An Open Letter to Rabbi Michael Siegel on 30 Years of Service

November 16, 2012/ 2 Kislev, 5773

Rabbi Michael Siegel
Anshe Emet Synagogue
3751 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 6013

Dear Michael,

Mazel tov on your thirty years of distinguished service as rabbi of the historic Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago. It was a pleasure and honor to have worked with you as a member of the clergy team from 1996-2001.

As the spiritual leader at Anshe Emet, you have not only built upon the foundation created by such luminaries as Rabbis Solomon Goldman, Ira Eisenstadt and Seymour Cohen, but you have also raised the kehilla (sacred congregation) to new heights. You have created a dynamic, forward-thinking kehilla that values community, embraces learning and fosters innovation.

I regret that I will not be able to celebrate with you this Shabbat. This Sunday I am the keynote speaker at the biennial conference of the Northeast District of United Synagogue. The topic of this conference is "Sacred Strategies – The Journey from Functional to VisionarySynagogues".  Our sessions are based around Sacred Strategies, written by Isa Aron, Steven Cohen, Lawrence Hoffman and Ari Kelman. The book offers a helpful framework for thinking about synagogue vitality and change.

The authors identified six characteristics that enable and empower congregations to make the journey from functional to visionary. They are as follows:

·         Sacred Purpose: A shared vision informs all aspects of the congregation.

·         Holistic Ethos: All parts of the kehilla work in partnership with one another, so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

·         Participatory Culture: Families, leaders, professionals and clergy all work together in the sacred enterprise of creating their community.

·         Meaningful Engagement - The congregation provides worthwhile, ongoing experiences that infuse their members’ lives with meaning.

·         Innovation Disposition – Leadership is open to new ideas and views possible failure as an opportunity for growth.

·         Reflective Leadership – Visionary congregations frequently discuss alignment to their mission, use data to evaluate their impact, and make planning a fixture of their leadership culture.

Sacred Strategies not only describes how several congregations across North America successfully challenged themselves to become transformational centers of Jewish life, but also outlines how others can follow the same path.

My remarks for this upcoming United Synagogue conference are in many ways influenced by my years working with you at Anshe Emet. At your twentieth anniversary celebration in 2003, you shared these thoughts:

Rabbi, Teacher, Preacher: were the words found on the diploma I received from the Seminary.  But their deeper meaning:

·         Rabbi as a religious presence

·         Teacher, as a shaper of Jewish souls

·         Preacher: a vocal leader in the Jewish community

These definitions I learned here at Anshe Emet.

Your JTS diploma is missing one other significant title that describes you, namely visionary. Vision comes naturally to you and this essential leadership quality has not only defined your rabbinate, but also serves as an inspiration for all those whose lives you have touched.

In every generation, there have not only been teachers and leaders, but institutions and synagogues that provide guidance and leadership to the Jewish community.  Anshe Emet Synagogue represents one of the most dynamic and vibrant synagogues in Chicagoland, North America and the entire Jewish world.

It was Anshe Emet’s almost legendary past, as well as its unending potential, that attracted me to the synagogue from the moment I met you 16 years ago. Your vision for what a Jewish community can be through education, strategic partnerships, and family engagement was then, and remains today, on the cutting edge of American Jewry. I am indebted to you not only for training and mentoring me in the pulpit, but also for empowering me to actualize my own vision within certain key areas of Anshe Emet, particularly youth and outreach. On a personal note, the many hours we spent together forged a strong friendship that I cherish.

The visionary congregation you lead, Michael, deeply inspires me and is a model for others to emulate. In light of this, both you and Anshe Emet will be in my thoughts on Sunday as I present at the “Sacred Strategies” conference.

Again, I congratulate you on reaching this milestone and wish you continued success in your sacred work with your congregation. Under your leadership I am confident that Anshe Emet will continue to be a visionary congregation and a beacon of Jewish commitment and innovation for the larger Jewish community.

Mazel Tov,
Charlie
 
Rabbi Charles E.  Savenor
USCJ Director of Kehilla Enrichment

The Key to the Kehilla of the Future

The term "leadership" is used so liberally today, it can be challenging to pin down what it means and how best to make it happen.

A provocative exploration of leadership comes from Wilfred Drath in his book, The Deep Blue Sea. Dissecting leadership to its basic elements, he identifies leaders' core tasks as "setting direction" (create a vision), "creating commitment" (generate a coalition to actualize the vision) and "facing adaptive challenge" (use a shared mission to deal with change).

In an attempt to uncover the nuances of leadership, Drath presents three different models:

1. Personal Dominance – Leadership happens when a leader acts. It is a personal endowment of leaders.
2. Interpersonal Influence – Leadership happens when a person influences other more than he or she is influenced. This is a process of negotiating social influence.
3. Relational Dialogue – Leadership happens when people make sense together of shared work.

He believes that the first two models are limited and that Relational Dialogue is best equipped to meet the challenges of our time.

Looking at these models through the prism of  history, we can understand better. In the context of Jewish history, a leader who exudes "Personal Dominance" can be Moses or King David. A model of "Interpersonal Influence" seems to describe the rabbis of the Talmud who achieve success by having their opinions accepted by the majority.

What about Relational Dialogue? Where do we see this approach in Jewish history? 

While I am not sure that we have seen this model in the past, it is happening all around us today. For instance, Jewish learning experiences built around chavruta (paired learning) welcome and encourage dialogue. Independent minyanim also ask participants not only to define their shared values, but also to take an active role.

Furthermore, Beth Am Synagogue's (in Baltimore) "613+ Shabbat Dinners" and The Riverway Project of Temple Israel in Boston are using dialogue to create community.
  
Similar to community organizing, this model constitutes meaning-making in communities of practice. The fundamental tools here are listening and dialogue. Ultimately this approach encourages participants to embrace communal responsibility so that a shared narrative can be actualized and experienced by others.

Our Sulam Leadership team at United Synagogue has made facilitated dialogue a pillar in all of our offerings because of the impact it has on everyone involved.

In an age of change, I believe that kehillot can benefit deeply from adopting or integrating elements of the Relational Dialogue model. Beyond introductions and ice breakers, this approach can be used to generate conversations about our values and to assess how well we are achieving the community's vision.

One of the pillars of contemporary adult learning theory is that we learn best when we actively participate in conversations that impact our lives. To borrow a phrase from the Khan Academy,  Relational Dialogue can transform a rabbi and educator "from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side."

Relational Dialogue holds great promise for Jewish leaders to energize their kehillot today, and it may just hold the key to unlocking the kehilla of the future.