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U1 1 1111 IT ED
1991 ORCHARD LAKE RD
11/24
2000
20
SYLVAN LAKE, MI
Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri 9:00 - 5:00
Wed 9:00 - 2:00 - Sat 2:00 - 5:00
Spiritual Search
Keynote speakers were Synagogue
2000 founders Rabbi Larry
Hoffman and Dr. Ronald Wolfson.
Rabbi Hoffman is a spokesman for
the Reform movement, while
Wolfson plays a similar role in
Conservative Judaism.
"Synagogues ought to be places
where everyone counts, everyone
matters," said Wolfson, vice presi-
dent of the University of Judaism
in Los Angeles as well as director o f
the university's Whizin Center for
the Jewish Future.
"We make decisions about our
Jewish lives daily, weekly, yearly,"
Wolfson said.
These decisions should be based
not on whim but on the answers to
meaningful questions about our
Jewish lives, he said. These ques-
tions include: "What does the syn-
agogue mean to me?" "How can I
get in touch with my spirituality?"
"What is the meaning of life?" and
"How do I find the presence of
God?"
"Synagogue 2000," Wolfson said,
"is a program to help guide us on
our journey to make synagogues
into spiritual centers, to move from
a fee-for-service institution to a
community that matters."
Rabbi Hoffman, professor of
liturgy at the Hebrew Union-
Jewish Institute of Religion in New
York, debunked the idea that the
Top: Dr. Ron Wolfson leads Synagogue 2000
number of committed Jews is
delegates in new songs.
declining.
Above: Pat Sachs, Cantor David Montefzore,
"In 1950, Look magazine wrote
Naomi Levine and Ronn Nadis, all of
an article, 'The Vanishing
Congregation Beth Ahm in West Bloomfiel4
American Jew,"' Rabbi Hoffman
and
Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg of Congregation Shir
said. "Well, we're still around but
Tikvah
in Troy, enjoy the ffnai Jeshurun ceremony.
it's awfully hard to find Look maga-
zine."
Instead of vanishing, America's
Jews have the freedom and desire
Selma Schwartz of Franklin said she
to express their spirituality in a maw re
joined Synagogue 2000 to help her
fashion, he said.
synagogue, Shaarey Zedek of
"This is the Golden Age for
Southfield, maintain members.
American Jews," Rabbi Hoffman said •
"People are not always comfortable
The search for spirituality is on the
with the services," she said. "They
rise in this country, he said, and the
need to feel they can participate more,
options are unlimited.
not just be observers."
Marianne Bloomberg of Farmington
Hills,
also of Shaarey Zedek, said she
Personal Preferences
enjoys the innovative activities already
Committee members said they were
taking place and wants to see more.
energized by the speakers and break-out
The Kabbalat Shabbat dinner, with
sessions, where they discussed why they
the Friday-night service that follows, is
joined a synagogue in general and their
an event she can attend with her baby
own synagogue in particular. Each syn-
and husband as well as his parents and
agogue will conduct similar sessions
grandparents.
where members at large will say what is
"I'm looking for things I can do with
being done to encourage participation
my family," she said.
and what is turning them off.
At the mock Shabbat celebration,
Rabbi Matalon said B'nai Jeshurun
did not have overnight success with
its alternative services. Only 15-20
years later, the synagogue, on New
York's Upper West Side, frequently
has to conduct two services on
Friday nights.
"It's not a show," he said. "It's not
about tricks. It's a spiritual experi-
ence which, for us, is the crowning
of the week."
Dr. Joan Lessen-Firestone of
Bloomfield Hills, a member of
Federation's Alliance for Jewish
Education, belongs to Congregation
Shir Tikvah of Troy. She said she
sees many elements of the B'nai
Jeshurun service in use at Shir
Tikvah.
"I feel that music and chanting
get us into a deeper level of con-
sciousness," she said. "No service
that is merely words or has more
intellectual content has ever moved
me so much."
Shir Tikvah Rabbi Arnie
Sleutelberg said he was grateful
Federation has made Synagogue
2000 available to the Detroit-area
synagogues.
"It affords us an opportunity to
analyze who we are and who we
wish to become in the coming
decades," he said. "It's a process we
very much need to engage in."
Zelda and Milton Rose of
Farmington Hills, longtime mem-
bers of Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield, said they didn't think
many members of their Reform
temple would want the B'nai
Jeshurun service in the form it took
Nov. 19.
"Some things our people would
like," Zelda Rose said. "But if it gets
too Conservative, uses too much
Hebrew and has a lot of prayers,
they wouldn't go for it."
Each of the Synagogue 2000 com-
mittee members has received a book
"about a foot thick" describing the
program and their commitments, said
Carol Ogusky of West Bloomfield, a
member of Temple Shir Shalom in
West Bloomfield.
"I found some of it very interest-
ing," she said. "The conference as a
whole was a wonderful experience."
Ogusky said the Shir Shalom group
had mixed feelings about the ceremo-
ny.
"It was a long ceremony and it was
all in Hebrew," she said. "I had a feel-
ing of familiarity, because I'd grown
up in an Orthodox shul. I liked the
dancing; I'd like to see that in our own
shul."