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. His recent books include Encountering God: El Rachum V'chanun—God Merciful and Gracious, Naming God: Avinu Malkeinu—Our Father, Our King and All the World: Universalism, Particularism and the High Holy Days.
Hoffman holds the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair in Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. He edited the ten-volume 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.
When not writing, 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. His work combines research in Jewish ritual, worship and spirituality with a passion for the spiritual renewal of contemporary Judaism.