Sunday, December 18, 2022/24 Kislev 5783
To my Friends at Shabbat with Friends,
I am on my way to New York City to celebrate Hanukkah with the Rising Song Institutes’ Singing Intensive organized by Joey Weisenberg. Many of you heard Joey during his visit to New Mexico in August. As you witnessed, Joey is a charismatic and multi-talented musician. More important he is a revered teacher and mentor for musicians, people who love to sing, and anyone with an appreciation of Jewish music. I discovered Joey almost seven years ago and attended my first Singing Intensive which he holds in NYC every year. Experiencing the Intensive changed my life. Singing four days with 150 fully engaged people from all corners of Jewish life is quite amazing and incomparable.  
Joey’s gathering attracts folks from across the States and in Jewish communities all over the world. Because of the respect that other gifted Jewish musicians have for him, he can bring together outstanding artists to teach and share their music over four days of workshops on Jewish song, Niggun, and music from Sephardic, Oriental, Israeli, and American masters.
I try to go every year for inspiration, renewal, and new songs that I share with all of you, my community. I have never been disappointed. This year will be special for it is the first time over the six times I have attended that the four days fall over Hanukkah. Hanukkah is an unusual minor festival since we sing the Hallel in weekday morning services (Thanksgiving psalms 113-118), usually a cherished liturgy of the major festivals.  The Hallel is a repository of Jewish musical creativity over the generations. I am looking forward to adding to my knowledge of the beautiful music of the Hallel.  Pesah is the festival most deeply connected to the Hallel, so what I sing and learn next week I will bring back to New Mexico to enhance your Sedarim and celebrations of that great and beautiful “Hag”.
Even if you can’t go to the Intensive, you can enjoy its fruits by checking out these online resources which the Rising Song Institute makes accessible online. Check out Joey’s online master classes HERE.  Or listen to the music of talented artists that Joey highlights at the Intensive, HERE.  If you want a special treat, listen to his Joey’s band, the Hadar Ensemble which has inspired our own Oneg Shabbos Ensemble. Learn more HERE.  
In whatever way you celebrate, may you have an illuminating, hopeful, and inspirational Hanukkah.
Hag Urim Same’ach, May you have a joyful festival of lights,
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg

Shabbat with Friends NM is introducing our inaugural fall programs. This post gives me an opportunity to explain the place of the Fall Jewish festivals in Shabbat with Friends NM (SWF). We intentionally are not offering Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah services. Many of those who participate in SWF are active members of local synagogues which offer comprehensive services of these festivals. We encourage affiliated and non-affiliated SWF participants to attend a synagogue for these festivals. 


I founded Shabbat with Friends to focus on enhancing the experience of the Jewish Sabbath, specifically on convening Shabbat gatherings in homes. These Shabbat gatherings are not formal worship services. Rather they are organized to bring people together around meals, singing, and Torah study. They are meant to revitalize the spiritual and social Shabbat traditions such as table singing, informal Torah study, enlivening conversation. These gatherings also aim to foster relationships, friendships, and fellowship among participants. 


In future posts I will write about the unique attributes of Shabbat with Friends NM as a Jewish organization and why it is important for similar types of organizations to emerge in Jewish communities. I will also address the role of the rabbi as a critical element of what Shabbat with Friends is attempting to accomplish. I hope these writings will engender a vigorous and thoughtful conversation in the New Mexico Jewish community. 


Shanah Tovah U’metokah- May you have a sweet new year, 
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg 

 
I was enthralled by Joey Weisenberg’s visit to New Mexico. And those who had the fortune to attend either the concert gathering on 8/28 in Albuquerque or the Workshop on 8/29 in Santa Fe were clearly moved by his gift of gathering people close to sing the songs of the Jewish people. Joey Weisenberg has been my teacher for seven years. Every time I sit with him in a circle of people, whether it is 5 people or 100 people, I am transported to another place. I also watch what he does as a teacher to become a better teacher. I am never disappointed. Let me share what I learned this time.
 
Singing is a powerful way to build community.
Joey composes new songs and restores old Jewish songs.  That is only one aspect of his genius. The other thing he does is to birth a song and enable the people gathered to make it their own both as individuals and as a group. At the workshop the 45 or so people there learned a simple nigun from him. We spent two hours (I lost sense of the time.) experiencing and learning how a song takes hold with people as it took hold with us.
 
Proximity matters. 
Joey reminded me that to experience the spiritual power of singing, we need to be physically close to each other. We must sacrifice a need for physical space to be able to recover the intimacy of group singing. The metaphor Joey used to describe this was memorable.  If you start a campfire, if you place the kindling and the logs too far apart, the match may ignite the fire, but it will burn out quickly. But to light the fire and to extend and grow the fire, you need to stack the kindling and the logs. We must be willing to stack ourselves together to feel the power of song to unite us.  Joey also demonstrated how this applies to prayer in synagogue settings when we sit far apart from people.  Prayer and song are closely related in Jewish prayer, but often, our collective prayers are distant echoes. 
 
Judaism is a culture and religion of empowerment.
While there is a great variety of Jewish expression, Joey demonstrated what it means to create a space where everyone’s voice is critical. While there is a role for classical, organized music and song, it is possible to foster an environment where everyone is invited and empowered to sing regardless of the quality of their voices. The role of the leader is not to be a soloist or an expert, or a performer. The leader’s purpose is to engender participation and a help people gathered to rediscover the feeling of community. When Joey talks about building singing communities, he is demonstrating how to build communities that honor the dignity to each member of the community. He is much more than a performer; he convenes people to sing and lets the unfolding song build connections and relationships with everyone in the circle.
 
It is a tribute to Joey Weisenberg that 4 days after he left town, I am still having multiple conversations with others about the magical feeling of his appearances. For those who attended, please share with me what you learned and experienced.   
 
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
 
Please contact me if you are interested in working with a team to follow up Joey’s visit to foster more singing in our community and utilizing his online learning resources to build our knowledge of Jewish music. dov@shabbatwithfriends.org. 

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS:
Shabbat with Friends NM; Congregation B’nai Israel, ABQ; Temple Beth Shalom, Santa Fe; Chavurat Hamidbar ABQ; Jewish Community Center, ABQ; HaMakom, Santa Fe; and Nahalat Shalom, ABQ
 
 About Joey Weisenberg
Joey Weisenberg cultivates the grassroots creativity of the Jewish people. A virtuosic, once in a generation master, Joey Weisenberg works as a multi-instrumental musician, singer, composer, writer, and teacher. Joey is the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for The Torah of Music (2017)
 
Joey’s creative work with Jewish song and nigun engages diverse communities and Jews from all backgrounds: His goal: to educate and train individuals and communities around the world to unlock their musical-spiritual potential and make music a vibrant, joy-filled force in Jewish life.  RSVP below for one or both of the events with Joey.
*****

Joey Weisenberg in New Mexico
Jewish Community Artist in Residence

• Albuquerque Community wide Concert/GatheringSunday, August 28, 2022 3pm at the JCCABQ.
• Workshop on Building Singing Communities for Jewish leaders, Musicians, Singers, and people who love Jewish music.   Santa Fe on Monday evening, August 29th, 2022.  Details forthcoming

 
Joey Weisenberg cultivates the grassroots musical-spiritual creativity of the Jewish people. A virtuosic, once in a generation master, Joey Weisenberg works as a multi-instrumental musician, singer, composer, and teacher. A devoted student and teacher of ancient and traditional Jewish melodies, Joey also teaches online master classes in Jewish song and prayer through the Hadar Rising Song Institute. He is most well-known for his composition of new nigunim and Jewish melodies that have moved and inspired Jews around the world.

Joey works to educate and train communities around the world to unlock their musical-spiritual potential and make music a vibrant, joy-filled force in Jewish life. This will be his first visit to New Mexico. Don’t miss this very special musical artist in residence.

This program is an initiative of Shabbat with Friends NM, the JCC of ABQ and a growing list of Jewish organizations.  If you wish to be a volunteer organizer, donor, or sponsoring organization, please contact Rabbi Dov Gartenberg at dov@shabbatwithfriends.org or Suzanne Savage at suzy1946@q.com.
Listen to Joey’s most recent release on Rising Song Records, L’eila, a stirring musical interpretation of the Kaddish. 

Please stay tuned for more information. 

OPENING THE DOOR: Why Intro to Judaism is So Important.  
by Rabbi Adam Greenwald and Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Updated: 6-12-2022
 
Resisting the storm of ethnic panic that has characterized most of the decade since the publication of the Pew Study of American Jews, the New Mexico Miller Introduction to Judaism Program, an affiliate of this national program created by the American Jewish University (AJU)  is an oasis of calm. Sit in on a class and you’ll see a Persian-Muslim physician struggling to learn her Hebrew phonics, next to a tattooed Harley Davidson rider who is saving up for separate meat and dairy dishes and a single mom studying Talmud with her teenage son. Crisis? What crisis?
 
Conversion programs are the single most powerful and cost-effective vehicles to ensure Jewish continuity and growth in an era of steep decline. The Miller Program, which provides adults with serious Jewish education and personalized support in preparation for conversion succeed in launching whole new Jewish journeys for a fraction of the cost of subsidizing a Birthright participant’s week abroad. The return on that investment is a Jew by Choice who represents the genesis of an entirely new Jewish family and a legacy that will shape the Jewish People long into the future.
 
As over two decades of studies have conclusively demonstrated, the American Jewish community faces an existential demographic challenge. Among non-Orthodox Jews who have married over the past ten years, nearly three-quarters (72%) have married someone who is not Jewish. Of those, less than half (43%) will produce children who consider themselves Jewish and among their children, only 17% will marry Jews themselves. The effect of such trends over a few generations is clear—the future of Judaism in America appears to be in grave peril.
 
The time has come to put aside old prejudices and remove unnecessary boundaries, to actively welcome those who might wish to join our community. That means a shift in the attitudes of our communal leaders and institutions, who have long met converts with ambivalence, suspicion, or even hostility. It’s time to put aside our fear that welcoming might turn into proselytizing and make Judaism available to all those who are seeking a path of meaning and community.
 
That support must not stop with the mikveh. In our focus on the immediate goal of conversion, we often fall short in providing the ongoing support necessary to help new members of the tribe navigate the long and sometimes arduous process of integration into the Jewish community. Instead, they are often offered little more than a handshake and a blessing as they are handed their documents and told to go out and find a place in the Jewish community. Many have no clue what to do next.
 
It is a sad fact that for some Jews by Choice, the most Jewishly they will ever live is in the lead-up to the mikveh, not during the balance of their lives as actual Jews and it is not uncommon for such people to ultimately lose the spark that brought them to Judaism to begin with. We need a real communal commitment to develop resources and programs to help brand-new Jews translate their passion into action. We need mentoring programs, a universal policy of complementary synagogue memberships and religious school subsidies for converts and their families, ongoing learning opportunities, and affordable Israel experiences for those whose connection with Eretz Yisrael is not inborn. We cannot simply leave converts “dripping at the mikveh,” our community must come together to support our newest members for the long process of building Jewish identity.
 
A famous Midrash teaches that God esteems converts above all others, because they have chosen their identity not out of compulsion but out of love. Today, there are thousands of individuals who are standing just outside our doors—in our synagogues, in our families, and in our broader communities, who just need the door opened and to be invited to step inside to taste the wisdom and beauty of Judaism. It’s time we summoned our collective will, passion, and resources to make that welcome real.
 
If you are interested or know someone who might be interested in the New Mexico Miller Introduction to Judaism Program, note the following information.
Open House for the Miller Intro to Judaism: : Sunday, September 21, 10am Green Jeans Farmery Pation
First Session of the Miller program:  Starting Date: Wednesday Eve, September 14, 2022
More details about the 2022-2023 Miller  program including dates, location, tuition, topics, and more will be posted by Friday, June 17th at this website.    https://www.shabbatwithfriends.org
Or contact Rabbi Dov Gartenberg at dov@shabbatwithfriends.org or coordinator, Suzanne Savage at Suzy1946@q.com for up to date information
 
Rabbi Adam Greenwald was the Vice President for Jewish Engagement at American Jewish University, where he directed the Maas Center for Jewish Journeys and the Miller Intro to Judaism Program for 10 years.
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg is the director of Shabbat with Friends NM. He established the New Mexico affiliate and has been the lead teacher for the Miller Intro to Judaism for two years.