FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
DATE: December 2006
Phone: 301-565-0719
Email: DebraRuth@mac.com
Web site: www.aleph.org

Dear Editor:

Enclosed is the December 2006 ALEPH News Service. We hope you run one or more of the following articles, and look forward to hearing from you if you do. This release contains:

1. ALEPH Year End 2006 Highlights
2. ALEPH Participates in Rabbis For Human Rights Conference
3. ALEPH Founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Addresses Kabbalah For the Masses Conference

About ALEPH: ALEPH acts as the headquarters of the Jewish Renewal movement by organizing and nurturing communities, developing spiritual leadership, ordaining rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors, creating liturgical and scholarly resources, holding retreats and festivals and working for social and environmental justice.

ALEPH has attracted and energized thousands of seekers returning to Judaism and just as many who are deeply engaged but looking to elevate their current practice. ALEPH has 40 affiliated communities and its projects include two biennial gatherings: the Kallah and Ruach HaAretz. It also houses as the Sacred Foods Project, C-DEEP: The Center for Devotional, Energy, and Ecstatic Practice, the Bet Midrash (producing siddurim, publications, videos and CDs from our founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and other Jewish Renewal teachers) and Kesher (supporting twenty and early thirty year old leaders). In addition to its projects, ALEPH also produces one-day Jewish Renewal festivals in communities around the US and Canada called Caravans. It is home to OHALAH: The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal and a Rabbinic Studies Program, educating future rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like additional information. ALEPH looks forward to working with you,

Debra Kolodny /s/

ALEPH Year End 2006 Highlights

ALEPH published its 2006 Annual Report, with the following programmatic highlights:

The Bet Midrash added two new products to its catalogue and anAdvisory Council to its leadership.

ALEPH's eighth Caravan received rave reviews at Davis, California's Reform Congregation Bet Haverim.

C-DEEP graduated its first cohort of 36 Chant Leaders from Kol Zimra and launched a second class of 27.

Community affiliations expanded to include our first Australian and New York City affiliates as well as a second community in Oregon, while ten affiliates strengthened their hand at our second Financial Sustainability training.

The Kesher program for young adults held its first Birthright trip to Israel, where 39 young adults developed a lifelong bond to Israel and experienced profound spiritual awakenings. In addition, ALEPH participated in a strategic planning session for Hillel's Spirituality Initiative and taught a workshop on Jewish Meditation at their staff conference.

As OHALAH celebrates its Ninth Annual Conference, "Drawing forth Ruach HaKodesh", its membership continues to expand and its participants are welcomed with greater frequency on local rabbinic councils.

Three rabbis, a cantor and two rabbinic pastors were ordained by the ALEPH Ordination Programs, as ALEPH launched the first seminary based Spiritual Direction Program.

Internationally renowned peacemakers join ALEPH and start the Rodef Shalom School for Peace.

On the heels of another successful bi-annual Summer Retreat, Ruach Ha'Aretz is expanding its mission to include smaller, focused retreats for other ALEPH programs, beginning with an advanced studies week for the Ordination Program.

The Sacred Foods Project held what may have been the nation's first interfaith conference on food, agriculture and the Abrahamic traditions. More than fifty Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy and nonprofit leaders working on social justice and environmental issues attended.

Sage-ing Program: Reb Zalman joined virtually with Shaya, Bahira and Lynne to teach Sage-ing training.

A Shabbaton in Philadelphia drew almost 500 to learn with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Eve Ilsen and leading rabbis in Jewish Renewal.

Additional information on all of the above can be found at www.aleph.org.

Jewish Renewal Rabbinate Well Represented at Inaugural Rabbis for Human Rights/North America Conference

Jewish Renewal identified rabbis and ALEPH rabbinical students comprised over 10% of the 200 who attended the Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR)/North America Conference from December 10-12 in New York City. Rabbi David Shneyer, the President of OHALAH: the Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal and the leader of Am Kolel in Rockville, Maryland said of the event, "The Conference reflected our highest values and the need to strengthen our work as Jewish leaders in inspiring other Jews and other faith communities to be witnesses and advocates for those who have no voice."

A veritable 'who's who' in the world of human rights activism spoke to those gathered about a host of meaningful topics, including: the Jewish foundations of human rights work, the horrors of torture and the need to end it, the pitfalls of taking stands as a pulpit rabbi but the need to do so, creating a rabbinic seminary curriculum that trains rabbis who make this work a priority, and creating a world which prevents human rights abuses from taking place in the first place.

Over half of the governing board of OHALAH: the Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal attended the conference. Joining Rabbi Shneyer were OHALAH Counsel and rabbinic student Ed Stafman and Board member Nevada Rabbi Yocheved Mintz. The Shalom Center Director and RHR Board member Rabbi Arthur Waskow moderated the closing plenary, "Creating the Context and Taking Action to Affirm Human Rights" and co-led a learning session with Rabbi Michael Lerner called, "Can Human Rights be Separated from the Larger Struggles for Social Justice, Peace and Ecological Sanity?" The Rabbi of a Boulder Jewish Renewal community, Nevei Kodesh, and new RHR Board member Tirzah Firestone, participated in the opening ritual and led an alternative mincha service on the first day of the conference. ALEPH ethics committee member Rabbi Gerry Serotta and the Chair of the Board of RHR/North America exercised active leadership throughout the conference as did OHALAH member Ellen Lippman, who was the RHR Conference Chair.

At a meeting of trans-denominational leaders where a majority present were Renewal identified, more than $2000 was raised to help rebuild the Dari home, demolished for the second time in Jerusalem while the conference was happening. A significant part of the RHR work has been focused on stopping the demolition of Palestinian homes in Israel.

All who participated were profoundly affected by the eloquence of the opening ritual on the grounds of the United Nations, by the courage and brilliance of those who lead the world's foremost organizations in the field (Human Rights Watch, Center for Constitutional Rights, Israel's B'tselem and RHR), by the painful and overwhelming testimony of Sister Dianna Ortiz, recounting her own experience of being tortured, and by the commitment and passion of the newly announced "Imams for Human Rights and Dialogue" and "Evangelicals for Human Rights."

All were asked to take the work of Rabbis for Human Rights back to their seminaries and rabbinic associations to inspire even greater commitment and action on these issues. ALEPH Executive Director Debra Kolodny said, "ALEPH is pleased to extend RHR's invitation to all of our spiritual leaders and seminary students. We expect that that we will continue to comprise a disproportionately high percentage of those who heed the call, given the values of social justice upon which we were founded."

ALEPH Founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Addresses 'Kabbalah for the Masses' Conference Tmimah Ickovits

On December 19 Rabbi Dr. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi addressed academics, rabbis and others interested in kabbalah via teleconference at the Tifferet Institute's San Diego conference. In his talk he described ALEPH's philosophy as a universal, egalitarian, Gaia aware, eco-sensitive Judaism with its roots in Hassidism, a commitment to Tikkun olam (repairing the world), and appreciation of art as a means of expression. Rabbi Dr. Elliot Ginsburg, a member of the academic oversight council (the Vaad) of the ALEPH Rabbinic Program, called Reb Zalman, "The Yokhanan ben Zakkai of the 21st century" because he is on the leading edge of a new Jewish paradigm that integrates the ways of the ancients with modern needs.

Rabbi Mimi Feigelson, a former member of the ALEPH Spiritual Advisory Council, invited Reb Zalman to speak about halakhah. Reb Zalman responded that halakhah needed to be dynamic. Rigidity in practice hinders creativity in seeking. His message was that being Jewish is about being engaged in the process, asking the questions, and wrestling with the boundary conditions in which we live. Engagement in this process is more important than being "right". This is demonstrated in Aleph's approach to what Reb Zalman calls the psycho-halakhah process. To this end, all ALEPH rabbinic students must compose a senior project that wrestles with a 21rst century Halakhic challenge before they are initiated into the rabbinate. Like the rabbis in the Mishnah, ALEPH rabbis work the growing edge - discussing and analyzing the rules we live by. In this way, Reb Zalman's work to connect the wisdom of the past with an eye to the future is structurally integrated into the training of ALEPH's spiritual leaders.

Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Travis, The Founding Director of the Tifferet Institute, hoped the conference would be "a serious non-denominational conversation on the contemporary phenomenon of mainstreaming Jewish mysticism." To that end, the forum presenters included a wide variety of schools and philosophies including Reb Zalman, Rabbi Dr. Art Green, Rabbi Michael Berg of the Kabbalah Center, the Bnei Baruch organization, and Chabad.

Rabbi Arthur Green spoke about the importance of filtering when studying mystical text and rejecting racism and sexism resulting from the times they were written. Chabad's Moshe Genuth spoke about teaching non-Jews Kabbalah through the model of the seven Noahide laws. Rabbi Berg sought to show precedent for the Kabbalah Center's practice of scanning the Zohar. The Bnei Baruch web site showed an integration of different world-views. It placed its focus on "internal" mitzvoth and attaining access to upper realms - rather than on "halakhah" and identifying as Jewish.

The conference was successful in stimulating thoughtful and respectful dialogue across this wide range of institutions, focusing mostly on the Zohar with some references to Hassidic texts.