The Emergence of the NOLA Minyan
I am excited to report that on a recent Friday evening, we held the first meeting of the NOLA minyan, an egalitarian, independent Kabbalat Shabbat service and potluck dinner that will be happening on a monthly basis. This event was the brainchild of a young group of us “imported do-gooders” (AVODAH and beyond) who have detected a need in our Uptown neighborhood for a prayer experience that lays somewhere on the Jewish spectrum in between a reform temple and Chabad, since currently those are our sole local options. While there are two wonderful synagogues with fantastic leadership in Metairie, a nearby suburb, many of us have been seeking a traditional Jewish space sensitive to the needs of a wide range of people that does not separate us from where and with whom we live. This minyan is our opportunity to bring that space to life and to try and build a fantastic, unique community around it.
This project came about through countless conversations that, for some of the planning group, have been happening over the past year and, for newcomers like me, over the past two months. These discussions have not been straightforward or easy and they have not produced any set conclusions. We have conversed a great deal about what needs we each would like fulfilled and what we envision and hope this becomes. Yet creating a traditional, egalitarian minyan for a diverse audience is no simple task. Each of those three words is loaded with differing, intense meanings and experiences for all of us. And when that complexity is put in dialogue with trying to accommodate an amorphous, diverse audience who we would like to include in this community as well as give them power in defining what that may mean, the task of creating a space that addresses or at least acknowledges all of these differences becomes insurmountably daunting.
This tension between fulfilling our (the planning group’s) own needs and those of the people we are trying to simultaneously accommodate has raised significant, difficult questions about who we are and what we are trying to create. Should this space exist to meet the traditional needs of the planning group (which consist of a huge range that may not all align anyway) and therefore be a very small collective, or do we attempt to challenge ourselves and what our initial hopes may be, which may very well require a new understanding or perhaps straight-up rejection of the term “traditional,” in order to welcome a larger crowd with a wider spectrum of expectations?
I personally believe that the needs of each group are of equal importance. I do not think the conversation surrounding our purpose is separate from discussing the interests of the audience (though this was certainly a concern voiced among members of the planning group). We have to take into account who this population is not only because we want to create a space where they feel comfortable but also because constructing the type of community we want to is only going to work if other people are on board. I suppose the planners may all have different images in our minds of what this might look like, but I venture a guess that we want more people than just us.
In order to create a strong, sustainable community here, it would seem necessary to me for everyone to give up something that would make them the most comfortable. It is rather difficult to accommodate so many different needs by sticking to one set paradigm. Often, when “traditional” is in the title of a prayer situation, it seems to encompass an all or nothing mentality in terms of what prayers are included and which rituals are enacted. But I think that there are certainly ways to blend traditional aspects of the service by adding English excerpts and songs or maybe by shortening Ma’ariv, so as not to alienate people who feel uncomfortable with a long, inaccessible service that is entirely in Hebrew. From my experience, individual sacrifice made for the sake of a greater good is how diverse religious communities are successfully constructed.
Now I do not believe that this strategy should be implemented at all times. There is a great value to having set traditional spaces with set liturgy and practice. But for a monthly Kabbalat Shabbat service that seeks to unite Jewish Uptowners in search of a meaningful prayer experience in a city with limited resources, I would like to do my best to include as many people within it as possible especially considering the alternative (or lack there of).
With all that said, and as my voice was only one among many, the service was a strange breed of traditional liturgy with small attempts made to accommodate those who do not feel comfortable with a ritual that can seem so inaccessible due to the language, choreography and general background familiarity with it that many of us who planned it possessed. I personally was not satisfied with the final product. I thought it was too long, too difficult to understand. I also think that we relied to heavily on the often used strategy that while those comfortable with a traditional service pray certain passages to themselves in Hebrew, everyone else should just feel free to think about their own silent meditations. I do not think that is a good solution to bringing different people from a variety of backgrounds together because it fails to address the possibility that those with less familiarity may want to be included in the liturgical experience, that they would like to have a say in how the service looks, or that the traditional planning group should have to make any concessions.
I get the feeling that at some point during the service, every participant felt uncomfortable. As a result, we clearly have points of tension to address. Yet, everyone simultaneously seemed to enjoy themselves, the food, the service and the company. I think we definitely succeeded in many realms as well since discomfort does not normatively breed positive experience.
We have just entered a very long process that is only going to take shape once we have a better understanding of our objectives, our audience and our priorities. Despite the difficulty, I am excited to be a part of this pursuit. We are taking charge of our religious experience; we are not submitting to the narrow options that the spectrum of American Judaism currently offers. Our lives in this city as Jews is more complex than I could have imagined, I sincerely believe that this project is an attempt to establish a space that honors those complexities. And though at times that may produce discomfort, I know that in certain circumstances, like being outside of New York, Israel or Brandeis University (where I went to school and a campus that is 60% Jewish), that is inevitable, and we must confront that challenge head on. I know we are up to the task and cannot wait to get knee deep in this messy, beautiful process of creating a unique, diverse prayer community.
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Ellen Kaufman said:
I am going to New Orleans for a conference and am looking for a shabbat service to attend. I will be at a downtown hotel and was wondering when and where your minyan meets. thanks