friend? No, he is merely an acquaintance, but one to whom I don’t want to be rude by ignoring his ‘friend’ request. So absent a third alternative, we have become friends – ‘Facebook Friends.’In sum, I want to heed my grandmother’s advice, but at least virtually, Facebook won’t let me. When we refer to every acquaintance as a friend, don’t we trivialize what that means… at least in our virtual space? And when we spend time reading up on the status of all of our acquaintances, do we still have the energy to understand what is going on with those few individuals who are truly our friends? There is a difference between friends and acquaintances – notwithstanding the fact that Facebook blurs the lines. And as my grandmother said, knowing the difference is an important skill to master – even on Facebook.

Communication vs. Interaction – Sometimes what you see is what you get. Another thing about Facebook that has me pondering its utility is what the Facebook experience says about the bonds that to tie us together as ‘Facebook friends’ (assuming we get past the friend/acquaintance issue). What is it that, in this virtual space, we share – actually communicate – to deepen our bonds of friendship. Yes, there is a ‘chat’ feature that allows friends to talk to one another. But much of the communication is based on the updated profiles of friends and the ability for other friends to review and respond to those profile updates. Friends can send messages to one another, but they can just as easily ‘poke’ one another, throw virtual pies at each other, buy virtual beers for one another and make other non-verbal overtures to their friends. And when profiles do change, there oftentimes is no explanation. For example, and old friend (or perhaps acquaintance) has changed their ‘status’ from dating to single with no comment and no explanation. A person has just joined the ”friends of (fill-in your choice of celebrity/political; candidate/sports star/mythic figure)” group without any discussion of why the friend might identify with the group, or why they joined the group at that point in time. Friends have interacted with information about the individual, but has communication truly occurred. In sum, there is a tremendous ability of individuals on Facebook to interact with information about one another, but because of that ease of interaction there is an inherent limitation on the depth and substantiality of the ‘communication’ that occurs.

Ideas vs. Experiences – Which are the ties that bind? The last thing about Facebook I have struggled with is the question of what, at its essence, binds friends together on Facebook. It is not necessarily ideas, values, religion or political orientation. It is sheer experience – and the results of that common experience. And at its core – it is the experience of having met one another at some point in our lives. In this regard, Linked-in (an alternative to Facebook used more frequently in business circles) has the more appropriate name for this observation. We are all linked in to a common experience, perhaps it was social or professional, and now it is the experience of Facebook itself. We may have very different views of the world, but at least we have bumped into each other in this world, and that has made the genesis of our ‘Facebook Friend’ connection possible, with or without the deeper connection that my grandmother would suggest as a distinction between a friend and an acquaintance.
Friends vs. Acquaintances. Communication vs. Interaction. Ideas vs. Experiences. These are some of the same dynamics that we struggle with in helping build Jewish community. Who in our community feels like they are truly engaged in our community as opposed to those who feel merely a passing acquaintance with that which our community has to offer? At what level are we merely interacting with community members rather than more deeply communicating with them about ideas, dreams, values and needs? And last but not least, are we a community that is built merely upon shared experiences, or do we interweave within those experiences discussions of the ideas that will sustain us as a community well past the time of our shared experiences?

Certainly the Jewish people have been sustained for millennia by learning the lessons as a people of the book. But as we look to the future, perhaps we would also be wise to learn the lessons to be heeded as people of the (Face)book as well. And if we do, perhaps we will all one day truly be friends, not merely acquaintances.

People of the (Face) Book – Part 1

Ok, I will admit it. I am a little bit addicted to Facebook right now. I signed-up last Sunday afternoon, and in the span of one week have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time connecting with individuals from all corners of my past.  High school, youth group, summer camp, college, law school and work… they are all out there on Facebook, just waiting to be discovered. Discovering them is not so difficult, but what I do with that discovery is a different question altogether.  Do I invite them to be my ‘friend’ or do I wait to be invited? If they invite me, do I ignore them? If I accept them, is it irresponsible not to send them a note that says “FYI – we knew each other 23 years ago and I have changed quite a bit in the interim. You may not like me now, maybe should we take things a little bit slower and reacquaint ourselves before we confirm our friendship for all the world to see?”

Notwithstanding my reservations though, I can’t help making those connections with my past, while also engaging with the friends that are participants in my ‘present.’  And the information I find out is fascinating. Life trajectories predicted and altered, marriages formed and dissolved, career paths changed and musical tastes refined. It is equal parts nostalgia and voyeurism, a strange mix of comfort and exhilaration. My past is still out there, but it too has moved forward. All the places we thought we would go…some of us have. And others have gone to other places that we would have never imagined.  And in the present I have found my friends with whom I socialize on a daily basis have secret lives that, but for Facebook, I would never know.  One is a superb Scrabble player, another one likes Metallica.  One of my friends who I thought was in a solid relationship notes on his ‘profile’ that his relationship status is ‘complicated.’  Interesting – but what isn’t complicated these days?

At its essence, Facebook is – to me – an updated, technologically powered version of the old game of ‘Jewish geography.’ However, now with Facebook, Jewish geography is on steroids – not only can we find our links in the past, but we can link them forward to our present with photos, factoids and witty (or not so witty) status updates. And then there is the serendipitous moment of realization that an old camp friend maybe really could be a current friend too – maybe be reconnecting through Facebook we can realize that friend lives in the same city, maybe has the same career, maybe is searching for the same things we are searching for -– personally, socially, spiritually – Jewishly.

And speaking of Jewish connections – these individuals from our pasts – are they lost members of our personal tribes but still members of our collective Tribe? And can Facebook be more than just a tool in the exploration of Jewish geography, but rather an approach to developing its social and spiritual landscape?

Interesting questions to consider, and I will.  But in the mean time – I need to go connect with my past, and make plans for my future.

Boundless Drama of Creation – Why that title?

Well, it’s a phrase that I fell in love with the minute I read it – the words were written by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik in Lonely Man of Faith, one of the most thoroughly profound theological essays in modern Jewish thinking. The exact quotation is:

“The man of faith, in his continuous movement between the pole of majesty and that of covenantal humility, is prevented from totally immersing in the immediate covenantal awareness of the redeeming presence, knowability and involvement of God in the community of man. From time to time the man of faith is thrown into the majestic community where the colloquy as well as the covenantal consciousness are swept away. He suddenly finds himself revolving around the cosmic center, now and then catching a glimpse of the Creator who hides behind the boundless drama of creation.” (emphasis added)

We are living in a modern world of exponential endeavors of creativity and extraordinary tools of communication. It is exhilarating and exhausting, unrestrained in its breadth and unrelenting in its persistence. And this modern world is having its thoroughly modern impact on the lives and futures of the Jewish people – in the Diaspora and in Israel. The “”People of the Book” are defining their futures in an era where the books are about faces as much as words. It is a dramatic change in the way Jews are creating their connections, to one another and to God. This change is boundless in its unfolding. It is dramatic in its importance. And it is the creation that is borne of the Jewish imagination, and its presence in its majestic community.

The Boundless Drama of Creation. Let’s discuss.

What a difference a year makes

What a difference a year makes.

This time last year I was in Israel with my wife Marci and the Atlanta Wexner ‘07 group for the culmination of our participation in the two-year Wexner Heritage program. To be more exact, we were in Jerusalem with our friends Jon and Elizabeth Barkan, celebrating Jon’s 39th birthday. We spent the evening in Jerusalem at dinner speculating on the due date of the Barkans’ new baby, whether Marci and I would have another child to join our two daughters, and what the coming months held in store for us.

Little did we know.

It has been 10 months since we celebrated the birth of Benjamin Barkan. And now it has been 8 months since we mourned the death of Jon Barkan. It has been 5 weeks since the birth of Jordan Cohen, our third child. And it has been exactly one year since Jon’s 39th birthday. One year since that evening in Jerusalem.

What a difference a year makes.

Jon maintained a blog about his life, his passions, his friends and most importantly, his family. In December, Jon stopped writing in his blog – far before the time when his story should have been finished.

Today, on what would have been his 40th birthday, I am going to begin writing mine. It will not be as funny, nor as colorful as Jon’s, and I am hoping that it will be more of a conversation rather than a blog. A conversation about Jewish questions, Jewish people and Jewish futures. But more about that later.

In looking back at the past 12 months – a year – I have seen joy, and sorrow, and joy again. I have seen highs and lows, feelings of tremendous audacity and tremendous humility. And I have seen everything in-between. I have learned some lessons, but I have also learned some of the questions that are revealed to you only when you are faced with the boundless drama of creation that unfolds through our lives.

But mostly I have learned that a year does make a difference.