//essays//
Fall 2017
It's a Davar Thing
Miriam Lichtenberg
Before I was even able to articulate the words “intellectual pursuit,” rigorous academic study was woven into my Sabbath. From a young age I have been learning from some of the foremost Jewish scholars of our time. In a cozy basement home that is always set to the right temperature, members of my Teaneck community have gathered together to pour over scholarly Jewish works, along with the sub-community that this basement home has garnered. This community is remarkably multi-faceted. Unless you are at the Davar Institute, academia will most likely not be a component of a typical Teaneck Sabbath.
Beginning in 2000, the Davar Institute—located just 20 minutes from Columbia in Teaneck, New Jersey—began as a pop-up scholar-hosting Shabbat minyan, meeting in different homes around town. It was created out of a yearning to learn from celebrated thinkers who weren’t given a platform at neighboring synagogues, for various reasons including religious isolation or being labeled “too controversial.” After a year of wandering in the Teaneck desert, this enterprise eventually rooted itself permanently in one family’s home where Davar still meets to this day. I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry Krule, who, along with his wife Susan Fader, founded and continue to build Davar, bringing something new and unusual to the suburbs in the intimate space of their home. I thought I already knew so much about Davar, yet there was so much I got to learn about its inception and continuity.
Their basement has become my shul; it is where I had my bat mitzvah, have eaten many Friday night dinners, formulated my understanding of what it means to be committed to Torah, and pushed the boundaries of that understanding. It was within those walls that I began recognizing my own hunger for Torah knowledge in a serious way, a drive that became a core component of my self-identity. I began to crave the deep, careful reading and understanding of texts that speakers brought to our community.
I even convinced a few good friends to come along, and we became the token “young people” of Davar. This group of friends was given the opportunity to serve as the inaugural Davar Fellows in 2013-2014, a fellowship created just for us. We were given a fuller understanding of the workings of Davar—how a speaker is invited, how the food is ordered for Kiddush, how Larry and Susan ultimately have the last word on all things concerning Davar, and so on. As a graduation present from Davar, the fellows were treated a trip to Skokie, Illinois to participate and help in the opening of another Davar, all the way out in the Midwest. Larry and Susan ran this fellowship and their generosity and care for the continuation and growth of Davar became even more apparent to me.
The name Davar means both “thing” and “word” in Hebrew, the double meaning being really the purpose of such an institution. Davar is a thing, nothing too much more, and yet the defining feature of the community— as well as a prerequisite for any speaker presenting their work— is being well versed in the words of the Jewish tradition. Although it usually meets only on Sabbath and at its inception employed a rabbi, Davar is called an institute—specifically not a synagogue—because it is based on sharing ideas, not communal responsibilities. A synagogue invite entitlement. It implies an obligation to have a regular, weekly schedule, a requirement of monthly membership dues, and especially staffing a rabbi, all of which Davar does not do. At Davar, Jewish communal ritual questions are left for the community to decide, which has stirred some divisiveness over the years, but ultimately is an exciting component of being part of such a community.
Davar serves a community of people who try to expand traditional Orthodox boundaries while remaining deeply rooted in Jewish texts. It provides a space for intellectual rigor and an opportunity to meet new people of a similar caliber. Davar has always aimed to solicit a certain type of speaker, an articulate thinker who is rooted in Jewish texts and tradition, while also being provocative enough to push people to rethink their assumptions, making everyone feel comfortable at first and then a little uncomfortable. So far, most speakers have lived up to these high expectations: From Peter Beinart to Michael Freund, Rabbi Ethan Tucker to Professor Tamar Ross, Professor James Kugel to Judy Klitsner, Davar promises an engaged, thoughtful audience.
The allure of academia on the Sabbath as well as a space for a traditional prayer service attracted members of both the nearby Conservative and Orthodox communities, thereby forming a pluralistic sub-community. Davar has been able to bridge these two formerly separate communities that, despite being located three blocks apart, often interact as though they are much further than that. I feel most comfortable in this type of sub-community. I grew up in what I have personally coined the “Jewish in-between” as my family is one of the few in our community that belong to both the Orthodox and Conservative synagogues. My education happened at two wonderful Modern Orthodox Day Schools, and yet my family was always on the more liberal end of the spectrum, encouraging me to think outside the box that the Modern Orthodox lifestyle creates. I felt comfortable in both Orthodox and Conservative spaces, and often had trouble finding a community of people with whom I felt ideologically compatible. Davar has increasingly become that space for me. As I write this essay, I have received two emails about upcoming events at Davar – and am already calculating the possibility of attending – one of them informing me that Larry is bringing “Between Heaven and Earth,” an Orthodox Israeli modern dance troupe, to his home in February. I am smiling thinking about my comfort in that space, and yet my willingness to listen to perhaps some uncomfortable opinions.
Of course, Davar has its own weaknesses as well. One flaw in the makeup of the community is simply that it hasn’t evolved enough. The Davar community has never been one for outreach, being especially careful not to encroach on other synagogues. Therefore, as the institution aged, so did its members. Where once there were little kids running around, we are now college students, often not a part of the Teaneck community in the way we once were simply because we no longer live at home. The religious life of the community has plateaued as well. Davar runs like a traditional Orthodox service where men and women sit separately, with men leading all the parts of the prayer service, which many in the Davar community prefer, though not all. Because there is no Rabbi attached to the community, there is not one figure who is the deciding factor for questions pertaining to ritual; rather these decisions are made semi-democratically. When the question was raised whether to make the prayer service at Davar more egalitarian, the majority of stakeholders voted no. And thus, the community has stayed where it has always been religiously, even though it inherently has so much more room for change than other communities that offer Sabbath prayer service. I have in the past voiced my frustration with the way the religious life of the community has reached a standstill and with the overall quality of the prayer service, which I believe has remained spiritually void. The prayer service portion of Davar is often rushed, as if a meaningful prayer service was a lesser priority. Larry realizes this weakness and hopes to imbue this space with more spirituality so as to ensure that religious spirituality is not being left behind, where people can be so moved intellectually that it actually has an emotional resonance.
Columbia has allowed us to create spaces where ideas are shared, assumptions are challenged, outlooks are breached, and communities are formed. Leaving this community can be scary for a number of reasons, one being the fear that what we have created here on our campus does not exist outside this seven block radius. Perhaps Davar or something in its mold could serve as one solution to this worry, a Hillel for adults if you will, without a seven floor building but still with an innovative, thoughtful community.
Beginning in 2000, the Davar Institute—located just 20 minutes from Columbia in Teaneck, New Jersey—began as a pop-up scholar-hosting Shabbat minyan, meeting in different homes around town. It was created out of a yearning to learn from celebrated thinkers who weren’t given a platform at neighboring synagogues, for various reasons including religious isolation or being labeled “too controversial.” After a year of wandering in the Teaneck desert, this enterprise eventually rooted itself permanently in one family’s home where Davar still meets to this day. I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry Krule, who, along with his wife Susan Fader, founded and continue to build Davar, bringing something new and unusual to the suburbs in the intimate space of their home. I thought I already knew so much about Davar, yet there was so much I got to learn about its inception and continuity.
Their basement has become my shul; it is where I had my bat mitzvah, have eaten many Friday night dinners, formulated my understanding of what it means to be committed to Torah, and pushed the boundaries of that understanding. It was within those walls that I began recognizing my own hunger for Torah knowledge in a serious way, a drive that became a core component of my self-identity. I began to crave the deep, careful reading and understanding of texts that speakers brought to our community.
I even convinced a few good friends to come along, and we became the token “young people” of Davar. This group of friends was given the opportunity to serve as the inaugural Davar Fellows in 2013-2014, a fellowship created just for us. We were given a fuller understanding of the workings of Davar—how a speaker is invited, how the food is ordered for Kiddush, how Larry and Susan ultimately have the last word on all things concerning Davar, and so on. As a graduation present from Davar, the fellows were treated a trip to Skokie, Illinois to participate and help in the opening of another Davar, all the way out in the Midwest. Larry and Susan ran this fellowship and their generosity and care for the continuation and growth of Davar became even more apparent to me.
The name Davar means both “thing” and “word” in Hebrew, the double meaning being really the purpose of such an institution. Davar is a thing, nothing too much more, and yet the defining feature of the community— as well as a prerequisite for any speaker presenting their work— is being well versed in the words of the Jewish tradition. Although it usually meets only on Sabbath and at its inception employed a rabbi, Davar is called an institute—specifically not a synagogue—because it is based on sharing ideas, not communal responsibilities. A synagogue invite entitlement. It implies an obligation to have a regular, weekly schedule, a requirement of monthly membership dues, and especially staffing a rabbi, all of which Davar does not do. At Davar, Jewish communal ritual questions are left for the community to decide, which has stirred some divisiveness over the years, but ultimately is an exciting component of being part of such a community.
Davar serves a community of people who try to expand traditional Orthodox boundaries while remaining deeply rooted in Jewish texts. It provides a space for intellectual rigor and an opportunity to meet new people of a similar caliber. Davar has always aimed to solicit a certain type of speaker, an articulate thinker who is rooted in Jewish texts and tradition, while also being provocative enough to push people to rethink their assumptions, making everyone feel comfortable at first and then a little uncomfortable. So far, most speakers have lived up to these high expectations: From Peter Beinart to Michael Freund, Rabbi Ethan Tucker to Professor Tamar Ross, Professor James Kugel to Judy Klitsner, Davar promises an engaged, thoughtful audience.
The allure of academia on the Sabbath as well as a space for a traditional prayer service attracted members of both the nearby Conservative and Orthodox communities, thereby forming a pluralistic sub-community. Davar has been able to bridge these two formerly separate communities that, despite being located three blocks apart, often interact as though they are much further than that. I feel most comfortable in this type of sub-community. I grew up in what I have personally coined the “Jewish in-between” as my family is one of the few in our community that belong to both the Orthodox and Conservative synagogues. My education happened at two wonderful Modern Orthodox Day Schools, and yet my family was always on the more liberal end of the spectrum, encouraging me to think outside the box that the Modern Orthodox lifestyle creates. I felt comfortable in both Orthodox and Conservative spaces, and often had trouble finding a community of people with whom I felt ideologically compatible. Davar has increasingly become that space for me. As I write this essay, I have received two emails about upcoming events at Davar – and am already calculating the possibility of attending – one of them informing me that Larry is bringing “Between Heaven and Earth,” an Orthodox Israeli modern dance troupe, to his home in February. I am smiling thinking about my comfort in that space, and yet my willingness to listen to perhaps some uncomfortable opinions.
Of course, Davar has its own weaknesses as well. One flaw in the makeup of the community is simply that it hasn’t evolved enough. The Davar community has never been one for outreach, being especially careful not to encroach on other synagogues. Therefore, as the institution aged, so did its members. Where once there were little kids running around, we are now college students, often not a part of the Teaneck community in the way we once were simply because we no longer live at home. The religious life of the community has plateaued as well. Davar runs like a traditional Orthodox service where men and women sit separately, with men leading all the parts of the prayer service, which many in the Davar community prefer, though not all. Because there is no Rabbi attached to the community, there is not one figure who is the deciding factor for questions pertaining to ritual; rather these decisions are made semi-democratically. When the question was raised whether to make the prayer service at Davar more egalitarian, the majority of stakeholders voted no. And thus, the community has stayed where it has always been religiously, even though it inherently has so much more room for change than other communities that offer Sabbath prayer service. I have in the past voiced my frustration with the way the religious life of the community has reached a standstill and with the overall quality of the prayer service, which I believe has remained spiritually void. The prayer service portion of Davar is often rushed, as if a meaningful prayer service was a lesser priority. Larry realizes this weakness and hopes to imbue this space with more spirituality so as to ensure that religious spirituality is not being left behind, where people can be so moved intellectually that it actually has an emotional resonance.
Columbia has allowed us to create spaces where ideas are shared, assumptions are challenged, outlooks are breached, and communities are formed. Leaving this community can be scary for a number of reasons, one being the fear that what we have created here on our campus does not exist outside this seven block radius. Perhaps Davar or something in its mold could serve as one solution to this worry, a Hillel for adults if you will, without a seven floor building but still with an innovative, thoughtful community.
//Miriam Lichtenberg is a junior in Barnard College and Essays Editor of The Current. She can be reached at [email protected].