22 January 31 • 2019
jn

Shabbat Together

Area’
s youngest rabbis collaborate
on innovative Shabbat experience. 

I

n ongoing efforts to bring sparks 
of connection to a post-affiliation 
generation, Detroit’
s youngest 
rabbis will hold “Shabbat Together,” 
an innovative Shabbat experience 
with guitars, singing and a 
farm-to-table dinner, 7 p.m. 
Friday, Feb. 8, at Jam Handy, 
2900 E. Grand Blvd. in 
Detroit. 
More a collaboration of love 
and friendship than work, 
the evening will best reflect 
the shared passions and 
aspirations of rabbis such as 
Yoni Dahlen of Congregation 
Shararey Zedek, Megan 
Brudney of Temple Beth El, 
The Well’
s Daniel Horwitz, 
Temple Israel’
s Jen Lader and 
Hazon’
s Nate DeGroot. All are 
eager to push the envelope on 
innovative efforts to continue 
to energize the next genera-
tions of Detroit Jews. 
Last spring, with help 
from a William Davidson 
Foundation grant, Horwitz 
and Dahlen traveled to Los 
Angeles for a Jewish Emergent 
Network conference to see 
what they could bring home 
to Detroit. Comprised of 
seven innovative Jewish com-
munities in coastal cities, this 
movement seeks to reinvent 
and re-engage Jewish educa-
tional and ritual practice to 
newer generations of post-af-
filiated Jews. 
An example is a “wordless 
Shabbat” The Well held in 
January where 40 young adults 
ushered in a Friday night 
with harmonious niggunim to 
allow for private meditations 
rather than reciting psalms from a 
traditional siddur. 
Horwitz said the Feb. 8 service, 
geared to those 40 and younger, is 
not rooted in any one siddur but 
will have the “arc” of a traditional 
Kabbalat Shabbat service with par-
ticipants sitting in concentric circles. 
“The evening will be completely 

collaborative,” Horwitz said. “We 
are excited to bring some of the best 
practices on the coasts to Detroit 
and are crafting a non-denomina-
tional spiritual experience. And, if 
it works, we will surely do it 
again.” 
Dahlen said he hopes partic-
ipants will come away feeling 
nourished, peaceful and will 
have found an experience with 
the depth and meaning they 
have been seeking. 
He added the friendship, 
mutual respect and love the 
rabbis have for Judaism and 
each other made the planning 
a joy and not a chore. 
“The truth is that we aren’
t 
working together so much as 
we are dreaming and brain-
storming with one another,” 
Dahlen said. “
All of us are good 
friends, and it’
s truly a blessing 
to be able to spend time togeth-
er to make this dream Shabbat 
of ours into a reality. We get 
to make music together, share 
Torah with one another and 
shape prayer together. What 
could be better?”
Lader was excited to be the 
coordinating rabbi at Temple 
Israel to work on projects like 
this for a “new, fun, upcoming 
generation of young Jewish 
adults in Detroit.” 
“My favorite kind of 
Shabbat services are filled 
with wordless melodies that 
allow the worshipper to inter-
ject their own meditations 
and intentions rather than be 
constrained to the words on 
a page,” she said. “This is a 
generation craving spirituality 
and relationships, and we wanted 
to create a service that appeals to a 
wider audience. It will be as open 
and inclusive as possible. We want to 
create a Shabbat experience where no 
one will feel like an outsider.” ■

 
Due to donors, subsidized tickets are $14. To 

RSVP
, go to temple-israel.org.

jews d
in 
the

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Dan Horwitz

Jen Lader

Yoni Dahlen

Megan Brudney

Nate DeGroot

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