Audacious Hospitality
By Julie Schrager, Emily Dana, and Michael Orenstein
On many Saturday mornings, the people who walk into Kahal services stop to greet Claire. Claire does not walk or talk but she smiles (a lot) and soaks up the good company she finds at Kahal. People regularly ask her specific questions about her activities at school and outside of it, about the music she likes, and about other aspects of her life outside of Kahal.
And while Claire may be the most obvious person with a disability at Kahal, she is not alone there. There are many other people with one challenge or another who might identify as a person with a disability and who are active Saturday morning participants.
The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) has a name for what we experience at Kahal and what we hope all people with disabilities will experience both at Beth Emet and in the outside world.
What we seek isn’t just a recognition of diversity or unstudied efforts at inclusion. Neither of those provides a sanctuary for people with disabilities. What we seek is “audacious hospitality.” What does that mean? It’s the idea of a metaphorical Abrahamic tent that is expanded to welcome and encompass all those who wish to be included, no matter who they are and how they are different from others who are already there. As April Baskin, the URJ’s VP for Audacious Hospitality (yes, it’s an actual job!), said recently in an interview with
Jewish Boston
, “The heart of audacious hospitality is that we will be a stronger, more vibrant Jewish community when we not only welcome but also embrace and incorporate diversity in all of its hues.”
So audacious hospitality isn’t simply about welcoming people with differences into the tent or letting them into the sanctuary. Instead, as Verna Myers, a diversity consultant, said in 2015, “Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.” That’s what audacious hospitality is: being asked to dance.
Asking people who are different to dance requires individuals to step out of their comfort zones. It requires institutions and members committed to creating and supporting – relentlessly – an environment that facilitates that. Jeff Goldwasser, rabbi at the Rhode Island Reform congregation Temple Sinai, writes that the Genesis
parsha Vayera
tells two stories of hospitality. In the first story, Abraham invites three strange men into his home. They turn out to be angels who reveal God’s plans for him. In the second story, two of these angels then visit Lot, a resident of the evil city Sodom. He too offers hospitality. But his offer goes sour: Lot’s neighbors are vicious. They threaten to rape the men, and Lot and his family are barely able to escape with their lives
.
Rabbi Goldwasser’s lesson? That we will never create hospitality in the Jewish community just by appointing leaders to create that atmosphere. Rather, “the setting determines the outcome. You can’t have audacious hospitality in your synagogue if the synagogue isn’t filled with audaciously hospitable people.”
At Kahal, we have audaciously hospitable people. People who are different are frequently asked to dance. Long-time members of Kahal frequently ask Claire to help open the ark on Shabbat, knowing that she will need to be wheeled to the ark and positioned so that her left hand can reach up to open it, knowing too that sometimes she may seem agitated during the procession around the room but that any agitation is probably just a result of her unfamiliarity with the experience. Also at Kahal, residents of Albany Care in Evanston who have significant mental challenges have opened the ark and read the blessing before Torah reading. We also regularly listen to the
Ashrei
led by a person on the autism spectrum or someone else (including one of the authors) who is insecure about remembering the words.
February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month. But as we all know, awareness isn’t enough. Instead, we need to keep making the Beth Emet tent broader and to invite people – including those who may not look or act like us – to dance. How can we extend that audacious hospitality beyond our Kahal experience? Let’s start by talking more about it with everyone we who will listen. On February 23, please join other Beth Emet members to listen to
Karen Tamly, the Commissioner of Disabilities from Mayor Emanuel’s office, who will speak at Shabbat services
.
If you’d like to share your thoughts with the congregation on what sanctuary means to you - a time in which you felt like a sanctuary dwelled within you, or how we can extend sanctuary to those who need it, feel free to reach out to
Ellen Blum Barish
and
David Barish
.
