Description
Book Synopsis"Brisk yet meditative . . .Rabbis and others active in Jewish worship communities will be inspired." --Publishers Weekly
Few people have had a greater impact on modern Jewish worship and life than Rabbi Larry Hoffman.
"From Larry Hoffman, we learn how to pray with consequence." --Janet Walton, professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary
In Communities of Meaning, thirty-four of today's community leaders and theologians engage Hoffman in dialogue about the big questions in American Jewish life, including:
- How, where, and why people pray.
- What Jewish life looks like today and what lies ahead.
- How Jews engage with people of other faiths,
- How faith can shape commitment and action.
This collection invites readers into the ageless conversation that is Judaism and challenges everyone to think creatively about the ideas and institutions that are shaping Jewish life in the twenty-first century.
Includes contributions from Jill Abramson, Tony Bayfield, Angela Buchdahl, Joshua Davidson, Arnold Eisen, David Ellenson, Daniel, Judson, Noa Kushner, Liz Lerman, Andrew Reyfeld, Jonathan Sarna, Gordon Tucker, Deborah Waxman, Danny Zemel, and many others.
“Hoffman is a rabbi of rabbis. And a liturgist of liturgists . . . [He] invited us to courageous reinterpretation and transformation of our liturgy.” –Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central synagogue, New York City
Full List of Contributors:
Cantor Jill Abramson is the director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC.
Rabbi Carole Balin is a writer and teacher, and chair of the board of the Jewish Women’s Archive and professor emerita of history at Hebrew Union College.
Rabbi Tony Bayfield was the head of Reform Judaism in Britain and is also Professor Emeritus of Jewish Theology and Thought at Leo Baeck College.
Rabbi Joshua I. Beraha is an associate rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C.
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl serves as the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City.
Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson is the senior rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El in New York City.
Rabbi Arnold Eisen is Chancellor Emeritus and Professor of Jewish Thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Rabbi David H. Ellenson is Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College.
Rabbi Jodie M. Gordon is a rabbi at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Cantor Sarah Grabiner is the assistant director of the Year in Israel programme at HUC Jerusalem.
Rabbi Hilly Haber is the director of social justice organizing and education at Central Synagogue in New York City.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman is a teacher, translator, and author in New York.
Rabbi Delphine Horveilleur is France’s third female rabbi, and leads a progressive congregation in Paris
Rabbi Daniel A. Judson is the Dean of Hebrew College in Newton, MA.
Rabbi Elliot Kukla is an author, visual artist, and activist currently living in Oakland, California.
Rabbi Noa Rachael Kushner founded The Kitchen, a hands-on international resource that serves thousands of modern families in San Francisco and around the world.
Rabbi Emily Langowitz is the Jewish engagement manager at the URJ and lives in Phoenix.
Prof. Gordon W. Lathrop is the Schieren Professor of Liturgy Emeritus at the United Lutheran Seminary (USA) and a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Liz A. Lerman is a choreographer, writer, educator, and recipient of MacArthur “Genius Grant” and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is currently a professor at Arizona State University.
Rabbi Dalia Marx is professor at HUC in Jerusalem and teaches in various academic institutions in Israel and Europe. She is the tenth generation of her family in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Daniel Medwin is the co-director of innovation and growth at URG 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy. He lives in Georgia.
Rabbi Shira I. Milgrom is the rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, New York.
Rabbi Sonja K. Pilz is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom in Bozeman, Montana.
Prof. Andrew Rehfeld is the president of Hebrew Union College in New York.
Rabbi Daniel Reiser is the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Rabbi Nicole Kauffman Roberts is Senior Rabbi of North Shore Temple Emanuel in Sydney, Australia.
Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna teaches American Jewish History at Brandeis University and is also Chief Historian of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
Yolanda Savage-Narva is the assistant vice president of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for the URJ.
Rabbi Yael Splansky is the rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.
Rabbi Rachel Steiner is the senior rabbi at Barnert Temple in New Jersey.
Rabbi David E. Stern is Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas.
Rabbi Gordon Tucker is Vice Chancellor for Religious Life and Engagement at The Jewish Theological Seminary and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
Dr. Richard S. Vosko is an award-winning liturgical design consultant for Christian and Jewish congregations throughout North America.
Professor Janet R. Walton is a musician, author, teacher, ritual leader, and professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman is president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism.
Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig teaches at HUC in New York City and is the first Jewish President of the Academy of Homiletics.
Rabbi Daniel Zemel is the senior rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C.
Trade ReviewRabbis Grushcow (Writing the Wayward Wife) and Skloot (First Impressions) pay tribute to liturgist and rabbi Larry Hoffman with this gathering of brief and insightful pieces on the nuances of Jewish worship, belief, survival, and ritual practice.
In the standout “Memory, Vulnerability, and Return,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl recalls how Hoffman, a professor emeritus of liturgy at Hebrew Union College whose work focuses on improving the prayer experiences of secular Jews, helped to reorder the Yom Kippur liturgy structure at the Central Synagogue in New York to better build up to the service’s spiritual apex. Underscoring Hoffman’s insight, Buchdahl writes that the power of prayer is “not only in the content, but in the ebb and flow, the quiets and the crescendos.” Elsewhere, Rabbi Gordon Tucker unpacks Hoffman’s theory that today’s “apparent absence of faith” stems from “an inadequacy of language” to capture key religious tenets. The essential words creation, revelation, and redemption, for example, “no longer carry the same meanings for today’s Jews,” according Tucker, who calls for “new stories of faith” that require “new expression.”
Brisk yet meditative, these essays avoid slipping into hagiography as they celebrate and expand upon Hoffman’s adaptive and community-centered approach to prayer. Rabbis and others active in Jewish worship communities will be inspired. (Jan.) --Publishers Weekly
“From Rabbi Larry Hoffman, we learn how to pray with consequence . . . Our conversations within ourselves, with others, and with God lead us to know how to live.” –Janet Walton, professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary
“Hoffman is a rabbi of rabbis. And a liturgist of liturgists . . . [He] invited us to courageous reinterpretation and transformation of our liturgy.” –Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central synagogue, New York City
“Few thinkers possess greater ability than Rabbi Larry Hoffman to make surprising connections that bring new light to oft-trodden territory.” –Rabbi Arnold Eisen, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary
"I have long been indebted to Rabbi Larry Hoffman not only for the unparalleled genius he has always displayed in bringing together and synthesizing Jewish texts in intellectually provocative and spiritually moving ways." --Rabbi David Ellenson, chancellor emeritus of Hebrew union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Table of ContentsForeword by Rabbi Daniel Zemel
Foreword by Rabbi Carole Balin
Piece by Dr. Rabbi Joel M. Hoffman
Introduction by Joseph A. Skloot and Lisa J. Grushcow
Part 1. The Worship Revolution
Section 1: Worship as Drama
Chapter 1: Liturgy as Art by Rabbi Sonja Pilz
Chapter 2: Worship: A conversation and vision by Professor Janet Walton
Chapter 3: Creativity is our Birthright by Liz A. Lerman
Section 2: Writing Prayers
Chapter 4: Memory, Vulnerability, and Return by Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl
Chapter 5: Bridge of One’s Own by Rabbi David E. Stern
Chapter 6: How Prayers Mean by Rabbi Dalia Marx
Section 3: Reimagining Jewish Worship
Chapter 7: Notes on a Theology of the Internet by Rabbi Jodie M. Gordon and Rabbi Rachel Steiner
Chapter 8: Future of Jewish Prayer by Rabbi Daniel Medwin
Chapter 9: Jewish Values Shaped by Sacred Space by Dr. Richard S. Vosko
Chapter 10: Building Bridges by Yolanda Savage-Narva
Part 2. Rethinking North American Judaism
Section 4: You Are Here
Chapter 11: A Faith Bounded by Reason by Professor Andrew Rehfeld
Chapter 12: To be a Jewish Community, Worthy of that Name by Rabbi Arnold Eisen
Chapter 13: Reconstructing “belong” by Rabbi Deborah Waxman
Chapter 14: A View from Outside by Rabbi Daniel A. Judson
Section 5: From Common Cold to Uncommon Healing
Chapter 15: Living at the Margins by Rabbi Shira I. Milgrom
Chapter 16: Finding God with Other People by Rabbi Noa Rachael Kushner
Chapter 17: From Common Cold to Uncommon Pandemic by Professor Jonathan D. Sarna
Section 6: Non-Jews and Jewish Lifecycle Liturgy
Chapter 18: Abraham or Ruth? by Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson
Chapter 19: The Place Where Tradition and the World Collide by Rabbi Hilly Haber
Section 7: The Jewish Leader You Want to Be
Chapter 20: Speaking Differently by Cantor Sarah Grabiner
Chapter 21: Artists of the Jewish Message by Rabbi Joshua I. Beraha
Part 3. On What Jews Do and Believe
Section 8: What Counts for Jewish Knowledge
Chapter 22: What will “Jew” be? by Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur
Chapter 23: A Foot in Each Camp: Pushing the Boundaries of Both by Rabbi Tony Bayfield
Chapter 24: In Conversation with Silence by Rabbi Emily Langowitz
Section 9: Authenticity
Chapter 25: What Does it mean to be authentically Jewish by Cantor Jill Abramson
Chapter 26: On Authenticity by Rabbi Yael Splansky
Chapter 27: Choose Life by Rabbi Daniel Reiser
Section 10: Land of the Sick
Chapter 28: We Do Not Know What to Do by Rabbi Nicole Kauffman Roberts
Chapter 29: Time Zone of the Kingdom of the Sick by Rabbi Elliott Kukla
Section 11: I Do Believe
Chapter 30: Faith and Hope in Time of Challenge by Rabbi David H. Ellenson
Chapter 31: Hoffman’s Metafaith by Rabbi Gordon Tucker
Section 12: Recovery of Hope
Chapter 32: Ideas Matter by Professor Gordon W. Lathrop
Chapter 33: Ideas that Matter by Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig
About the Contributors
