Two RRC professors are part of an effort in which scholars of religion will, for the first 100 days of the new administration, be sending letters to the president, vice president, cabinet secretaries and members of the House and Senate.
Rabbi Toba Spitzer grapples wtih the traditional notion of Jewish chosenness, arguing that our Torah is integral to the maintenance and perfection of this world—even as we acknowledge that other people’s teachings, other people’s truths, are also a path to redemption. It matters that Judaism survives—not just for our own sake, but because it’s good for the world, and because we have unique work to do.
When the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College changed our admissions policy to allow for the possibility that Jews partnered with non-Jews could become rabbis, we did so out of the understanding that in the 21st-century Jewish behavior and commitments--religious, cultural, secular--are more important than Jewish status. We acted to meet Jews in the realities of their complex lives—to engage with them, to raise up leaders from among them, and together to build the Jewish future. We have been inspired and moved by the powerful and passionate students who have enrolled at RRC since this policy change, some because of their non-Jewish partners and more in support of this principle.
“It is clear at Ritualwell how values from the Reconstructionist movement are expressed in the creativity of inviting people to create their own rituals,” she says. “It’s empowering to write one’s own prayers and to create spaces for people who never had a voice in Judaism. To me, that inclusive spirit is very much the place that I wanted to be in as a Jew and as a writer, and I think that’s what we are doing at Ritualwell.”
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph..D., is director of the online platform Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations and professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy and spirituality and director of the Jewish Spiritual Direction Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, the path to embracing Judaism really was a reconstruction.
Rabbi Alan LaPayover (RRC ‘02), recorded the prayers of the Reconstructionist liturgy for the High Holiday services. The sound files are available for listening and download from links on this page.
The pilgrimage to the South for Jews of African descent who serve as leaders of the Reconstructionist movement was fully funded by Reconstructing Judaism. Participants were able to engage in healing work and visit sites imbued with trauma within a Jewish and Black context.
The Reconstructionist Network
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
