Category Archive: Faces of Renewal

ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal is pleased to announce that Rabbi Aura Ahuvia was installed as the new Chair of the Board of Directors effective July 1, 2018. Rabbi Ahuvia serves as the spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Tikvah, one of America’s only Reform/Renewal congregations, located in Troy, Michigan (near Detroit).

The daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the great-granddaughter of a shtetl refugee, Ahuvia had always felt the historic and cultural importance of Judaism but didn’t feel especially religiously motivated until after her children were born. Her path to ALEPH and renewal began with a pursuit for deeper Jewish knowledge.

“I intended to merely gain some lay-leadership skills through a program called DLTI (Davvenen’ Leadership Training Institute),” recalls Ahuvia. “To my astonishment, the fire in me roared to new life: I had found training not just for my sake, but for the sake of building a Jewish home, from scratch, for others. Shortly thereafter, I entered the ALEPH rabbinic program with the commitment to serve.” Ahuvia attended DLTI from 2004-2006. She received both her rabbinic and spiritual director ordination from ALEPH in 2015.

“I cherish my ALEPH education for several reasons. One is that it demands the integration of our whole selves—body, spirit, inner emotional life and intellect—to the task of growing in our Judaism. I credit this whole-self approach with enabling knowledge to find its way into physical practices, and mindfulness to inform prayer. It infuses everything I do: the way I pray, the way I lead services, the way I teach, and now, the way I participate in the movement’s leadership. Furthermore, my ALEPH teachers taught us how to play within tradition, by helping us understand the deep underlying structures of prayer and their meanings. For me, it was the recipe for creativity within authenticity that I had been seeking.”

“Rabbi Aura Ahuvia is home grown,” says SooJi Min-Maranda, ALEPH’s Executive Director. “We are so blessed to have her leading our Board with love, understanding and care.”

Rabbi Ahuvia steps into the role previously filled by Rabbinic Pastor David Daniel Klipper. “My intention was always for my role as board chair to be temporary,” says Klipper. “I feel very good about the state of the Board and highly confident in Aura’s leadership. Personally, I’m excited to be able to return to teaching, which is my first love.”

For Ahuvia, the Board provides sacred stewardship to ALEPH. “There are so many creative, brilliant and unconventional change agents in ALEPH’s midst. The Board’s role is as the supporting cast. I’m reminded of our ancient forebears who were asked to serve as humble olive pickers. Their holy task was to press oil from the harvest, which fueled the eternal lamp, signaling God’s eternal presence. Much of today’s fuel comes in the form of dollars, the energy of which goes directly into funding today’s Jewish lights, as well as structural and other types of support. Our teachers, students, future leaders and communities need our help.”

All is not well in the world and my heart is heavy. I am worried that every time ALEPH sends an update about Kallah—our biennial renewal gathering—that we are sending the wrong message. I don’t want others to think that we, as a community, are “retreating” in the sense that we are running away or hiding from all the pain and suffering that is going on each and every day. On the contrary—I am hopeful that the Kallah will enable all of us to restore, strengthen our resolve, and re-engage with deep reserves of empathy, kindness and gratitude.

The ALEPH Board of Directors will be meeting just prior to Kallah. They, too, are looking to the future and will set a clear path for ALEPH in terms of clarifying our purpose and direction on how we can best serve Renewal. And with a clear directive from ALEPH’s Board, rest assured that I will not stand idly by. At the age of three, I was brought to the US from South Korea by my non-English speaking mother. I, personally, am looking forward to taking a more active role on behalf of our community. I will look to partner at every opportunity and tread lightly, seeking to avoid redundancies, turfs and listening more than I speak.

I look forward to meeting the nearly 500 of you who will be joining us soon in Amherst! This Kallah has, like all others, been a true labor of love. We are extraordinarily privileged and fortunate to have the opportunity to work on our own spiritual transformation. It is a gift and a blessing that come with a brit olam to repair the world. So beyond the songs, prayers, dancing and learning—there will be ample opportunities to gather around the concerns of the day. There will be ample time for serious conversations and making deep connections with a keen eye towards future action and engagement. Let’s make the most of our time together. There is much work to be done.

Wishing you shalom—peace, wholeness and completeness.

SooJi Min-Maranda
Executive Director of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

From Chazan Jalda Rebling
Berlin, Germany
Ordained by the ALEPH Cantorial Program in 2007

For 30 years I have lived across the street from this beautiful Gethsemane Church in Berlin.

I always call it “my” renewal church. It is an amazing, creative place. Sholem Aleichem writes in a story: “a good neighbor is better then a far away relative.”

These 30 years of having this church as my “good neighbor” are full of wonderful stories, starting in the fall of the year 1989.

It was the 9th of October, Yom Kippur. I came out of the shul and went into the crowded church, filled with more than 3,000 people. The winds of change were in the air. Within a month the Berlin Wall would come down and a new era of possibility would begin. We were all filled with so much hope. There in the church I sang Shir haShirim and Dos Lid Funem Sholem, a Song of Peace. In this night the real change in the new history of Germany happened. Our prayers for democracy were heard. But this is another story.

On November 9th the Berlin Wall was breached. In December Leonard Bernstein performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the famous East-Berlin Concert hall, the Schauspielhaus Berlin. I sat in the audience with my middle son, a musician, who was then 13 years young. Lenny Bernstein did something extraordinary. He changed the poetry of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode an die Freude from Freude schöner Götterfunken into Freiheit schöner Götterfunken (Joy beautiful divine spark became Freedom beautiful divine spark).

Remembering this moment I am sitting in tears.

Now to the current story: A year ago, after Peter Steudner – a member of the Gethsemane church – was arrested in Turkey,  a group of people started to revive the “Monday-prayers.” In the last East-Berlin year these Monday-prayers for freedom became one of the sparks that finally opened the borders.

Every single day this group meets at 6 pm for a half hour of prayer for freedom for those Turkish democrats who are in prison. Sometimes people share also their very personal feelings.

Members of this group write letters to the prisoners and to the Turkish government. They are in contact with the families of those who are in prison.

Some of those for whom they pray meanwhile have been set free and they came to visit the group. Gratefully, Peter Steudner is free, but his process in Turkey is not finished. From time to time I join my neighbors. Last Wednesday was such a day, Erev Yom haShoah.

The group chose Psalm 118. They read the poetry in the German Lutheran translation. But I had just had learned from Hazzan Jack a way to sing Pitchu li sha´arei tsedek – Open the Gates of Rightousness – to the melody of Beethoven’s famous choir Ode an die Freude, Ode to Joy!  In Germany this is such a famous melody, a European anthem.

Out of the moment I started to sing! I sang with the group in the Gethsemane church the original Hebrew version of these words with Beethoven’s famous melody. I cannot describe how much love, joy, tears and hope filled the big room! Thank you Hazzan Jack for this teaching!

From
Chasan Jalda Rebling
April 2018

Spiritual leader of Congregation Ohel HaChidusch Berlin
Gethsemanestrasse 11, 10437 Berlin, Germany
fon x49 (0) 30 44 55 969 / mobile x49 (0) 170 272 54 47
www.jalda-rebling.com / www.ohel-hachidusch.org
www.aleph.org / www.eajl.org 
www.jalda-und-anna.de / www.happy-hippie-jew-bus.de

Mazal tov to the 2018 graduates of Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body, Cohort 3!

Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body has been a two-year movement-based Jewish leadership training directed by Rabbi Diane Elliot. Participants discovered the shape and dynamic of the traditional Jewish prayer liturgies by moving them through their own bodies, experiencing the transformative power of inviting prayer to well up from the depths of one’s own being. The work embodies aspects of Torah, Kabbalah (Jewish mystical wisdom), and the sacred cycles of living and dying.