“The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.”

— Fred Polak, The Image of the Future

We have experienced a onslaught of destabilizing forces in the past year, capable of causing even the most forward-thinking leaders to become trapped in a cycle of frantically managing the anxieties and challenges of the present moment.

When a community’s collective energy becomes consumed by responding, reacting, repairing and defending, it risks losing what’s essential to cultural vitality: the capacity to articulate and pursue compelling visions of a preferred future.

But Jewish tradition calls upon us to harness the wisdom of our past in service of bequeathing a better world to our descendants. In a time when our community is so fractured and we as leaders are overwhelmed, there is great power in devoting time to imagining and shaping a preferred future. What if we delved into that task, inspired by the ideas and texts of Jewish tradition and fueled by the approaches and disciplines of futures thinking — a field that helps us systematically explore futures beyond our immediate horizons?

Earlier this spring, 22 Jewish leaders — alumni of Wexner Foundation initiatives for Israeli public sector leaders along with volunteers and professionals from North American Jewish communities — gathered in Columbus, Ohio to participate in our Summit Seeds: Atid program, which focused on developing leadership skills to promote a more proactive approach to anticipating, imagining and building better futures in the Jewish world and in Israel.

We grounded our work together in the concept of being “good ancestors,” encouraging participants to consider the long-term impact of their decisions, extending their moral imagination to future generations they will never meet. This framing resonated deeply with Jewish values of l’dor vador (from generation to generation) and tikkun olam (repairing the world).

The imperative to be “good ancestors” provided a moral compass for our futures work. Together we explored: How might the seeds we plant today through our leadership choices, institutional designs and community investment grow into forests that our great-grandchildren will inhabit?

The story of Honi the Circle-Drawer, who encountered an old man planting a carob tree that wouldn’t bear fruit in his lifetime, is a touchstone for discussions about being a good ancestor. This ancient tale perfectly captures the intergenerational perspective essential to futures thinking. As the old man in the story explains to Honi, “Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants.”

The three pillars of futures thinking

Futures thinking is structured around three core capacities: anticipation, imagination and design. Each capacity lends itself to a unique integration of contemporary futures practices with ancient Jewish wisdom.

Anticipating futures: Mapping trends and implications

Anticipation begins with strengthening our capacity to anticipate emerging futures by identifying and analyzing trends affecting Jewish communities. Using futures implication wheels—a visual method for exploring how one change can trigger cascading effects over time—we can map the potential consequences of current trends. This activity reveals second and third order outcomes of information overload, political polarization, security threats, fractures to our pluralistic foundation, intergenerational schisms around identity and organizational and institutional challenges.

These interconnected trends have made it increasingly difficult to sustain a positive, future-oriented perspective. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by these challenges, we aim to explore ripple effects across multiple domains, identifying both potential threats and hidden opportunities that might otherwise remain invisible.

This anticipatory work is grounded in the Jewish concept of Olam Habah (the World to Come). For the classical Jewish sages, Olam Habah was a metaphorical container that allowed them to view their own setbacks and uncertainties through the perspective of eternity.

Imagining futures: Scenario planning for multiple possibilities

From anticipation, we move into imagination. Scenario planning exercises based on the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) scenario framework reveal four distinct possible futures for Jewish communities: Thriving, Drifting, Defending and Nightmare. While the scenarios were originally created in 2010, the framework and underlying driving forces remain relevant, if not even more applicable, today.

For example, in the Thriving scenario, we see a world where Jewish communities have successfully adapted to technological and social changes while maintaining core values and strong institutions. By contrast, the Defending scenario explores a future where increasing hostility and threats force Jewish communities into primarily protective postures, significantly limiting creative and generative initiatives.

The goal of this exercise is not to predict the right scenario, but rather to explore “robust moves” across all scenarios and  become proactively prepared for any scenario. In imagination mode, we might ask: What are the implications of this scenario? Which institutions would flourish or struggle? And most importantly: What would we do differently now as a result of considering this possible future?

This imaginative work connects to the figure of Elijah the Prophet in Jewish tradition. Elijah represents embodied imagination, symbolizing Jewish hopes for the future like the resolution of all disputes and unanswerable questions, and the restoring of harmony in relationships. Elijah’s presence — as each new child is welcomed into the covenant of the Jewish People, and at the annual Passover Seder — symbolizes the possibility of redemption. Just as Elijah moves between mundane reality and messianic possibility, imagination allows us to practice shifting between present constraints and future opportunities.

Designing futures: From abstract aspirations to concrete options

The final pillar of our approach focuses on designing new futures by identifying specific audiences we’d like to create a better future  for in targeted and concrete ways. This begins with developing a strong point of view regarding the needs of future generations, honing our ability to move between abstract aspirational ideas and concrete options to bring to life.

This design-oriented approach is grounded in Exodus 25:2, which describes the building of the Tabernacle: “Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.” This text illustrates how designing for a better tomorrow requires both vision (the divine blueprint) and concrete contribution (the gifts of the people). Just as the Israelites translated abstract divine instructions into a tangible sacred space through their diverse contributions, designers explore how their leadership could similarly bridge vision and implementation.

Bringing it all together: Building compelling narratives

Integrating the lenses of anticipation, imagination and design, futures-oriented Jewish leaders build compelling narratives of their preferred futures. Using the technique of futures backcasting, a method that starts with a desired future state and works backward, we can identify the steps needed to connect that future to our present reality.

In today’s complex and polarized world, Jewish leaders face unprecedented challenges: navigating rising antisemitism, addressing internal community divisions, responding to geopolitical tensions and adapting to rapid social change. At moments in our learning, Wexner Summit Seeds participants acknowledged that these issues had forced them into reactive postures, and they struggled to assimilate the new ideas and techniques from futures thinking. 

We created space to shift from this defensive stance toward a more creative and abundant approach to leadership — precisely what Fred Polak highlighted as essential for cultural vitality. The futures framework provided methods for holding both protective and generative leadership functions in productive tension rather than seeing them as competing priorities. The diverse composition of our group, spanning generations, geographies, professional roles, political outlooks and religious orientations — born of the Wexner Foundation’s deep commitment to pluralism — generated an enriching range of perspectives on possible futures. 

Futures thinking can teach Jewish leaders how to spot emerging trends, imagine different possible futures and design real-world interventions to create positive change. And alongside any new tool or strategic process, Jewish tradition itself contains future-oriented wisdom that has been waiting to be activated in new ways. From biblical visions of promised lands to prophetic traditions and the ongoing work of tikkun olam, the inherently future-focused dimension of Jewish thought and practice is a natural source of inspiration.

In a world changing at a dizzying pace, Jewish leaders need not be passive recipients of whatever the future brings. By combining ancient wisdom with cutting-edge futures methodologies, they can develop the capacity to imagine, shape and steward Jewish futures worthy of our past and responsive to the needs of generations to come.

Rabbi Jay Henry Moses is vice president of the Wexner Foundation.  

Lisa Kay Solomon is futurist-in-residence at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.