“My Jewish Home” Insights from Base’s First Six Years Welcome. When Base started six years ago as a project incubated by Hillel International’s Office of Innovation, it was often promoted as a new “engagement” model. While this was true, we have always felt that Base, at its core, is an educational model. To this end, as we embark on our next chapter as a new strategic priority of Moishe House, we felt it was important to capture some of the key learnings of our first six years. Through this project, Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz, Base’s external evaluator, has set our work in the context of what's come before, and where it's situated within the current Jewish communal landscape, bringing in academic research as well as the voices of the Basers whom we serve and insights from the rabbinic couples who lead our communities – a style intended to evoke the layers of commentary offered throughout Jewish tradition. While this project is intended to be viewed online, we hope this plain text version will still enable you to appreciate the richness of these findings. Each of the report’s sections offers a unique lens through which to view the values that drive our work and the reasons we build Jewish community through a relationally driven approach. insights.basemovement.org “My Jewish Home” Insights from Base’s First Six Years Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 6 I. Base is my Jewish Home 6 II. The Significance of “my Jewish Home” 7 III. Creating a Jewish Home 9 IV. Home and Community 12 V. Base within the Context of Jewish Community 17 VI. Strategies for Jewish Learning and Observance 19 VII. A Supportive Organizational Culture 31 VIII. What’s Next? 32 Bibliography 33 insights.basemovement.org 1 Executive Summary I. Base is my Jewish Home At the heart of Base’s work is the creation of a “Jewish home” for young adults. While the Base rabbinic couples do create a physical home, the experience of “my Jewish Home” is best understood as an experience that is not limited to a physical location. Learn More II. The Significance of “my Jewish Home” 1. The Transformation of Jewish Community – Base’s work to create a “Jewish home” for young adults is part of a broader community building movement in American and Jewish life, in which younger generations are seeking alternatives to “legacy” communal institutions. The focus is on intimate social settings that enable individuals to at once lead a personal intellectual and/or spiritual journey in the context of nurturing and continuing social relationships. Learn More 2. Jewish Community for our Times – Base, as with other alternative communal organizations, emphasizes “meaningful social relationships” as a core building block for determining success. Learn More 3. Actualization of Self through Community – Base’s mission explicitly addresses a desire to rebuild Jewish communal life in a manner appropriate for younger Jewish generations. The goal is to create an intentionally planned experience of Jewish community. Each individual is provided a social context within which to pursue a personally meaningful Jewish journey that is intellectually and spiritually nourishing. Learn More III. Creating a Jewish Home 1. Experiential Education and a Jewish Home - The Base strategy for creating a Jewish Home builds on principles of experiential Jewish education. Experiential Jewish education is a rapidly developing field that stresses the importance of learning within a social context. Learners develop meaningful social relationships while acquiring Jewish knowledge. The social context enables the learner to make sense of knowledge learned and the implications for their lives. Learn More 2. Community Built on Intimacy and Depth - “This is my Place” - Applying principles of experiential Jewish education involves weaving cognitive, emotional and behavioral strands of the human experience - “seeing and acting out our lives through Jewish relationships and Jewish tradition.” Learn More 3. The Rabbinic Couple - and where applicable, their children, are central to the experience of Base: (1) providing a home environment that values partnership, (2) insights.basemovement.org 2 leading high-quality learning, marked by a conversation-focused social, intellectual, and spiritual experience, along with (3) spiritual guidance and pastoral care. Learn More IV. Home and Community 1. Home is Part of a Broader Community - People leave and return home. Indeed, Basers describe their Jewish lives playing out in multiple contexts, including family and friendship circles integrated with participation in Jewish organizations, the most prominent of which are Base and synagogues or minyanim. Learn More 2. An Address for those who are Uncomfortable with Organized Jewish Life – Many Basers describe “Base as my primary Jewish place,” for others “Base is one of my Jewish places.” Members of the former group find the Base=Home dynamic as a richly compelling Jewish involvement opportunity and are unlikely to be as involved in Jewish life through alternative venues. Learn More 3. Feeling Comfortable with Community. Intimate community can be difficult to access. Feeling socially and Jewishly comfortable is a primary condition to enabling an experience of intimacy and trust. Basers might feel Jewishly inadequate, lacking previous experience studying Jewish text, or never having participated in a Shabbat meal, or simply feeling socially awkward in a new situation. Base works to enable a person to feel comfortable through creating a hospitable and non-judgmental environment. Learn More a. Practice of Welcoming. Entry into Base means a feeling of intimacy. Numbers at any given event are limited. Hospitality means never having to worry about where to go. Learn More b. Non-Judgmental Community. Creating a home for individuals coming from diverse Jewish and personal backgrounds aspiring to enable each to feel comfortable with who they are. Learn More V. Base within the Context of Jewish Community 1. Creating an Extended Jewish Community - Charismatic rabbinical couples building community-based social networks that exist even without their presence through participation in the broader local community; and, enabling Basers who live and work elsewhere to nevertheless connect to community through Base. Learn More 2. Strengthening the Larger Jewish Community through Organizational Partnerships. Base works to bring a unique added value to Jewish life in a geographical community, striving to complement and strengthen the work of other Jewish organizations. The work includes a focus on complementing Moishe House by offering professionally-led insights.basemovement.org 3 Jewish learning and organized community; and complementing synagogues by offering a non-denominational pathway into Jewish community. Learn More VI. Strategies for Jewish Learning and Observance Base is an intentional community. Professionals, the Rabbinical couple, craft an experience that is at once inclusive and invites in-depth engagement with Jewish learning and exposure to Jewish religious ritual. The organizing principle: There are many ways to show up Jewishly, only one of which is synagogue and prayer. Learn More 1. Base’s Educational Philosophy By R’ Avram Mlotek. Base Co-Founder, Rabbi of Base MNHTN, and Mashgiach Ruchani/Director of Spiritual Life. Learn More 2. An Authentic and Grounded Jewish Experience - The goal is to create an authentic and grounded Jewish experience, in which each person can feel a sense of belonging. The strategy is to view the diversity of participants as a core educational asset, built on the recognition that Jewish rabbinic tradition is pluralistic and that tension is positive. Learn More 3. Trust is Core to the Experience of “My Jewish Home” - The Base Home and all supporting programming is intentionally designed to develop shared experiences built on trust. Shared Base experiences include intimate conversations in which Basers open themselves up to a high level of vulnerability and honesty, by actively sharing and contributing their own perspectives and life experiences. Learn More 4. Relationships and Community Building - Base builds Jewish community through four types of interactions. (1) One-on-one meetings and (2) small group discussions provide the sense of structured intimacy that drives the feeling that Base = my Jewish Home. (3) Informal conversation and (4) large events are vital for the feeling that the intimate- structured interactions are part of a larger communal life. Learn More 5. Programming Pillars - The four modes of interaction (one-on-one conversations, small groups, informal conversation and large events) appear in various combinations in each of Base’s four core programming pillars: (1) Shabbat and Jewish holidays, (2) Jewish Learning, (3) Service learning and (4) Pastoral care. Learn More 6. Learning Opportunities include Chevruta learning with Rabbi or Rabbi’s partner, drop in classes, cohort-based experiences (groups that meet on a regular basis), embedded learning during social occasions, for example at Shabbat meals, Jewish service and empowering Basers to give back to the community by leading cohort groups in areas of interest to them and hosting each other for Shabbat dinners that include a learning component. Learn More 7. Pedagogy - Context informs learning. Home, neighborhood, community, friendship frames and informs the learning activity producing an experience that is not formal or institutional, but rather intensely personal. Learn More insights.basemovement.org 4 8. Teacher as Model - The Base Rabbis