Thursday, July 11, 2013

synagoguergy

Life in the 21st century is changing so fast. Computer power doubles every 18 months. Smart phones, wireless, planes that land themselves on aircraft carriers, drones, online education, ebooks, ipads, texting, ordering 15 kinds of pizza from your phone to suit your tastes. Many now get their primary news and education from tv, video, internet, their phones and ipads. Much communiucation comes in short texts via a phone. Dinner around the dining room table increasingly seems to be everyone looking down at their phones.

Jewish life is changing for some too. And very quickly. For some, no changes. Jewish life continues pretty much as it has for centuries. And those Jews have 10 childrem starting at 18. For others, Hebrew school used to be 4 days a week, then 3, then 2 and now more and more, its Sundays only. Many stop learning at 13, if they learn at all. Many never marry, and if they do, they may marry multiple times, have one or two children. Families used to live within blocks of each other. now, many live continents apart and communicate by skype. Some marry the same gender, some switch genders. Some marry someone from another religion who may or may not, convert. Some switch out of Judaism, some switch into Judaism. Some synagogues are hopping, full of large crowds and exciting. More often, synagogue membership is shrinking, full of the elderly, merging or going out of business. Some people spend 7 years and hundreds of thousands to earn a rabbi degree, others a few thousand and get a degree online. There are exciting, innovative newly emerging forms and communities of Jewish expressions, but they so far have not attracted the masses. 

This blog is not meant for those who live inside Orthodox communties. For the most part, they are very satisfied with the forms of Judaism they inherited. This site is meant for the seekers, who feel the soul searcing desire but not sure about the where, how, why, what to be Jewish. wee have developed, as have others, many resources to help in that search.

The 2000 year old mishnaic text Pirke avot teaches: be like the disciples of Aaron...bring them closer "Mikarave" to the Torah. That is what we hope to do.

What is SYNagoguERGY?
 A synagogue, (from Greek: συναγωγή meaning "assembly"; ביתכנסת beyt knesset, meaning "house of assembly"; ביתתפילה is a Jewish house of prayer. When broken down, the word could also mean "learning together" (from the Greek συν syn, together, and αγωγή agogé, learning or training). 

Synergy is the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνέργια from synergos, συνεργός, meaning "working together 

Therefore, SYNagoguERGY is what we are about-the bringing together of our interaction with you to produce an effect greater than the sum of our individual efforts, by inspiring the Living, Loving and Learning of Judaism 

www.synagoguergy.blogspot.com

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