Unity guides congregation

RALEIGH -- When Rabbi Raachel Jurovics left Temple Beth Or earlier this year, she knew she wanted to form a new Jewish congregation with strong ties to other faith traditions.

What she didn't know was that her mission was shared by a group of Christian church leaders.

The result is an experiment of exchanging and learning unlike anything the wider Triangle religious community has seen.

The new congregation, called Yavneh, is an attempt to forge bonds between Jews and Christians, who have long circled in separate faith orbits. It is named after the ancient town where rabbis in the year 70 met to create a new Jewish faith following the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple.

For the past four months, Yavneh has held services in the sanctuary of West Raleigh Presbyterian Church near N.C. State University. This month it moves across town to St. Mark's Episcopal Church for Jewish High Holiday services.

But the moves are not out of necessity as much as intention.

"These churches are giving us what we need to have a physical presence so we can do this work together," said Jurovics, 64. "They want to commit their communities to shared learning and collaboration.

Today, on Rosh Hashana, a day when Jews celebrate God's creation of the world, a new community is celebrating its own birth as the city's only Jewish congregation to meet year-round in a Christian church.

The congregation plans to affiliate with the Jewish Renewal movement, an informal network grounded in mystical and meditative Jewish practices. The Renewal movement, founded in 1962 by a rabbi named Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, is also deeply committed to interfaith work.

Jurovics, who was ordained by the Renewal seminary in 2003, is a student of Schachter-Shalomi and a disciple in his call for "deep ecumenism," or unity.

"If you start from the perspective that all religious traditions bring divine revelation, then you understand ecumenism as an appreciation of what we can learn from one another while remaining rooted in our own faith tradition," she said.

'An allergy to Jesus'

That vision is shared by the Rev. Joseph Ward of West Raleigh Presbyterian. Ward said he hopes the interaction between the two communities might help on two fronts: It might encourage Christians to reckon with the anti-Judaism in their Scriptures and at the same time allow Jews to overcome what he called "an allergy to Jesus."

"It's rather bold and defies a lot of what we grew up thinking we need to do, but we need to do it," Ward said.

Ward will be preaching during Yavneh's Saturday morning service at St. Mark's. Jurovics has already read from the Torah at a recent Sunday morning church service. The two congregations recently completed a Sunday morning study of Jewish mysticism. The class, led by Jurovics, was equally attended by Presbyterians and Jews.

With the move to St. Mark's, Yavneh will also experience a spiritual practice new to many Jews: the labyrinth. On Friday and Saturday, a portable labyrinth will be laid out on the floor of the community room. The hope is that both communities can benefit from the meditative practice in which people can walk in and out of the spiraling circle in silence as a way of accessing their own spiritual journey. Labyrinths were placed first in churches, but Jurovics said she sees no reason why Jews can't make use of them as an interior pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

A lifelong quest

For Jurovics, launching her own congregation is in many ways the fulfillment of a life's dream.

Growing up in Los Angeles, she said, she remembers fellow Jews patting her on the head and saying, "You would make a great rabbi; too bad you're a girl."

After completing her doctorate in medieval English literature, she considered going to rabbinical school. By then the Reform Jewish movement had begun admitting women, but at age 31, she was told she was too old. In those days, rabbinical students were all in their early 20s.

Several job detours later, she and her husband, Stephen, settled in Raleigh and began attending Temple Beth Or. By 1997, she became part-time program director at Beth Or and later started her rabbinical training at ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal Seminary, a school without a physical campus but headquartered in Philadelphia.

As an associate rabbi at Beth Or, beginning in 2003, and as an independent spiritual director, Jurovics formed close ties to many Christian clergy. When Jurovics ventured out on her own early this year, they were eager to embrace her vision.

Changing practices

The congregation's numbers are still small - between 35 and 45 people attend services and 150 are expected for High Holiday services - but it has attracted a group of people, including many interfaith couples, who might not have found a home elsewhere. (Yavneh membership is open to non-Jews.)

"There are a lot of Jews who aren't affiliated with a synagogue and want to reconnect with their roots," said Stacy Grove, a Jewish interfaith minister who plays drums and flute at Yavneh and who will be blowing the shofar, or ram's horn, today. "Part of what I like about Jewish Renewal is that it provides a place to experience prayer and connect Jewish-ly in a way that's different from what they know."

For example, some synagogues allow only dedicated, learned Jews to carry the Torah scroll or recite a blessing over the Torah. At Yavneh, Jurovics will invite anyone who feels a spiritual connection to the portion of Torah read that day to come up and be present as blessings are offered.

"To me, this is the core work we have to do: To deepen and extend into the future forms of Jewish practice that are renewing and life giving," said Jurovics. "We want to do it in loving relationships with other faith traditions."