Jewish Renewal
Encyclopedia
Jewish Renewal , is a recent movement
in Judaism
which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with mystical
, Hasidic
, music
al and meditative
practices. It is distinct from the Baal Teshuva movement
of return to Orthodox Judaism.
that attempt to reinvigorate what it views as a moribund and uninspiring Judaism with mystical, Hasidic, musical and meditative practices drawn from a variety of traditional and untraditional, Jewish and other, sources. In this sense, Jewish renewal is an approach to Judaism that can be found within segments of any of the Jewish denominations."
The term also refers to an emerging Jewish movement, the Jewish Renewal movement, which describes itself as "a worldwide, transdenominational movement grounded in Judaism’s prophetic and mystical traditions." The Jewish Renewal movement incorporates social views such as feminism
, environmentalism
and pacifism
. It is not considered Orthodox and its practitioners are often referred to as Post-Orthodox or Neo-Liberal Jews.
The movement's most prominent leader is Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
. Prominent leaders, teachers and authors associated with Jewish Renewal include Rabbis Arthur Waskow
, Michael Lerner
, Tirzah Firestone
, Phyllis Berman, Shefa Gold, and David Ingber.
Jewish Renewal brings kabbalistic
and Hasidic theory and practice into a non-Orthodox
, egalitarian
framework, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as neo-Hasidism
. Like Hasidic Jews, Renewal Jews often add to traditional worship ecstatic
practices such as meditation, chant
and dance
. In augmenting Jewish ritual, some Renewal Jews borrow freely and openly from Buddhism
, Sufism
and other faiths.
(singular: chavurah) or "fellowships" for prayer and study, in reaction to what they perceived as an over-institutionalized and unspiritual North American Jewish establishment.
Initially the main inspiration was the pietistic fellowships of the Pharisees and other ancient Jewish sects.
Also initially, some of these groups, like the Boston-area Havurat Shalom
attempted to function as full-fledged communes after the model of their secular counterparts. Others formed as communities within the urban or suburban Jewish establishment. Founders of the havurot included the liberal political activist Arthur Waskow
, Michael Strassfeld
(who later became rabbi for a Conservative congregation and then moved on to serve a major Reconstructionist congregation), and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
. Although the leadership and ritual privileges were initially men-only, as in Orthodox Jewish
practice, the "second wave" of American feminism soon led to the full integration of women in these communities.
Apart from some tentative articles in Response and other Jewish student magazines, the early havurot attracted little attention in the wider North American Jewish community. Then, in 1973, Michael and Sharon Strassfeld released The Jewish Catalog: A Do-It-Yourself Kit. Patterned after the recently-published counter-culture Whole Earth Catalog, the book served both as a basic reference on Judaism and American Jewish life, as well as a playful compendium of Jewish crafts, recipes, meditational practices, and political action ideas, all aimed at disaffected young Jewish adults. The Jewish Catalog became one of the best-selling books in American Jewish history to that date and spawned two sequels. A much more widespread havurah movement soon emerged, including self-governing havurot within Reform
, Conservative
and Reconstructionist
synagogues.
By 1980 an increasing number of havurot had moved away from strictly traditional Jewish worship practices, as members added English readings and chants, poetry from other spiritual traditions, percussion instruments, and overall a less formal approach to worship.
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
, a Hasidic-trained rabbi ordained in the Lubavitch movement, broke with Orthodox Judaism beginning in the 1960s, and founded his own organization, The B'nai Or Religious Fellowship, which he described in an article entitled "Toward an Order of B'nai Or." The name "B'nai Or" means "sons" or "children" of light, and was taken from the Dead Sea Scrolls
material, where the "sons of light" battle the "sons of darkness." Schachter-Shalomi envisioned B'nai Or as a semi-monastic ashram
-type community, based upon the various communal models prevalent in the 1960s and 70s. This community never materialized as he envisioned it, but B'nai Or did produce a number of important leaders in the Renewal movement. It also produced the B'nai Or Newsletter, a quarterly magazine that presented articles on Jewish mysticism, Hasidic stories and Schachter-Shalomi's philosophy. The masthead of this publication read: "B'nai Or is a Jewish Fellowship established for the service of G-d [sic] through prayer, Torah, celebration, meditation, tradition, and mysticism. We serve as a center to facilitate people in the pursuit of Judaism as a spiritual way of life."
Schachter-Shalomi was strongly influenced by Sufism
(Sufi Islam) and Buddhism
, even translating some of the prayers into Hebrew. He also focused more on urban sustainable living
than rural culture, and suggested for instance interconnected basements of houses in urban neighborhoods that would create collective space (especially for holidays), while providing the level of privacy secular life had encouraged. Some of these ideas have influenced urban economics
.
In 1985, after the first national Kallah (conference) gathering in Radnor, Pennsylvania, the name was changed from B'nai Or to P'nai Or ("Faces of Light") to reflect the more egalitarian perspective of the rising feminist movement. Together with such colleagues as Arthur Waskow
, Schachter-Shalomi broadened the focus of his organization. In 1993 it merged with The Shalom Center, founded by Rabbi Waskow, to become ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which served as a loose umbrella for like-minded havurot. However, some of the more Orthodox members of the old B'nai Or were not happy with these radical changes, and left the Renewal movement at this time. This resulted in major leadership changes, with Waskow taking an increasingly important role.
In 1979, Waskow had founded a magazine called Menorah, which explored and encouraged many creative ritual and social issues from a Jewish perspective. It was in this publication that Waskow coined the term "Jewish Renewal." In 1986, Menorah merged with The B'nai Or Newsletter to become New Menorah, now available online through ALEPH. The new version of the publication addressed Jewish feminism, the nuclear arms race
, new forms of prayer, social justice, etc. Several of the early New Menorah issues explored gay rights, and became an important catalyst for opening this discussion in more mainstream synagogues.
The greater cohesion and focus created by B'nai Or/ALEPH and its magazine led gradually to the spread of Jewish Renewal throughout much of the United States and, by the close of the century, to the establishment of communities in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Israel. By this time, the beginnings of institutionalization were in place, in the form of the administrative ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, the rabbinical association OHaLaH, and an increasingly formalized rabbinic ordination program that today is accepted by the National Council of Seminaries which includes the heads of all major non-Orthodox North American Rabbinical and Cantorial Training programs.
in 1996.
Judaism." Others reply that the criticism is overblown; that the community values a range of practices, and that textual literacy is a priority within the movement as a whole.
Some find fault with what they consider to be excessive borrowing from non-Jewish traditions. They hold that just as Jews cannot adopt Christian practices and still consider themselves to be followers of Judaism, one cannot adopt Buddhist, Sufi, and polytheistic practices and still consider themselves to be part of Judaism. Others reply that Judaism has always borrowed heavily from the practices around them, but that the beliefs and teachings in Jewish Renewal, as in all legitimate branches of Judaism, are based on Torah.
Like all religious movements, the movement faces challenges today. Some within the Renewal community maintain that the movement has been more successful in providing occasional ecstatic "peak experiences" at worship services and spiritual retreats than in inculcating a daily discipline of religious practice. Others have observed a tension within the community between those who prefer to focus on liberal social activism on American, Middle East and global issues; and those who favor an emphasis on meditation, text study and worship. These, together with the challenge of training and recruiting future generations of leaders, are among the issues facing Jewish Renewal today.
Jewish denominations
Jewish religious movements , sometimes called "denominations" or "branches", include different groups which have developed among Jews from ancient times and especially in the modern era among Ashkenazi Jews living in anglophone countries...
in Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with mystical
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
al and meditative
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
practices. It is distinct from the Baal Teshuva movement
Baal teshuva movement
The Baal Teshuva movement is description of the return of secular Jews to religious Judaism. The term "baal teshuva" is a term from the Talmud literally meaning "master of repentance". The term is used to refer to a worldwide phenomenon among the Jewish people...
of return to Orthodox Judaism.
Overview
The term Jewish Renewal describes "a set of practices within JudaismJudaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
that attempt to reinvigorate what it views as a moribund and uninspiring Judaism with mystical, Hasidic, musical and meditative practices drawn from a variety of traditional and untraditional, Jewish and other, sources. In this sense, Jewish renewal is an approach to Judaism that can be found within segments of any of the Jewish denominations."
The term also refers to an emerging Jewish movement, the Jewish Renewal movement, which describes itself as "a worldwide, transdenominational movement grounded in Judaism’s prophetic and mystical traditions." The Jewish Renewal movement incorporates social views such as feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
and pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
. It is not considered Orthodox and its practitioners are often referred to as Post-Orthodox or Neo-Liberal Jews.
The movement's most prominent leader is Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi and commonly called "Reb Zalman" is considered one of the major founders of the Jewish Renewal movement.-Early life:...
. Prominent leaders, teachers and authors associated with Jewish Renewal include Rabbis Arthur Waskow
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow, born Arthur I. Waskow, is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.-Education and early career:...
, Michael Lerner
Michael Lerner (rabbi)
Michael Lerner is a political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue of San Francisco.-Family and Education:...
, Tirzah Firestone
Tirzah Firestone
Tirzah Firestone is a prominent Jewish Renewal rabbi, as well as an author of books on female figures in Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah, a Jungian psychotherapist, and spiritual leader of Congregation Nevei Kodesh in Boulder, Colorado. She is the founding rabbi of the Jewish Renewal Community of...
, Phyllis Berman, Shefa Gold, and David Ingber.
Jewish Renewal brings kabbalistic
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
and Hasidic theory and practice into a non-Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
, egalitarian
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
framework, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as neo-Hasidism
Neo-Hasidism
Neo-Hasidism is a name frequently given to the significant revival of interest in Hasidic Judaism on the part of non-Orthodox Jews in different decades due to the writings of non-Orthodox teachers of Hasidic Judaism like Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Lawrence Kushner, Zalman...
. Like Hasidic Jews, Renewal Jews often add to traditional worship ecstatic
Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...
practices such as meditation, chant
Chant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
and dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
. In augmenting Jewish ritual, some Renewal Jews borrow freely and openly from Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
and other faiths.
History
Jewish Renewal, in its most general sense, has its origins in the North American Jewish counter-cultural trends of the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period, groups of young rabbis, academics and political activists founded experimental chavurotChavurah
A chavurah or havurah is a small group of like-minded Jews who assemble for the purposes of facilitating Shabbat and holiday prayer services, sharing communal experiences such as lifecycle events, and Jewish learning...
(singular: chavurah) or "fellowships" for prayer and study, in reaction to what they perceived as an over-institutionalized and unspiritual North American Jewish establishment.
Initially the main inspiration was the pietistic fellowships of the Pharisees and other ancient Jewish sects.
Also initially, some of these groups, like the Boston-area Havurat Shalom
Havurat Shalom
Havurat Shalom is a small egalitarian chavurah in Somerville, Massachusetts that has 30 members in a large yellow house. Founded in 1968, it is not affiliated with the major Jewish denominations.- Further reading :Havurat Shalom Siddur...
attempted to function as full-fledged communes after the model of their secular counterparts. Others formed as communities within the urban or suburban Jewish establishment. Founders of the havurot included the liberal political activist Arthur Waskow
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow, born Arthur I. Waskow, is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.-Education and early career:...
, Michael Strassfeld
Michael Strassfeld
-Biography:Michael Strassfeld is rabbi of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a Manhattan synagogue. He was formerly the rabbi of Congregation Ansche Chesed....
(who later became rabbi for a Conservative congregation and then moved on to serve a major Reconstructionist congregation), and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi and commonly called "Reb Zalman" is considered one of the major founders of the Jewish Renewal movement.-Early life:...
. Although the leadership and ritual privileges were initially men-only, as in Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
practice, the "second wave" of American feminism soon led to the full integration of women in these communities.
Apart from some tentative articles in Response and other Jewish student magazines, the early havurot attracted little attention in the wider North American Jewish community. Then, in 1973, Michael and Sharon Strassfeld released The Jewish Catalog: A Do-It-Yourself Kit. Patterned after the recently-published counter-culture Whole Earth Catalog, the book served both as a basic reference on Judaism and American Jewish life, as well as a playful compendium of Jewish crafts, recipes, meditational practices, and political action ideas, all aimed at disaffected young Jewish adults. The Jewish Catalog became one of the best-selling books in American Jewish history to that date and spawned two sequels. A much more widespread havurah movement soon emerged, including self-governing havurot within Reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
, Conservative
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
and Reconstructionist
Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan . The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization. It originated as a branch of Conservative Judaism, before it splintered...
synagogues.
By 1980 an increasing number of havurot had moved away from strictly traditional Jewish worship practices, as members added English readings and chants, poetry from other spiritual traditions, percussion instruments, and overall a less formal approach to worship.
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi and commonly called "Reb Zalman" is considered one of the major founders of the Jewish Renewal movement.-Early life:...
, a Hasidic-trained rabbi ordained in the Lubavitch movement, broke with Orthodox Judaism beginning in the 1960s, and founded his own organization, The B'nai Or Religious Fellowship, which he described in an article entitled "Toward an Order of B'nai Or." The name "B'nai Or" means "sons" or "children" of light, and was taken from the Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
material, where the "sons of light" battle the "sons of darkness." Schachter-Shalomi envisioned B'nai Or as a semi-monastic ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
-type community, based upon the various communal models prevalent in the 1960s and 70s. This community never materialized as he envisioned it, but B'nai Or did produce a number of important leaders in the Renewal movement. It also produced the B'nai Or Newsletter, a quarterly magazine that presented articles on Jewish mysticism, Hasidic stories and Schachter-Shalomi's philosophy. The masthead of this publication read: "B'nai Or is a Jewish Fellowship established for the service of G-d [sic] through prayer, Torah, celebration, meditation, tradition, and mysticism. We serve as a center to facilitate people in the pursuit of Judaism as a spiritual way of life."
Schachter-Shalomi was strongly influenced by Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
(Sufi Islam) and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, even translating some of the prayers into Hebrew. He also focused more on urban sustainable living
Sustainable living
Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's or society's use of the Earth's natural resources and his/her own resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet...
than rural culture, and suggested for instance interconnected basements of houses in urban neighborhoods that would create collective space (especially for holidays), while providing the level of privacy secular life had encouraged. Some of these ideas have influenced urban economics
Urban economics
Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance...
.
In 1985, after the first national Kallah (conference) gathering in Radnor, Pennsylvania, the name was changed from B'nai Or to P'nai Or ("Faces of Light") to reflect the more egalitarian perspective of the rising feminist movement. Together with such colleagues as Arthur Waskow
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow, born Arthur I. Waskow, is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.-Education and early career:...
, Schachter-Shalomi broadened the focus of his organization. In 1993 it merged with The Shalom Center, founded by Rabbi Waskow, to become ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which served as a loose umbrella for like-minded havurot. However, some of the more Orthodox members of the old B'nai Or were not happy with these radical changes, and left the Renewal movement at this time. This resulted in major leadership changes, with Waskow taking an increasingly important role.
In 1979, Waskow had founded a magazine called Menorah, which explored and encouraged many creative ritual and social issues from a Jewish perspective. It was in this publication that Waskow coined the term "Jewish Renewal." In 1986, Menorah merged with The B'nai Or Newsletter to become New Menorah, now available online through ALEPH. The new version of the publication addressed Jewish feminism, the nuclear arms race
Nuclear arms race
The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War...
, new forms of prayer, social justice, etc. Several of the early New Menorah issues explored gay rights, and became an important catalyst for opening this discussion in more mainstream synagogues.
The greater cohesion and focus created by B'nai Or/ALEPH and its magazine led gradually to the spread of Jewish Renewal throughout much of the United States and, by the close of the century, to the establishment of communities in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Israel. By this time, the beginnings of institutionalization were in place, in the form of the administrative ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, the rabbinical association OHaLaH, and an increasingly formalized rabbinic ordination program that today is accepted by the National Council of Seminaries which includes the heads of all major non-Orthodox North American Rabbinical and Cantorial Training programs.
Renewal and the contemporary Jewish community
Statistics on the number of Jews who identify themselves as "Renewal" are not readily available. Signs of Renewal influence can be found elsewhere; it is not uncommon for congregations not associated with the Renewal movement to feature workshops on Jewish meditation and various Judaized forms of yoga. Many melodies and liturgical innovations are also shared among the Reform, Renewal, and Reconstructionist movements. Even rabbis trained by one of these movements have begun to serve congregations with other affiliations. An example of a Jewish Renewal community can be found at Beyt Tikkun in San Francisco, founded by Rabbi Michael LernerMichael Lerner (rabbi)
Michael Lerner is a political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue of San Francisco.-Family and Education:...
in 1996.
Criticism and response
Critics of Jewish Renewal claim that the movement emphasizes individual spiritual experience and subjective opinion over communal norms and Jewish textual literacy; the above-mentioned formalization of the ALEPH ordination programs may be a response to such criticism. Some critics within the Jewish community have dismissed Jewish Renewal as "New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
Judaism." Others reply that the criticism is overblown; that the community values a range of practices, and that textual literacy is a priority within the movement as a whole.
Some find fault with what they consider to be excessive borrowing from non-Jewish traditions. They hold that just as Jews cannot adopt Christian practices and still consider themselves to be followers of Judaism, one cannot adopt Buddhist, Sufi, and polytheistic practices and still consider themselves to be part of Judaism. Others reply that Judaism has always borrowed heavily from the practices around them, but that the beliefs and teachings in Jewish Renewal, as in all legitimate branches of Judaism, are based on Torah.
Like all religious movements, the movement faces challenges today. Some within the Renewal community maintain that the movement has been more successful in providing occasional ecstatic "peak experiences" at worship services and spiritual retreats than in inculcating a daily discipline of religious practice. Others have observed a tension within the community between those who prefer to focus on liberal social activism on American, Middle East and global issues; and those who favor an emphasis on meditation, text study and worship. These, together with the challenge of training and recruiting future generations of leaders, are among the issues facing Jewish Renewal today.
Further reading
- Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (1994)
- Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal Teachings of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1993)
- Groesberg, Sholom, Jewish Renewal: A Journey: the movement's history, ideology and future,iUniverse, Inc., 2008
- Kaplan, Dana Evan, Contemportary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal, Columbia University Press, 2009 (has a chapter on the early history and growth of Jewish Renewal)