Rampant Righteousness

Righteousness was rampant at the innaugural Brickner Seminar at the Religious Action Center. The three day rabbinical conference on social action featured scholars like Rabbis Bradley Shavit-Artson, Irwin Kula, Tsvi Blanchard (both of CLAL), and David Saperstein. Congressional staffers and consultants shared trade secrets for organizing and political action. It was an impressive display.

Sometimes, the righteousness ran amok at late night sessions. After twelve hours in the conference room, loud pops and a long sizzle announced the coffee pot’s burnout. We didn't take the hint and opened a discussion on Judaism and the environment. Talk turned to blueberries and carbon offset credits available on-line. There was a jeremiad against our appetite for out-of-season fruit, specifically blueberries in the winter. We learned about the threats of eco-hostile farming, carbon emissions produced in delivering our food, the poison of plastic packaging and more. Mostly we learned how difficult it is for COEJL and other Jewish environmental activists to generate interest in the Jewish community.

Fortunately most sessions did not travel that route. RAC staff restored our coffee supply by morning and the better presenters coalesced around a theme: relationships are the key to righteous results. Matt, a PR consultant, taught us that more and better media exposure comes only through relationships with the people who report the news. Rabbi Jonah Pesner and Lyla Fouldes of the URJ’s Just Congregations Initiative described their model. First, build relationships within the congregation through one-on-one contact and sharing stories. Second, build relationships across religion, class, and organizational boundaries. Third, leverage those relationships to bring about real change. Lyla led us through a study of the biblical book, Nehemiah, chapters 1-3. It is a beautifully crafted model for achieving results in the style of Just Congregations.

We have seen the effectiveness of this premise at MRT. Our most successful social action efforts have flourished because they started with relationships and then moved to issues and activities. Our least successful ones started with issues that organizers tried to move individuals behind. Often times our organizers did not even know the people they solicited.

We are about to restructure our social action committee and program with new leadership and new vision. It will succeed in its tikkun olam efforts only if it organizes around relationships first and then moves into issues.

If you would like to be part of this effort to organize our community, connect people to each other, and leverage those relationships to change the world, please be in touch with me. Our community could use your help.