Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life
A critical and challenging look at reinventing the synagogue, as the centerpiece of a refashioned Jewish community.
"America is undergoing a spiritual revolution: only the fourth religious awakening in its history. I plead, therefore, for an equally spiritual synagogue, knowing that any North American Jewish community that hopes to be around in a hundred years must have religion at its center, with the synagogue, the religious institution that best fits North American culture, at its very core."
—from Chapter 1
Synagogues are under attack, and for good reasons. But they remain the religious backbone of Jewish continuity, especially in America, the sole Western industrial or post-industrial nation where religion and spirituality continue to grow in importance. To fulfill their mandate for the American future, synagogues need to replace old and tired conversation with a new way of talking about their goals, their challenges and their vision for the future.
In this provocative clarion call for synagogue transformation, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman summarizes a decade of research with Synagogue 2/3000—a pioneering experiment that reconceptualized synagogue life—providing fresh ways for synagogues to think as they undertake the exciting task of global change.
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Book details
- Author
- Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
- Imprint
- Jewish Lights, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 240
- Formats
- Paperback, Hardcover
- Subjects
- Religion › Judaism
Religion › Leadership - Topics
- Jewish community · religious leadership · Jewish continuity · spiritual revolution · synagogue transformation · American Judaism
- ISBN-13
- 9781580232487 (Paperback)9781683362678 (Hardcover)
About the author
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD , has served for more than three decades as professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He is a world-renowned liturgist and holder of the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair in Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. His work combines research in Jewish ritual, worship and spirituality with a passion for the spiritual renewal of contemporary Judaism. His many books, written and edited, include seven volumes in the Prayers of Awe series: Who by Fire, Who by Water— Un'taneh Tokef; All These Vows— Kol Nidre; We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism— Ashamnu and Al Chet; May God Remember: Memory and Memorializing in Judaism— Yizkor; All the World: Universalism, Particularism and the High Holy Days ; Naming God: Avinu Malkeinu — Our Father, Our King ; and Encountering God: El Rachum V'chanun— God Merciful and Gracious . Hoffman also edited the ten-volume series My People’s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries , winner of the National Jewish Book Award; and coedited My People’s Passover Haggadah: Traditional Texts, Modern Commentaries , a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award (all Jewish Lights). Rabbi Hoffman cofounded and developed Synagogue 2/3000, a transdenominational project to envision and implement the ideal synagogue of the spirit for the twenty-first century. In that capacity, he wrote Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (Jewish Lights).