Archive for November, 2010

 

You Can’t be Someone Else, You Can Only be More Fully Yourself

Posted on: November 19th, 2010 by Hayim Herring

When I first began working as a congregational rabbi, I used to ask my wife to comment on my sermons. One day she said to me, “your sermon was good, but do you have to sound so preachy?” I thought that was a funny question to ask a “preacher.” But I’ve learned over the years that the most effective preaching doesn’t sound preachy. Years later, in the work that I did when I was executive director of STAR, I was introduced to Eda Roth, who is a communications specialist and this week’s guest blogger. Eda explains how rabbis and all people involved in public communications benefit when they step out of their role and step back into their authentic selves.  Hayim Herring

Rabbi Hayim Herring has quoted me as saying “You cannot be someone else. You can only be more fully yourself.” What does that mean? Most people express a narrow range of themselves. We all develop habits and stay within a certain range of expression. Professionalism adds even more constrictions. Whether business, healthcare, non-profits or the Rabbinate, there seems to be an agreed upon, accepted set of limitations called “what is appropriate” or “professional”.

Recently when working with rabbinical students, I heard a generic commonality in what and how they were expressing, rather than the vibrant individuality and uniqueness of who they really were, with their insights, passion and genuine desire to reach people. Granted, as students they were beginning to learn effective modes of constructing sermons and messages, but the danger was that some of those early habits would become entrenched and limit them and their capacity to genuinely inspire others; that they would stay within a rather safe, comfortable, borrowed and habituated range.

There is an unmistakable ring of truth when we touch genuine chords of who we are – our individuality, passion understanding, insight – and allow those to be heard and felt. That’s the power of words made manifest. If our expression is timid, or limited, if we are afraid to be loud enough to be heard, or so bombastic that we are not making our own genuine connections with the text and allow that to be heard, then our communication is not genuine.

Years ago a rabbi came to me for voice coaching. He felt his voice was constricted and reported that he would run out of breath. As we worked, we addressed not only on the dynamics of the voice, but his connection to what he was saying in his sermons. Were his messages coming across as compellingly as he desired? Was he really reaching people? We continued to explore the message itself, his real connection to what he was saying, the fullness and freedom of how he was saying it, and whether and when he was genuinely connecting with those to whom he was speaking (whether a Bar Mitzvah or a congregation).

In connecting with text or Torah, it comes most alive when we bring our insights, understanding and passion to the text, and allow those to express THROUGH the text. It’s then that truth and meaning become immediate real and alive, not just historical cultural memory and wisdom revisited. Say, for example, we are quoting from Proverbs, “Trust in God with all your heart and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God and God will direct your paths.” We first, of course, begin with the text itself. What is it saying? How is meaning conveyed through the construct of language itself? What is the architecture of the language, the arc of the phrasing? Then we address how we enter and fulfill that text. If we bring what we know, understand, have lived of those words to our expression of the text, then it becomes present and alive with meaning. Our understanding, our individuality, what we know and have lived of that text enables us to become a transparency for the truth of the text and IS what reveals meaning. It is not reducing the text to us, but allowing who we are to come through the text. We then become a link in the chain of generations through which the word is not only passed down, but is alive, real and immediate. That is then the power of the word, expressed and felt.

How honest, how daring, how real are we willing to be? More than a repeating or rehearsed expression, do we express ourselves genuinely, authentically? That can only happen if the fullness of who we really are is opened and available. We bring our intellectual understanding, our passion, compassion, the fullness of our voices available to reveal that expression, and most of all; great love of truth and of all to whom we communicate. We do not constrict or circumscribe expression, but ultimately allow and reveal.

It is a noble goal – to inspire – to breathe divine life into – others; to allow that divine life to breathe into us.

Eda Roth
Eda Roth & Associates
Real Presence and Communication

Eda Roth is a communications consultant who uses her acting and directing skills to enable people be more value-based, genuine, strategic and clear. You can reach her at edaroth@aol.com.

Why Your Rabbi Can’t Lead

Posted on: November 2nd, 2010 by Hayim Herring

On October 13, I attended a conference on continuing rabbinic education, sponsored by The Alliance for Continuing Rabbinic Education. I was also a presenter on a panel, where I spoke about an inherent tension in the role of a congregational rabbi which often prevents an effective exercising of rabbinic leadership. Based on some feedback from the presentation, I decided to blog about the presentation, and my post can also be found on the website of the Alliance, along with video excerpts from the other panelists, Dr. Jonathan Woocher and Rabbi Marc Margolius.

I hope that this post will foster some open conversation!

Thank you, Rabbi Herring

In 1893, Ahad Ha’Am, a proponent of cultural Zionism, wrote an essay entitled, “Priest and Prophet.” The gist of this article was that Moses, the Prophet, was an idealist. Therefore, he was uncompromising in his expectations about God’s demands the Jewish people.  On the other hand, Aaron the Priest, the older brother of Moses, was a popular leader.  He worked in the messy, real realm of people and was a pragmatist. Aaron was beloved, while Moshe was respected and feared. It took an idealist and a pragmatist, leaders with two distinct roles, to lead the people from Egypt to Israel.

And that’s one of the reasons that rabbinic leadership is complicated today. Idealist and pragmatist have been fused into one role for rabbis. Their training makes them idealists, but living in community of real people, they have to be caring, kind, compassionate, forgiving pragmatists. Jewish communities need both leadership qualities to have a dynamic community.

If it took a Moses and an Aaron to forge a community, why do we expect that one person can embody both religious personalities in today’s Jewish communities? There are others in Jewish communities who have the training or could acquire the training to provide the pastoral, the organizational and even spiritual dimensions of Jewish community life. They can be the primary pragmatists. But only rabbis have the breadth of Jewish learning to provide authentic leadership at the current turning-point in history. (By “authentic,” I mean ideals, ideas and insights that reflect an understanding of an almost 4,000 year-old multi-layered historical, textual, spiritual and intellectual journey).

I think that rabbis and volunteer leaders have some soul-searching to do. Volunteer leaders often express concern about a lack of rabbinic leadership, when at the same time they can be punitive when rabbis actually lead with their ideals. Rabbis seem to be more concerned at times with making sure that people feel comfortable, instead of challenged. This dynamic creates equilibrium at a time when the Jewish community would benefit from a little imbalance created by an injection of fresh thinking and reinterpretation of classical Jewish ideals.

Rabbi Hayim Herring, Ph.D.
President, C.E.O., Herring Consulting Network
“Preparing Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow’s Organizations™”