Posts Tagged ‘Humanity’

 

From Desperation to Inspiration: Don’t Dare to Stop Dreaming that You Can Change the World

Posted on: April 21st, 2018 by Hayim Herring

 

With the permission of my colleague, Rabbi Sarah Bassin, Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel on Beverly Hills, CA, I’m sharing a good news story about the Syrian refugee crisis and the recent chemical attacks on innocent civilians. She explains how two of her congregants were able to mobilize faith communities to act in ways that made a real difference in a moment of crisis. She also describes her own learning and leadership throughout this process of providing support in a moment of deep crisis, and efforts to sustain that support. Often, religion gets a bad rap and you’re not likely to see this story of strangers helping strangers on so many levels, in another place far away that still strike home to some. I share it with you with the prayer that you or those in your communities will be inspired to provide help to those in need and not abandon hope when that’s the seemingly logical thing to do. It’s precisely in those moments when only a few people who say, “I refuse to accept this reality” that change happens.

 

Rabbi Sarah BassinI have no idea how to fix Syria.  Most Middle East experts admit they don’t either.  It’s complicated.  The Middle East is littered with the failed good intentions of our political interventions.

 

Now when we face the complicated in that region, we conclude that the best response must be no response.  My own disbelief at the bombings and the gas attacks morphed into heartbreak and outrage but quickly fizzled into paralysis.  No action of mine could advance a political solution to end the suffering.

 

I accepted my powerlessness along with the rest of the onlooking world.  I tried to ignore the implication that such acceptance came in the form of thousands of civilian casualties.  They were the collateral damage of the complicated.

 

But my logic was flawed.  We don’t refuse to feed one hungry person because we cannot alleviate the hunger of them all.  So why refrain from aiding some civilians in a war zone even though we cannot stop the war?  The enemy of the good is the perfect.

 

Two Jews from Los Angeles – Tamar and Phil Koosed refused to relinquish the possibility for the good.  They created Save the Syrian Children and used their business savvy to find shipping routes into areas under siege.  They inspired my congregation to break out of our paralysis.  And we rallied others.

 

With the help of 12 Jewish and interfaith organizations, we collected 5,000 pounds of clothes, an entire shipping container of unused medical supplies donated by hospitals and raised thousands of dollars to purchase more supplies.  Countless people donated.  Over 100 volunteers ages 8 to 80 showed up to sort, inventory and ship all of this stuff.  An entire community refused to succumb to inaction, as you can see from this local news story that covered our community’s efforts to help.

 

Of the more than 85,000 pounds of supplies that Save the Syrian Children has shipped in recent months, everything was accounted for through a double-blind inventory to ensure that materials get to where they need to go.  A mere 500 pounds of these supplies were lost when their warehouse was partially bombed.  Thank God Save the Syrian Children refused to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  And you can see the actual delivery of supplies by clicking here.

 

I should note that our synagogue intentionally carried out this effort on the heels of Passover.  But the analogy of modern-day Syria to the Jewish story of liberation falls short.  We did not and we will not deliver anything close to freedom — the Syrian civilians living under siege have no exodus.  Our efforts to alleviate their suffering were much more modest.  Modest – but not inconsequential.  Perhaps, the better parallel of the exodus story is not between the Syrians and the Israelites, but between us and Pharaoh.  Our hearts were in danger of hardening to ignore the cries of those who suffer.  I’m grateful to Save the Syrian Children for pulling me and my community back from that fate – for helping us retain our humanity.

 

Keeping the Faith – Network Organizing

Posted on: September 22nd, 2014 by Hayim Herring

 

 

Introduction
Social media platforms and tools affect leadership in congregations and organizations. Yes—there are skills involved in using social media but beyond the skills, they have significant implications for how leadership roles need to evolve. Understanding the relationship between social media and leadership is new territory. That’s why I grateful to Lianna Levine Reisner and Lisa Colton, two pioneers in social media and their place in congregations, who explore this issue in their essay below as part of the Keeping Faith in Rabbis. A Community Conversation on Rabbinical Education project.

 

Network Organizing: Rethinking Communal Leadership for Rabbis
By Lianna Levine Reisner and Lisa Colton

 

Today we are witnessing massive shifts in demographics, culture, and behavior. Our young people are global citizens, individually empowered through rapidly evolving technologies, and increasingly capable of designing and customizing their own experiences. As NYU professor and author Clay Shirky states, all of this means that “organizations no longer have a monopoly on organizing.” As the Pew Research Center’s 2013 report “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” illuminated, so many Jews today are proud to be Jewish while simultaneously rejecting the institutions of Jewish life.

 

Lianna Reisner and Lisa ColtonAs representatives of the Gen X and Millennial generations, committed both personally and professionally to Judaism and to strengthening Jewish communal life, we see a need for rabbis to understand, embrace, and become skilled at leading networked communities. Working on the ground in both Jewish and secular settings, we have seen and experienced how a networked approach to community leaves a profound impact on people as they find purpose and become strengthened through trusting relationships and collaboration.

 

As those in our generations (as well as those who are older and younger) seek to create meaning and build connections, Jewish leaders must question longstanding values and basic assumptions about how we lead, manage, and relate to individuals and families within our communities. To remain relevant centers of Jewish life, we believe organizations and their leaders will need to embrace contemporary values such as openness/connections (vs. privacy/distance), collaboration (vs. competition), and subjectivity (vs. objectivity). They must also recognize that their job is not simply to maintain institutions, but instead to lead and strengthen communities with shared mission and purpose. This will require reinterpreting the models we have inherited from the past, building new professional skills, and experimenting with new approaches. We invite rabbis to see our current moment in time as a phenomenal opportunity for regeneration and empowerment of our communities.

 

Unlike the spiritual leaders of many other faiths, rabbis are not considered to have special intermediary powers between God and the people, but rather to be communal leaders working among the people with divine lessons and wisdom. What does it mean to lead a community, and what skills does one need to do so effectively today? Community leadership does not stem from a graduate degree, a job title, or assigned responsibility. Leadership is not about power or authority alone; it requires vision, goal setting, collaboration, and the ability to inspire and guide a group of people toward shared goals and purpose. What exactly those goals and purpose are may vary from one community to another, across denominations, or based on the organizational setting in which one works. But a common thread across all of these is the ability to create connection, cohesion, and momentum among a group of people. This is neither pushing from behind nor pulling from the front, but rather organizing from within. (more…)