Innovating to Preserve Tradition

Lisa Lepson, the Executive Director of the Joshua Venture group, writes in her piece Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow: “The Judaism that is evolving before our eyes isn’t really new or innovative. In fact, the whole concept of evolution is at the core of Judaism. What our social entrepreneurs are doing is making tradition relevant to us once more, fusing them with contemporary values and bestowing upon them new life. They are leading a vibrant “re-generation” of our cultural and spiritual heritage” The holiday of Shavuot, a pillar in the Pilgrimage Festival series that also includes Passover and Sukkot, illustrates the Jewish dance between innovation and tradition, and embodies the concept of “making tradition relevant to us once more.” The holiday has multiple names, revealing its... Continue Reading

Back to School

The Jewish community has been a-buzz in recent years about its “Innovation Ecosystem,” a term coined by Shawn Landres and Joshua Avedon in their report published in 2008. The report revealed that a substantial number of new Jewish organizations, which think and behave differently from existing, often flailing, Jewish institutions, are cropping up at a rapid pace. These organizations are radically changing the landscape of the Jewish community, meeting its most pressing needs, and providing creative, relevant, and substantive Jewish programming to Jews not participating in pre-existing structures. My question is: Why aren’t more of our creative social entrepreneurs dedicating their energies to re-envisioning, re-imagining, and re-shaping those institutions that, arguably, have the potential to... Continue Reading

This Year, Four New Questioners Join the Seder

The holiday of Pesach is an opportunity. It is a time of going through the cupboards and drawers, getting rid of what is no longer necessary, and making space for fresh possibilities. It is a time during which we are reminded to ask ourselves and each other difficult questions, and to create space for the youngest, most wide-eyed, and most curious among us, whether we consider them wise, wicked, simple, or uninvolved, and hear their questions. Not only must we hear their questions, but we must take those questions so seriously that they delay our matza-ball soup and brisket for hours. The Seder famously begins with the Mah Nishtana, the Four Questions, traditionally asked by the youngest participant, and the rest of the long evening involves exploring the answers to these, and other, questions. The... Continue Reading

Embracing The Maybe: The Case For Risk-Taking

A recent article in the Business section of the Sunday New York Times, entitled “6 Months, $90,000, and (Maybe) a Great Idea,” described the phenomenon of the “Entrepreneur in Residence”(EIR). In Silicon Valley, there is a growing trend amongst venture capital firms to give business entrepreneurs, many of whom have successfully started and sold companies in the past, the opportunity to use their office space, benefit from a generous stipend, and put on their thinking hats. The hope is that they will come up with the next Google or Facebook. Michael Bauer is one such entrepreneur the article highlights: “While the expectations are high for his ideas, Mr. Bauer maintains that the E.I.R. programs work precisely because failure is allowed in Silicon Valley. … In other parts of the world,... Continue Reading

VeNahafoch Hu: The Force of Creative Destruction

Purim is a celebration of reversals. The Book of Esther, which is traditionally read twice on the holiday, states in Chapter 9 verse 1: “Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have rule over them; whereas it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them.” This notion, of things being turned on their heads, called “venahafoch hu” in Hebrew, is at the core of this lively, raucous little holiday. The very purpose of our celebrating is intertwined with this overturning “from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a holiday” (Esther 9:22). As Rabbi Irving Greenberg puts it in... Continue Reading

Spinning

It’s that time of year again – the days are shorter and colder, and across cultures people huddle together with family members, and brighten the dark evenings with orbs of light. Chanukah is upon us. We eat latkes and jelly donuts to remember the oil that miraculously lasted in the ancient temple. We light candles each night, increasing light and holiness in the world. We remember the miraculous victory of the few against the many, and celebrate our religious and cultural freedom. And, of course, we play dreidel – and teach our young and tender to gamble. I have a vivid childhood memory of gathering with aunts, uncles, and cousins at my grandfather’s house for Chanukah. He had a jar full of coins, and each family member would line up in size order to take a turn dipping a hand into the... Continue Reading

Are Today’s Innovators “Leaders?”

Bob Goldfarb, in his recent piece Innovation, Management, and Leadership, raises an interesting question about the relationship between “innovation” and “leadership.” He writes: “From a structural perspective… [innovators] have simply added independent, entrepreneurial elements to Jewish communal life that complement the established, centralized bureaucracies.” But is that really all they have done? Goldfarb points out that leadership and management are two separate activities. He claims that “leaders [should] resist institutional inertia, challenge fashionable ideas, question the trends of the moment, articulate new visions, and rally a broad following so that true transformation is possible.” Leadership, then, is as an activity that draws attention to a community’s pressing hidden... Continue Reading

It’s Time to Get Off the Dance Floor

Gary Rosenblatt, in his article “The Push & Pull of Jewish Philanthropy” in this week’s Jewish Week, writes: “Start-ups look to federations and foundations for funding but don’t want to be associated with federations (too old school for them); federations may support the new start-ups as part of their effort to attract younger donors and be innovative, but resent that the start-ups keep their distance; and family foundations may play in both camps but are seen as unpredictable, and maybe too independent. Meanwhile, these three key groups are interdependent as well at times, relying on each other for funds, ideas and/or credibility. And the dance goes on.” This delicate dance between federations, family foundations, and start-ups reveals a distressing set of fraught relationships... Continue Reading

Sukkot Blog

Over the course of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, we engage in deep introspection, and strive to achieve personal transformation for the coming year. Sukkot, the holiday that follows Yom Kippur, reminds us that in order for us to achieve personal growth, we must also examine and renew the space that surrounds us. Over the course of this 8-day holiday, we “move” from our stable, familiar homes to new surroundings: the temporary dwelling of possibility, the Sukkah. Being in a new space creates the potential not only for continued personal transformation, but also for new communal, interpersonal interactions. The Sukkah is a place to play with the vision of our new selves, and imagine what that self might bring to the communal realm; it is, moreover, a place that begins to define new possibilities... Continue Reading

For They Will Not Believe Me – What We Can Learn from Moses about Making A Pitch

You are in good company if, as head of a start-up organization, you are wary about promoting your idea, and raising the money necessary to succeed. Whatever makes you nervous about the process – the economy, public speaking, grant writing, asking for money, the gnawing frustration that this is not how you had envisioned spending your time, and the unspoken worry that your words will not do justice to your cause – it is inevitable that fears arise when we are faced with the challenge of conveying our passion, and fighting for its life. “Making the pitch,” orally or on paper, to a Foundation or to an individual, to your mother or to a potential client, is among the most daunting tasks any organization, and especially a start-up, faces. You are not alone. Numerous figures in TaNaKh were... Continue Reading

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