Communities of Meaning: Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry Hoffman
Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry Hoffman
- Publisher
- Behrman House
- Initial publish date
- Jan 2024
- Category
- Theology, Old Testament, Old Testament, Old Testament
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781681150963
- Publish Date
- Jan 2024
- List Price
- $32.99
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Description
"Brisk yet meditative . . .Rabbis and others active in Jewish worship communities will be inspired." --Publishers Weekly
Few people have had a greater impact on modern Jewish worship and life than Rabbi Larry Hoffman.
"From Larry Hoffman, we learn how to pray with consequence." --Janet Walton, professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary
In Communities of Meaning, thirty-four of today's community leaders and theologians engage Hoffman in dialogue about the big questions in American Jewish life, including:
- How, where, and why people pray.
- What Jewish life looks like today and what lies ahead.
- How Jews engage with people of other faiths,
- How faith can shape commitment and action.
This collection invites readers into the ageless conversation that is Judaism and challenges everyone to think creatively about the ideas and institutions that are shaping Jewish life in the twenty-first century.
Includes contributions from Jill Abramson, Tony Bayfield, Angela Buchdahl, Joshua Davidson, Arnold Eisen, David Ellenson, Daniel, Judson, Noa Kushner, Liz Lerman, Andrew Reyfeld, Jonathan Sarna, Gordon Tucker, Deborah Waxman, Danny Zemel, and many others.
“Hoffman is a rabbi of rabbis. And a liturgist of liturgists . . . [He] invited us to courageous reinterpretation and transformation of our liturgy.” –Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central synagogue, New York City
Full List of Contributors:
Cantor Jill Abramson is the director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC.
Rabbi Carole Balin is a writer and teacher, and chair of the board of the Jewish Women’s Archive and professor emerita of history at Hebrew Union College.
Rabbi Tony Bayfield was the head of Reform Judaism in Britain and is also Professor Emeritus of Jewish Theology and Thought at Leo Baeck College.
Rabbi Joshua I. Beraha is an associate rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C.
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl serves as the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City.
Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson is the senior rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El in New York City.
Rabbi Arnold Eisen is Chancellor Emeritus and Professor of Jewish Thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Rabbi David H. Ellenson is Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College.
Rabbi Jodie M. Gordon is a rabbi at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Cantor Sarah Grabiner is the assistant director of the Year in Israel programme at HUC Jerusalem.
Rabbi Hilly Haber is the director of social justice organizing and education at Central Synagogue in New York City.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman is a teacher, translator, and author in New York.
Rabbi Delphine Horveilleur is France’s third female rabbi, and leads a progressive congregation in Paris
Rabbi Daniel A. Judson is the Dean of Hebrew College in Newton, MA.
Rabbi Elliot Kukla is an author, visual artist, and activist currently living in Oakland, California.
Rabbi Noa Rachael Kushner founded The Kitchen, a hands-on international resource that serves thousands of modern families in San Francisco and around the world.
Rabbi Emily Langowitz is the Jewish engagement manager at the URJ and lives in Phoenix.
Prof. Gordon W. Lathrop is the Schieren Professor of Liturgy Emeritus at the United Lutheran Seminary (USA) and a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Liz A. Lerman is a choreographer, writer, educator, and recipient of MacArthur “Genius Grant” and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is currently a professor at Arizona State University.
Rabbi Dalia Marx is professor at HUC in Jerusalem and teaches in various academic institutions in Israel and Europe. She is the tenth generation of her family in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Daniel Medwin is the co-director of innovation and growth at URG 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy. He lives in Georgia.
Rabbi Shira I. Milgrom is the rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, New York.
Rabbi Sonja K. Pilz is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom in Bozeman, Montana.
Prof. Andrew Rehfeld is the president of Hebrew Union College in New York.
Rabbi Daniel Reiser is the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Rabbi Nicole Kauffman Roberts is Senior Rabbi of North Shore Temple Emanuel in Sydney, Australia.
Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna teaches American Jewish History at Brandeis University and is also Chief Historian of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
Yolanda Savage-Narva is the assistant vice president of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for the URJ.
Rabbi Yael Splansky is the rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.
Rabbi Rachel Steiner is the senior rabbi at Barnert Temple in New Jersey.
Rabbi David E. Stern is Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas.
Rabbi Gordon Tucker is Vice Chancellor for Religious Life and Engagement at The Jewish Theological Seminary and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
Dr. Richard S. Vosko is an award-winning liturgical design consultant for Christian and Jewish congregations throughout North America.
Professor Janet R. Walton is a musician, author, teacher, ritual leader, and professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman is president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism.
Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig teaches at HUC in New York City and is the first Jewish President of the Academy of Homiletics.
Rabbi Daniel Zemel is the senior rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C.
About the authors
Joseph A. Skloot is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual History and Associate Director of the Tisch Fellowship Program at Hebrew Union College in New York City.
Joseph A. Skloot's profile page
Lisa J. Grushcow is the senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, the sole Reform synagogue in Montreal and Quebec.
Excerpt: Communities of Meaning: Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry Hoffman: Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry Hoffman (edited by Joseph A. Skloot & Lisa J. Grushcow)
“Of course, Judaism unquestionably teaches that we cannot surrender what Hoffman refers to as “the saving grace of hope.” Even events as momentous as the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel are, as Hoffman observes, little more than blips in time. Yet, to cite another statement that Franz Rosenzweig once addressed to his mentor the philosopher Hermann Cohen, “Zeit ists—it is time,” our time and our century, and we cannot so easily ignore the momentous events that have shaped it. And while I try to hold on to the hope that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” my own reading of this moment and the events of our day sadly cause me, more often than I care to admit, despair. I cannot assert with perfect faith a confidence that the “tiny bridge” of history Hoffman describes will lead to a future replete with “meaning.” There is too much evil and imperfection in the world.
I am not happy as I write these last words, and I thank Hoffman for provoking me to think about the deepest sense of reality—faith—that informs the innermost recesses of my being. I have no doubt that I aspire to his faith. I also know that the state of cautious pessimism that characterizes my own fear that the arc of history will not necessarily bend toward justice or repair does not hinder my own efforts to make it otherwise. After all, even if goodness as a motivating source has proved insufficient to ensure the future, human beings are not automatons. Human beings possess the ability to choose, and we can elect not to act in ways that will bring catastrophe upon our nation, our people, and our planet. It may well be that fear of the horror of what could be, not hope of what might be realized, will move humanity to act so that the evil that all to often dominates our world will yet be avoided. This hermeneutic of fear is surely not the last word about our faith. However, it may yet prove to be an appropriate first word out of which “the saving grace of hope” may be affirmed.” --Faith and Hope in Time of Challenge, Rabbi David Ellenson
Editorial Reviews
Rabbis Grushcow (Writing the Wayward Wife) and Skloot (First Impressions) pay tribute to liturgist and rabbi Larry Hoffman with this gathering of brief and insightful pieces on the nuances of Jewish worship, belief, survival, and ritual practice.
In the standout “Memory, Vulnerability, and Return,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl recalls how Hoffman, a professor emeritus of liturgy at Hebrew Union College whose work focuses on improving the prayer experiences of secular Jews, helped to reorder the Yom Kippur liturgy structure at the Central Synagogue in New York to better build up to the service’s spiritual apex. Underscoring Hoffman’s insight, Buchdahl writes that the power of prayer is “not only in the content, but in the ebb and flow, the quiets and the crescendos.” Elsewhere, Rabbi Gordon Tucker unpacks Hoffman’s theory that today’s “apparent absence of faith” stems from “an inadequacy of language” to capture key religious tenets. The essential words creation, revelation, and redemption, for example, “no longer carry the same meanings for today’s Jews,” according Tucker, who calls for “new stories of faith” that require “new expression.”
Brisk yet meditative, these essays avoid slipping into hagiography as they celebrate and expand upon Hoffman’s adaptive and community-centered approach to prayer. Rabbis and others active in Jewish worship communities will be inspired. (Jan.) --Publishers Weekly
“From Rabbi Larry Hoffman, we learn how to pray with consequence . . . Our conversations within ourselves, with others, and with God lead us to know how to live.” –Janet Walton, professor emerita of worship and the arts at Union Theological Seminary
“Hoffman is a rabbi of rabbis. And a liturgist of liturgists . . . [He] invited us to courageous reinterpretation and transformation of our liturgy.” –Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central synagogue, New York City
“Few thinkers possess greater ability than Rabbi Larry Hoffman to make surprising connections that bring new light to oft-trodden territory.” –Rabbi Arnold Eisen, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary
"I have long been indebted to Rabbi Larry Hoffman not only for the unparalleled genius he has always displayed in bringing together and synthesizing Jewish texts in intellectually provocative and spiritually moving ways." --Rabbi David Ellenson, chancellor emeritus of Hebrew union College-Jewish Institute of Religion