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Connections to Reconstructionism by Carol Lessure

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I am fond of saying that I was a Reconstructionist Jew before I ever heard of such a thing. 

Why do I say that? 

As I grew up in a small Jewish community in Evansville, Indiana, I often found myself questioning and also doing things my way. At that time, we had two synagogues serving a small Jewish community.  Evansville wasn’t a deserted island but as the joke goes, there was the shul we attended, and the one that we didn’t. 

As the Jewish community continued to age and shrink during my childhood, the two synagogues merged religious schools when I was in elementary school. I recall asking the reform Rabbi (of the shul we didn’t attend) why we couldn’t chant the Shema in his class. I came to learn that congregants didn’t chant anything at his synagogue but rather the service songs were sung by a musically trained, non-Jewish person accompanied by piano behind a screen. I failed to connect to the Rabbi or his services. 

By the time I was in high school, the two congregations fully merged after the two Rabbis retired. I remember it was challenging to meld reform and conservative traditions to the satisfaction of the majority of members. I taught in the religious school, led the local Jewish youth chapter, and ran children’s services on high holidays. I was involved and often did things my own way. 

The new synagogue became known as Temple Adath B’nai Israel and hired a new Rabbi and one of the first female cantors. Even today, the Temple website doesn’t make a strong connection to any denomination and seeks to include Jews from many different backgrounds. That is consistent with my own memory of the early years when the new congregation sorted out what traditions were most important and how to honor the needs of all its members. 

At college, the Hillel didn’t really suit me – so I rarely went to there. One year, I wanted a Passover seder that was more meaningful – so I wrote my own Haggadah and invited Jewish and non-Jewish friends to celebrate with me. The four sons became the four children, the Haggadah included Miriam and the midwives Shifra and Puah along with Moses and the plagues. We no longer read the traditional Talmudic style Haggadah that discussing what ancient Rabbis thought about the story in the Torah and the meaning of various phrases. The old Haggadah always seemed to me to be the opposite of what we are asked to do at this holiday – to share and tell the story of Passover. My “reconstructed” Haggadah has gone through various iterations over the past 40+ years. It is now assembled into spiral bound notebooks so that we can add and change sections as we find new songs and readings that are meaningful to our family. 

As a young adult in DC, I didn’t affiliate but continued to seek out Jewish spaces. For several years, a friend and I did Jewish community hopping visiting various Havurah-style services for Shabbat. When my friend married and became involved in a congregation in Maryland – that was my first introduction to Reconstrutionism. After she divorced, we continued our seeking. I still have a copy of “Chaveirim Kol Yisraeil – a Project of The Progressive Chavurah Siddur Committee of Boston” a prayer book that was used by one of the congregations that we attended. 

When I moved to Ann Arbor, my friend and I met up to attend the Havurah Summer Institute around 1996 – a gathering organized by the National Havurah Committee. It was an amazing experience with people from a wide variety of practices from around North America. It was there that I met Evelyn Neuhaus who made the annual trek east to the Institute each summer.  She was affiliated with the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Havurah – aka “The Hav” – while I attended home-based monthly services with a Havurah of 30 somethings that included Beth Israel congregants and unaffiliated Jews including AARC member Sarai Brachman Shoup who I knew from grad school.  

Soon after, I started lurking around the Hav – attending High Holiday services at the Quaker house on Hill Street. I still recall standing next to Rena and Jeff Basch in 2001 – holding their infant son Ari – for a communal Aliyah for Parsha Vayeira on Rosh Hashana. I was pregnant with our first child, Avi. We were all delighting, like Sarah, in new beginnings. 

Within a year or so, Jon Engelbert and I became members. We found our Jewish home with the Ann Arbor Reconstructionists. Nearly a half century later, AARC continues to be our Jewish home. 

Reconstructionist Judaism encourages me to think about and find connections to our ancient Jewish traditions in a way that brings meaning to my modern life. I am grateful to have this community.    

Carol is 2nd from right, with friends at the 2025 AARC Retreat at Camp Tamarack

Tu B’Shevat as a Bridge: Growing Jewish Connection Across Communities

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This article was written by Rav Gavrielle Pescador for the Feburary 2026 Washtenaw Jewish news.

At a time when many Jews feel fractured—by politics, by ideology, or by communal boundaries—Tu B’Shevat offers a powerful counter-narrative. Known as the “New Year of the Trees,” this holiday invites us to slow down, notice what is growing, and remember our shared roots. More than a seasonal marker, Tu B’Shevat centers values that are urgently needed right now: interdependence, renewal, gratitude, and care for the earth and for one another.

This year in Ann Arbor, Tu B’Shevat is being celebrated not by any one congregation alone, but through collaboration across the local Jewish community. On Sunday, February 1, 2026, community members of all ages will gather at the JCC from 10am to noon for a daytime Tu B’Shevat celebration that brings together multiple organizations and perspectives.  There will be a variety of arts/craft/planting activities in the JCC Newman Lounge.  Shlomit Cohen, the director of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) Beit Sefer (religious school), is part of the community-wide programming for Tu Bishvat. “One of the activities that we are excited to offer is bringing the different colors from nature and making colorful fun tie-dye with the children,” comments Shlomit.

Later that evening of February 1, at 7:00pm, a different kind of collaboration will unfold. Clergy and members from the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal communities will come together to lead a joint Tu B’Shevat seder. Drawing on traditional ritual structures while inviting creativity, song, and reflection.
What makes this collaboration especially meaningful is Jewish Renewal and Reconstructing Judaism have a lot of affinity.  Both are deeply engaged with tradition, yet embrace the opportunity to reinterpret it in light of modern life. Both emphasize ethical responsibility, spiritual depth, inclusivity, and a Judaism that speaks to the heart as well as the mind.



At the same time, their differences add texture to the collaboration. Jewish Renewal often foregrounds embodied spirituality, music, mysticism, and ecstatic prayer while Reconstructing Judaism emphasizes historical consciousness, democratic process, and thoughtful engagement with evolving Jewish civilization. When these approaches meet, and they often do, the result is not dilution, but enrichment providing multiple doorways into shared Jewish life.

Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg of Pardes Hannah, Ann Arbor’s Jewish Renewal chevre, notes “the Seder for Tu Bishvat invites us to experience an expansive understanding of the divine life-force while helping us appreciate the deep ecology of our own lives. The Seder Tu Bishvat historically draws on kabbalistic understandings of divinity as a Tree of Life with its roots in the Infinite. In this model, earthly life may be seen as leaves and fruit on the tree, energetically connected to the Source. From an ecological perspective,Tu B’Shevat, with its imagery of roots and branches, soil and fruit, reminds us that healthy ecosystems depend on diversity. So do healthy communities. When Jews gather across lines of denomination and ideology, we model a Judaism that is resilient, relational, and alive.“

In a season when public discourse so often pushes us toward division, these Tu B’Shevat gatherings invite something else: to come together, to plant seeds of connection, and to celebrate what can grow when we choose collaboration over separation.  |

Rabbi Aura Ahuvia, who has strong roots in Ann Arbor’s Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal communities, states: “I’ve felt a rising need for community with every passing month. The news, social media…it all feels oppressive and manipulative. I’ve been seeking the salve of simple connection, to be reminded that when we come together, in-person, as ourselves, we’re capable of enjoying each other’s company and even solving our problems together. Celebrating life as it reawakens within and between us feels like exactly the right thing to do right now.”
 
 

Why I chose the AARC

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Those were terrific blogs in the Why I Chose Reconstructionism series from Elizabeth Brindley and Dave Nelson. Now apparently it’s my turn.

For me, it’s a matter of valuing the caring, thoughtful community that our family has found over the years at the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC).

Here are a few photos that show the special connections and spiritually enriching experiences that our Recon community provides.

AARC B’nei Mitzvah Cohort: Building Skills, Spirit, and Community


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By Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador

This article appeared in the January 2026 Washtenaw Jewish News. See page 7 here: https://washtenawjewishnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jan-2026.pdf

This year, the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) is delighted to have four students at the B’nei Mitzvah stage of their Jewish journey, and to have the opportunity to form a cohort — a model that allows our students to learn together, support one another, and build community as they prepare for this special milestone in their lives.
 


The cohort began their journey this past spring with Hebrew Boot Camp led by veteran religious school educator, Aviva Panush. In the 2025–26 fall/spring semesters, the students are continuing their studies with me, strengthening their Hebrew decoding skills, deepening their understanding of the Shabbat morning service, creating their own B’nei Mitzvah projects, and exploring what it truly means to embrace Jewish life and values on their own terms.
 
A major focus of the year will be learning both the structure and the thematic elements of the Shabbat morning service — gratitude, praise, deep listening, personal reflection, connecting with Torah in a deeply personal way, and committing to doing good. My hope is for the cohort to co-lead their B’nei Mitzvah service with me, not only to build skills and confidence, but to help them experience themselves as spiritual leaders within our community.  This approach is especially meaningful within a Reconstructionist community, where collaborative leadership is a core value.
 
To engage the students creatively, I invite them to choose melodies they love. Students will also have the opportunity to play musical instruments during the service, if that brings them joy, to add extra richness to the already collaborative and uplifting energy of AARC’s prayer landscape. Jack Kessler z”l, my beloved teacher and director of ALEPH’s Cantorial Studies Program, used to say that music helps people “have fun in shul,” a pearl of wisdom that I take very seriously. When our young members experience joy in prayer and spiritual community, their post–B’nei Mitzvah engagement will hopefully become more natural and enduring.
 
The cohort is also learning how to craft a d’var Torah. Each student is invited to explore their Torah portion by identifying what they find meaningful, inspiring, or even challenging. In wrestling with the text — its beauty, its complexity, and its questions — students begin to discover their own values and what feels important or compelling to them. This process helps them develop a personal relationship with Torah and a thoughtful, authentic voice in interpreting tradition and finding its relevance in their daily lives.
 
Each student also works individually with their Torah chanting coach, Deb Kraus. Deb not only teaches trop (the cantillation patterns for Torah and Haftarah) but also guides the students in translating and interpreting their Haftarah portions into contemporary English. Our community takes great pride in our unique custom of having our students chant their own interpretive English rendition on their special day.
 
The goal of this cohort model is to nurture community-building not only for the students, but also for their families. The shared journey offers opportunities for families to support and deepen their relationships with one another through this rite of passage, and feel more connected to the congregation as a whole.
 
The cohort also enriches the wider AARC community. Younger students in the AARC Beit Sefer (religious school) with director Shlomit Cohen, witness their older peers taking on leadership roles — reading Torah, leading prayers, offering teachings — and can begin to imagine themselves in those roles. Our hope is that this visibility sparks excitement and a sense of belonging, helping younger students look forward to their own future B’nei Mitzvah journeys. And of course, it is only natural for the older generation to kvell (take pride and delight) over the accomplishments of our youth and to be encouraged by the planting of seeds for future community-building.
 
On a personal note, it is particularly meaningful to me to have the opportunity to be part of the process of nurturing our youth — guiding their learning, celebrating their questions and witnessing their growth. According to our tradition, this is a form of sacred communal birthing. As our sages teach, “One who teaches another’s child Torah is regarded as though they had given birth to them” (Sanhedrin 19b). I am so grateful for the privilege of getting to know the minds and hearts of these young people and of helping shepherd them to enter the next stage of their Jewish lives.
 
To learn more about the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, please visit https://aarecon.org/ or email info@aarecon.org.
 
 

Why I Chose Recon by Dave Nelson

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I chose Reconstructionism via process of elimination. I know that sounds like a left-handed compliment at best, but stick with me.

I had a Jewish childhood that was confusing and unpleasant in ways that will be familiar to many Jews born in the 1970s or before: 

When I was small lots of folks had lots of opinions about Jews. These opinions were rarely accurate, and mostly either callously (if inadvertently) cruel or awkwardly and unjustifiably admiring (to your face, at least). 

My earliest memory of public school was being relentlessly bullied on the bus by a kid nearly twice my age who didn’t like Jews, but did like detailed descriptions of Jews being tortured and murdered throughout history. At home in the neighborhood, a friend’s parent interrupted our game of touch football to pointedly insist that my parents were “real top-drawer people.” It was the only time I recalled him saying anything to anyone, apart from yelling at his own children to cut something the hell out. Years later I finally put together the puzzle when I began to notice how often someone would learn I was Jewish (“Oh!? You don’t look Jewish!”) and then abruptly opine that Sandy Koufax had been one helluva ballplayer, or that Mel Brooks was a real funny guy, or that Carl Levin was an honest politician and that was really saying something.

But clumsy or mean gentiles were only half the unpleasantness in my unpleasant Jewish childhood. The other half was Jews who took offense to me calling myself a “Jew” when only one of my parents had been born Jewish (…and the father, no less!). 

Unsurprisingly, I had my bar mitzvah and didn’t set foot in a temple or synagogue again for nearly a decade. 

When Cara and I got married, the rabbi who officiated was lovely, but was not from the large Metro-Detroit Reform temple where my parents were members and I had been bar mitzvahed; that congregation was uninterested in officiating an interfaith ceremony in West Michigan. The rabbi who did officiate (semi-retired from a tiny West Michigan congregation) had only one condition: that we promise to raise any children as Jews.  Cara and I agreed without thinking much of it. My wife was raised Catholic, and was more than happy to raise Jewish children instead of Catholic ones. I didn’t object because I didn’t have any problem with being a Jew; I had a problem with being treated poorly by people who had unresolved issues with Jews and Jewishness.

Then we had kids, and those kids got old enough to need religious instruction in order for us to make good on our promise to the very nice man in the very thick glasses who’d officiated our mishugina wedding in a Saugatuck gazebo.

One of my freelance gigs at this time was copyediting the Washtenaw Jewish News, which meant I read every word about every Jewish organization in town at least twice each month. This made me oddly well-informed about local congregations and their programming, given that I had been avoiding Jewish organizations for going on two decades and had never intended to ever join one again. 

Being well informed wasn’t encouraging. This was 20 years ago, and some of what I saw local congregations promoting was too close to what had stung me when I was a kid: workshops on how to “cope” with your child’s or grandchild’s interfaith relationship, talk about how they “tolerated” people from all traditions, and so on. 

I didn’t want my wife and children to be “tolerated.” I wanted them to feel welcomed. (Never mind that this was also an extremely convenient reason to keep avoiding the Jews I’d been avoiding since I was a teen.)

Cara—who was stuck leading this charge, because she makes good on her promises and her husband was refusing to productively process his childhood trauma—asked what about these guys, these Reconstructionists? Did I have a beef with Reconstructionists?

I did not. I’d never heard of them. I’d been bullied by Reform Jews and Conservative Jews and Humanist Jews and just sort of ignored by Chasidic Jews, but never to my knowledge even met a Reconstructionist. The word wasn’t even in spellcheck! 

  So we came to AARC Kabbalat Shabbat. I didn’t really know what “Kabbalat Shabbat” was at the time, and when it was over I still didn’t really know what it was: The liturgy and order of service and songs seemed almost entirely foreign. For me, this was a feature, not a problem: nothing about AARC reminded me of the Judaism that had excluded me when I was small.  Besides, everyone was very friendly and helped me find which page we were on, and there was plenty of kale and quinoa to go around afterward.

All of that was nice. But what has kept me choosing Reconstructionism with the AARC is the religious school. 

I’d gone to religious school for years, and it had taught me to at once be ashamed of not being a “real” Jew while also being conceited about my natural superiority as a Jew moving through a goyische world (“when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon,” and so on).

At AARC my children learned to be comfortable and confident as Jews without any sense that this made them better (or even really meaningfully different) from anyone else. Over the years we’ve had different Boards, different Rabbis, different teachers and curricula, different members, but the heart of it has remained the same—which is good, because my children have learned this, but I still have a lot of work to do.

AARC Participates in JFS Community Needs Drive – From the AARC Board

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Many of us have expressed the desire to take social action together as a congregation and also to connect more with other Jewish groups in our area. As yet another Hannukah miracle, we have a unique opportunity to do both this season. Because hundreds of newcomers and neighbors in need are counting on us this winter, AARC has partnered with JFS, Beth Israel Congregation, Temple Beth Emeth and others in organizing a “Community Needs Drive” to spread warmth and dignity to our local newcomers and neighbors. You can participate by donating needed supplies and/or helping to prepare the goods for the needy families.

Our goal is to collect donations of essential supplies—like soap, diapers, shampoo, toothbrushes, cleaning items, feminine products and grocery or gas gift cards—to bring physical comfort and a sense of belonging to hundreds of families in our community. When you come to services, or any other time you are at the JCC between now and December 22nd, you will find a large, labeled box to receive your donations.  We are grateful to the JCC for their support of this important work.

Thank you!

Winter 2026 Reading with the AARC Book Group

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Winter is a fantastic time for enjoying the snow and then curling up on the sofa with tea and a good book.

All are welcome to join the AARC Book Group for its upcoming winter 2026 meetings. Participating in the AARC book group is a great way to get to know terrific people while discussing interesting topics and sharing delicious food.

Here are the dates and books:

All three meetings will begin with in-person lunches at Audrey’s and Greg’s house, with lunch prepared by Audrey, from 12:20-1 PM.  Lunch will be followed by a hybrid in-person/Zoom book discussion from 1-2 PM. Many thanks to Audrey and Greg for their coordination, cooking and generous hosting! To learn more or RSVP, please contact Greg Saltzman, gsaltzman@albion.edu.

Sunday, January 11 we will discuss
The World That We Knew, by Alice Hoffman, (fiction, 2019, 398 pages).

Sunday, February 8 we will discuss
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford (fiction, 2009, 306 pages).

Sunday, March 15 we will discuss
God Is Here: Reimagining the Divine, by Toba Spitzer (nonfiction, 2022, 287 pages). Rav Gavrielle will join us and lead the discussion of this book. Thanks to the AARC’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Brindley, who recommended this book in her blog HERE.

The AARC book group is friendly and welcoming, and we look forward to seeing you! For more on the AARC book group, see this article from October 2025 and this blog from 2021.

The photo shows the December 2025 AARC book group enjoying an excellent lunch and a stimulating discussion on By the Waters of Paradise, by Clare Kinberg. We were delighted that Clare joined the discussion by Zoom from her home in St. Louis.

AARC’s new Yahrzeit Candle

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This interview/article appeared in the January 2026 Washtenaw Jewish News. See page 1 and page 6 at this link: https://washtenawjewishnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jan-2026.pdf

The Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) is fortunate to have a special collection of ritual objects created by its talented congregants. At the high holidays last fall, Idelle Hammond-Sass, an artist, jewelry designer and metalsmith, presented the congregation with yet another sacred object:  a beautiful yartzeit candle holder.   A yahrzeit candle is a long-burning candle lit to remember a loved one on the anniversary of their death.

Emily E (EE): Idelle, tell us about how the idea came about for you to create a yahrzeit candle holder for the AARC.

Idelle: The idea really originated with Rav Gabrielle. She invited me to create it for the ritual of lighting a community yahrzeit candle on Erev Yom Kippur.  She saw this an opportunity for an artisan in the community to contribute to hiddur mitzvah – the elevating and beautifying of a mitzvah or cherished ritual – and to embody the DIY and collaborative spirit that defines our Reconstructionist community.

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EE: Tell us about your research and creative process.

Idelle: I use a metalsmithing technique called Foldforming. It is a process that can transform metal with hammering, folding and unfolding, repeating the process to create amazing complex forms.  I also used this technique to create the Ner Tamid (eternal light) I made for the AARC Torah Ark.

Part of experimenting with fold forms means you can fold paper to plan a fold or create variations. Some of these can be very interesting in their own right.

I was doing a little research on paper folds and found a folded seven-point star in a book which I knew could be modified to be a six-pointed star. Using a piece of bristol board I measured it out, adapting it from the original seven-pointed form.  It looked like two triangles attached at the long edge. I then measured one-inch segments and folded them back and forth, like an accordion.  I added an additional inch to overlap in the front. This determined how much metal I would use.

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EE: What were the materials and did you have any challenges in creating the candle holder?

Idelle: I first made a copper model to see how the glass candle holder would fit. It needed to be longer to accommodate the thickness of the metal and the glass insert. First, I priced it in sterling silver which turned out to be fairly expensive, so I began to look for other alternatives.  I ultimately decided to use NuGold, a brass alloy often called Jewelers Brass. I wanted the interior to have a golden glow and reflect the candle.

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EE:  At Kol Nidre Services in October 2025, you dedicated this yahrzeit candle holder to an AARC founder and longtime friend Evelyn Neuhaus, z”l, who passed away in February 2025.   Tell us about the connection you felt between this special object and Evelyn.

Idelle: Evelyn and I met in a Hebrew class and she was an important friend over many years. I was unable to attend her funeral and honor her so this was something I wanted to do.  She had many close friends in the AARC congregation and in the community and made spirituality and Jewish learning a priority in her life. The Yahrzeit candle radiates the inner light of the person we are remembering; this is what the golden glow represents within the object.

Evelyn Neuhaus, z”l,

Evelyn Neuhaus, z”l

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EE:  How do you see the yahrzeit candle holder being used by the congregation?

Idelle: I imagine it will be available to use especially at times of remembrance such as Yizkor, but will be used at other services as the congregation and Rabbi decide.

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EE: What else would you like to share about this gift to the congregation?

Idelle: I’ve made other ritual objects for our AARC congregation including our Yad (Torah Pointer), a Crown for a Megillah holder made by Allen Haber and the Ner Tamid (eternal light) called “Forest Dawn” which sits atop the Torah Ark.  All of these are specific to our congregation as they were intentionally made for AARC. I don’t use the Star of David often, although I did use it on the end of the Yad which was a triangle and offered that very naturally.  In this Yahrzeit holder, the Star of David becomes the space to hold the memorial candle. I see it as the whole community holding the space for the person(s) we are remembering, embracing them with love and respect for who they were to us as a community.

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To learn more about Idelle’s artwork, see her website.

To see photos of the AARC’s beautiful ritual objects visit https://aarecon.org/sacred-objects/.

Finding Awesome Places by Elizabeth Brindley

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“Mah nora hamakom hazeh!” – “How awesome is this place!” Jacob exclaims this after realizing he has had a divine encounter while sleeping on the side of the road, using a rock for a pillow.  He didn’t realize he was roughing it in the house of G-d, but lo! 

The phrase from this week’s portion, Vayetzei, first popped out at me a few years ago in Toba Spitzer’s “God is Here: Reimagining the Divine”.  At the time I was new to the prison system, struggling to adjust to the environment, and trying to fill the ample amount of downtime I had as a government employee with some Jewish thought.

The context Spitzer used it in, at the time, didn’t particularly speak to me, as reading the phrase a dozen times in the Torah portion apparently hadn’t, but this time the phrase stuck.  What did it mean to really be here, in this place?  Is any place holy if you’re present with it, or are there other conditions to this awesomeness?  I personally spend a lot of time in very unpleasant spaces – until I went on leave, at least one hundred and sixty hours of my month were spent in a facility that is at times violently punitive, deeply biased, and regularly smells like an oppressive blend of hot peppers, sweaty bodies, and overflowing grease traps. The air conditioning and circulation went out every time an inmate broke a sprinkler head in their cell, and that happened at least twice every day when someone got upset.  My co-workers and some patrons regularly spoke disrespectfully to me, if not downright abusively. My physical appearance was frequently scrutinized and openly criticized or commented on by both inmates and coworkers, and on more than one occasion inmates have tried to physically touch or seize me through the cuffport in their cell door while I was delivering reading materials. Once, my life was threatened by a patron because I could not provide a James Patterson novel. As much as I love my work, it is at times terrifying.  Most nights I came home smelling like capsaicin and wanting to shrink away from and forget all the awful human behavior I witnessed on the daily.  It was hard to imagine where G-d could be hanging out in this hellscape.

Where you find G-d probably depends on how you understand the concept, whether you believe it as an external or internal divine force or a non-force, or whatever have you.  Personally, I think of G-d as more of a state of peace and wholeness.  When you act out of loving kindness, out of community, out of forgiveness, any time you choose to practice a mitzvah or to be kind rather than give in to your (totally natural and understandable) baser habits, you’re in touch with the holy.  I think the Hebrew people wandered into the desert and at Mt. Sinai experienced something that we have spent 3000 years trying to articulate and make sense of. But regardless of how you conceptualize G-d, once you start looking for something, you tend to find it. So it was with my new mission to find G-d in such a miserable pit.  

Mutual aid between inmates is complicated and vulnerable to abuse by bad actors, but for the most part they are generous with one another.  Nobody has anything, and so they share it all.  Tablets to make phone calls home, sharing extra commissary when someone was short on money, and even inmates with paralegal experience preparing legal work free of charge for fellow inmates.  Is G-d in the person who appears with the help you need, just when you need it?  

Because my facility largely houses men with heavy sentences, we don’t release many people back home, but we do release one or two a month.  They walk out the front door wearing street clothes for perhaps the first time in more than a decade, and get to hug and kiss the loved ones waiting to pick them up.  They look so proud of themselves, so joyful to be free to make their own choices again.  Is G-d in the reuniting of a family, the repair of a community ravaged by racist practices and policies, or the ability to pick what you get to eat for lunch? 

Does G-d exist in the adult learners who finally, finally graduate with their GED or Diploma, or even a college degree – is G-d in their beaming faces? Is G-d dwelling in the inmate who tells me the library is the only place he feels like a person? Is G-d in the library, or maybe the collection of knowledge that might help these guys build the tools they need to turn their lives around? And if G-d is in these places, isn’t it my duty that I pursue them and continue to create the best conditions for them to occur? Is the pursuit of these conditions for others justice? 

I see G-d where I see people connecting now, and for as dark and awful as a prison can be, moments in it can be equally as beautiful and human.  There are always bright spots in the dark, and that is where G-d dwells.  Those are the awesome places.  

Why I Chose Reconstructionist by Elizabeth Brindley

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I wasn’t born a Jew.

Well… maybe that’s not really accurate. The more I learned about Judaism, the more it felt like getting to know myself, so maybe I was always Jewish deep down. Judaism had never occurred to me as an option. I was raised Lutheran, but had never connected with it, and I had explored other practices like Wicca and Buddhism trying to find something that brought the peace and guidance I think I was really looking for. It wasn’t until I took a Jewish Children’s Literature class, which necessitated a basic understanding of Jewish beliefs, that I really started to wonder if this was a good fit. I liked the idea of Tikkun Olam, and Yom Kippur sounded like a really meaningful holiday. Eventually I decided to talk to a Rabbi, and I told myself I would keep practicing Judaism until I didn’t like it anymore. But the longer I’m here, the more I like it, so… here we are.

Regardless, I didn’t have a Jewish family around growing up, aside from Rabbi Scott z”l, a family friend, and much of my Jewish education has been in formal settings like a Jewish Children’s Literature at Eastern Michigan, a couple Judaism 101 classes, and a Beginner’s Hebrew Class. I’ve read A LOT of books about the history and various practice ways, but I focused a lot on the mystical, the yummy (food!) and the folk. I found my corner of Jewish study very quickly, but it took much, much longer to feel like part of the Jewish community.

Rabbi Robert Scott

SCOTT, Rabbi Robert. Beloved husband of the late Ardis K. Scott, cherished father of Jeffrey Paul Scott, David Simon Scott and Stephanie Tara Scott (Jeremy Wilson). Also survived by his loving dog Motek. Dear brother of Philip (Marsha) Scott. 

Being a convert can feel very insecure. Is it weird to tell you I’m a convert in conversation? Should I keep it to myself, tell you when it’s comfortable, tell you up front? Does it even matter to you? Will it change how you talk to me if you know? Do I know enough to be here? Am I doing something inadvertently to out myself as a convert?

Perhaps complicating things somewhat was that I converted in a Reform setting. If you’ve never participated in Reform practices, it is highly individualized. I think of Judaism like a spectrum. The most Orthodox, like the Chasidim, I explain like this: They follow ALL the commandments to the T, because God gave those commandments, and as you follow them you find meaning in them. You do and you understand, right? Reform attitude goes in the other direction — you practice the mitzvahs and rituals that make you (the individual) feel Jewish. I explain to folks who ask that Reconstructionist Judaism sits somewhere in the middle. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with either end of the spectrum, but I am a person who likes structure and tradition and community, and Reform spaces just felt too loose for me, and left me feeling untethered and a little lonely. It was hard to find Reform spaces where my penchant and desire for intellectual study, critical analysis or mystical experiences necessarily fit the culture. I love the folkways, the women’s practices, the hidden histories of Judaism. The “hot takes” as the kids say. They weren’t necessarily frowned on in Reform, but I was hard pressed to find anybody who had read The Hebrew Priestess or was super interested in the Witch of Endor, or Judaism’s attitude towards folk magic practices, much less wanted to talk about them or incorporate aspects into their personal practices. While the Rabbi of my home temple in Ohio is very progressive and we can discuss these topics, the larger culture of the Temple wasn’t quite there, which is something I learned I wanted after a few years into my Jewish practice.

My experience with Reconstructionist Judaism, however, has been the perfect mix of tradition and innovation. It was a Jewish friend from a Reconstructionist congregation who introduced me to the idea of Eco Kashrut, an altered form of Kashrut that values caring for the planet and its creatures or separating ourselves from other cultures, a view which I have slowly introduced to my family over the last few years. Every time I prepare a meal, I know that I have excluded meat and included as much local and homegrown produce as I could because I intentionally chose to. In fact, I knew AARC was the right place for me when my very first time working 4th Friday, the idea of vegetarian diet being the ideal in the Torah came up. It was reinforced recently when Rav Gav showed me her song list and it had several niggunim and chants from Rabbi Shefa Gold.

Reconstructionist Judaism’s idea that Judaism is an evolving civilization, not just a tradition, was one of the biggest draws I had to this community. I mean yes, you pay me to be here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t connect with or participate in services to the extent I can while I’m there. Now that I know AARC is here and what they’re about, it’s likely I would have two congregations I was part of. I would come join in even if you weren’t paying me to do so. I am proud that the Reconstruction Movement created teachers like Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who is queer and black. I’m proud that this movement celebrates its black, brown, female and queer members, not just accepts them. I firmly believe that this culture, which I have found to be full of joy and pride and commitment from those involved, is informed by RJ’s core values:

  • Learning from the vast storehouse of Jewish wisdom and practice while understanding that the past has a vote, not a veto;
  • Openness to insights from contemporary society, especially democratic practice and commitments to advancing equity;
  • Thinking, dreaming and making decisions in conversation with community—the community gathered around us today, the voices of our ancestors, and, as best as we can anticipate, the needs and aspirations of the communities of tomorrow;
  • Feeling empowered to reconstruct and co-create rituals, practices, texts and more in order to build the Jewish community we want to live in

I love the Reconstructionist space you (we) have made AARC. I am proud to be part of a community that celebrates its diversity, not just accepts it. Where are times I felt like my Reform practice was disconnected from the community. In the Reconstructionist space I feel not only connected to my spiritual ancestors, but to those people present with me, and those who have not yet joined us. Not to be dramatic, but it feels a bit like the Jewish folks sealing the covenant with G-d at Sinai. By innovating Judaism and continuing to connect it to our constantly changing and modernizing lives, we keep it alive for future generations to find peace and comfort in, and continue to build on thousands of years of memory and learning and community. Thank you, thank you, thanks for inviting me in.