Specifically, it seeks to reintroduce the "ancient Judaic traditions of mysticism and meditation, gender equality and ecstatic prayer" to synagogue services.
It's about plumbing the very depths of why so that we can hear our private and godly voices of truth ... Ideas, texts, tradition – Jewish understanding laced together in a sweet web of life so clearly that I could unpack the teaching as easily as I could unzip a boot.
[1] Other leaders, teachers and authors associated with Jewish Renewal include Arthur Waskow, Michael Lerner, Tirzah Firestone, Phyllis Berman, Shefa Gold, David Ingber, and Marcia Prager.
[8] Jewish Renewal brings kabbalistic and Hasidic theory and practice into a non-Orthodox, egalitarian framework, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as neo-Hasidism.
[11] During this period, groups of young rabbis, academics and political activists founded experimental chavurot (singular: chavurah) or "fellowships" for prayer and study, in reaction to what they perceived as an over-institutionalized and unspiritual North American Jewish establishment.
Although the leadership and ritual privileges were initially men-only, as in Orthodox Jewish practice, the second wave of American feminism soon led to the full integration of women in these communities.
It also produced the B'nai Or Newsletter, a quarterly magazine that presented articles on Jewish mysticism, Hasidic stories and Schachter-Shalomi's philosophy.
The masthead of this publication read: "B'nai Or is a Jewish Fellowship established for the service of G-d through prayer, Torah, celebration, meditation, tradition, and mysticism.
[citation needed] In 1985, after the first national Kallah (conference) gathering in Radnor, Pennsylvania, the name was changed from B'nai Or to P'nai Or ("Faces of Light") to reflect the more egalitarian perspective of the rising feminist movement.
[17] In 1979, Waskow had founded a magazine called Menorah, which explored and encouraged many creative ritual and social issues from a Jewish perspective.
[18] The executive-director of ALEPH said in 2016 that 50 Jewish Renewal communities had been established in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Israel.
[citation needed] Rabbis and Cantors trained by the ALEPH Ordination Program, the Jewish Renewal seminary, have begun to serve congregations[which?]
[20] Rabbi Marcia Prager wrote in 2005: Jewish Renewal is a "movement" in the sense of a wave in motion, a grassroots effort to discover the modern meaning of Judaism as a spiritual practice.
Rabbinic Pastors are specialists, trained to provide Jewish wisdom, spiritual direction, support, and counseling in chaplaincy and in congregational settings.
Semester-length seminars and courses are offered via live videoconference technology; winter and summer residential "retreats" are held of students and faculty for intensive sessions and practica.
[24]Many Jewish Renewal techniques, ideas, and practices have become mainstream and are now familiar to Jews across the denominations, according to claims by the movement: Three decades after Reb Zalman began reaching out to disenfranchised Jews with a hands-on, mystically inflected, radically egalitarian, liturgically inventive, neo-chasidic approach, many of the techniques he pioneered—from meditation to describing God in new terms--are widely employed in mainstream settings.
"[10][23] Some within the Renewal community maintain that the movement has been more successful in providing occasional ecstatic "peak experiences" at worship services and spiritual retreats than in inculcating a daily discipline of religious practice.
Others have observed a tension within the community between those who prefer to focus on liberal social activism on American, Middle East and global issues; and those who favor an emphasis on meditation, text study and worship.
And as a summer 2017 article in The Forward notes, there are tensions within ALEPH that have led many of its recent and in particular younger leaders not directly associated with the movement's early years to walk away, preferring to pursue the renewal of Judaism outside that organization.