Dear ALEPH-niks,

We are called to serve the greater good. I stand before you, as the new ALEPH Board Chair, to ask you to be part of securing the future for Jewish Renewal. Our task is like that of our ancient forebear’s olive pickers: Press olives, refine oil that fueled the Eternal Lamp, signaling God’s eternal presence. Today’s fuel comes in the form of Dollars, the energy of which goes directly into funding today’s Jewish light: our Current Teachers, our Future Leaders, our Artists and Musicians, our Spiritual Directors and Rabbinic Pastors, our Meditation and Dance Instructors—in short, our Holy Experimenters.

Rabbi Marcia Prager, Dean of the ALEPH Ordination Program and student of our beloved Reb Zalman, alav ha shalom, once taught that it is from the fringes that plants absorb the nutrients; roots seek the outermost places from which to reach nourishment. Reaching for the fringes enables the tree to spread its roots most broadly, so that it can stand strong and tall. Jewish Renewal is kind of fringe-ee.

This is appealing: in the past 3 years, enrollment in the ALEPH Ordination Program has surpassed that of other seminaries, making it among, if not the largest Jewish seminary in the world. In the coming years, these sparks of Jewish Renewal will grow into a real force for change in the world!

Being a Donor to ALEPH means having the sacred opportunity to fuel the engine of Jewish Renewal, and to help those sparks spread and grow. The amazing new influx of energetic and creative innovators and teachers into ALEPH is infusing Jewish Renewal with new life, and granting you the chance to help author its next chapters. Your role, in fact, is crucial to the process. ALEPH needs your gifts, to fund the resources our students need to learn, to support our musmachim/ordainees’ impulse to experiment, and to help build vital, practical and administrative support for our many ALEPH Communities throughout North America and the world.

Will you please join me, and the ALEPH Board, in donating now, and in considering ALEPH in your estate planning, so that we, together, can provide the fuel needed to keep the lights of Jewish Renewal alive for many years to come? Please make a donation HERE.

May you and your family and friends be blessed to have a sweet and fruitful new year.

L’Shanah Tova,
Rabbi Aura Ahuvia
Chair of the ALEPH Board