Commun i ty

Spirituality

141'ort h erti

Inspiration

Rabbi Stacie Fine

"TN

Traverse City
rabbi's scenic
retreat is first
step toward
a Jewish
learning center
for spiritual
searchers.

•
Traverse City

HOWARD LOVY

Special to the Jewish News

I

t may be just a few dozen people
meditating and studying Judaism at
the Lake Michigan shore, but plan-
ners hope a weekend retreat in
October will mark a low-key beginning of
nothing less than the revitalization of Jewish
life in the Midwest.
Quite an ambitious goal for Northport —
a tiny, scenic tourist town in Michigan's lit-
tle finger.
But the retreat's organizer, Rabbi Stacie
Fine, spiritual leader at the Temple Ahavat
Shalom in nearby Traverse Cin is not
known in Northern Michigan's Jewish cir-
cles for being timid. She has gained a repu-
tation for doing things a little differently
She presides at many interfaith weddings
and her independent shul is considered a
haven for Jews who do not feel comfortable
in any of the "Big Three" Jewish denomina-
tions.
The result is that many Jews who other-
wise would have remained out in the cold in
Northern Michigan have decided to affiliate
themselves with a Jewish institution that
welcomes their individual spiritual quests.
It seems to be working. Her temple has
grown from just an idea four years ago to
around 50 families now — the vast majority
of whom were previously unaffiliated.
Now she hopes to transfer the success of
Ahavat Shalom into a different setting —
one that still attracts unaffiliated Jewish spir-
itual searchers, but places them in a center
of Jewish learning modeled after Elat
Chayyim in the Catskills and Chochmat
HaLev in Berkeley, Calif. Rabbi Fine goes to
the upstate New York retreat every year, but
was bothered by the fact that there were
only three participants from the Midwest.

Center With A View

"There was a desire to create a place here in
Northern Michigan that was a center for
Jewish renewal and healing, teaching, medi-
tation, art," Rabbi Fine said.
"We started thinking that it would be
neat to have a place to go that wasn't so far
away and that took advantage of what I
would say is one of the most beautiful
places in the country, if not the world."
Their plans moved beyond the "Wouldn't
it be nice ... phase a few months ago,
when the Kellogg Foundation, which creates
special interest, community-building funds,
granted Ahavat Shalom $60,000 to fund
two years of piloting and planning the
retreat at the Northport Bay Retreat.
"I want to capture some of the incredible
power of the intensive learning that can go
on only in a retreat setting," Rabbi Fine
said.