The kabbalistic tradition took shape within the Jewish world in the wake of a profound crisis. Beginning with the destruction wreaked by the Crusades at the end of the 13th century and continuing with the blood libels and expulsions of Jews throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries, the crisis culminated with the expulsion from Spain and Portugal during the final decade of the 15th century. The harsh reality that confronted the Jews was one of religious hostility, persecution, destruction, hopelessness, and discontinuity in an ongoing exile whose end was nowhere in sight. The kabbalistic tradition offered an entirely new perception of history embedded in meta-history; it changed the interrelationship of God and man, as well as the relations among past, present, and future. Kabbalah saw the divinity as an ongoing, dynamic process with a meta-historical purpose and direction; its goal was the transition from exile to redemption, and it saw man as playing a decisive role in that transformative process. The Kabbalah proposed a new creation narrative, one that gave new meaning to God’s presence in the world and man’s role there, while formulating a new language that explained the ongoing relation between the infinite and the finite and between God and man. The new creation narrative encompassed the dialectical concepts of overflowing, infinite bounty (shefa) and finite contraction (tzimtzum); the infinite expansion and the limiting withdrawal; and the outcome of this tension: breakage (shevirah) or “breaking of the vessels” (shevirat ha-keilim) and restoration (tikkun). All these concepts (shefa; tzimtzum; shevirah, shevirat ha-keilim) were part of the divine process of creation that preceded the creation of our “broken” world, a world whose fundamental essence is in exile. Only the last concept, that of tikkun — restoration of the broken world — was entrusted to the hands and mind of human beings.

Within the kabbalistic tradition, one can identify two discrete — indeed, contradictory — positions on the question of God’s presence in the world. Both are tied to the concept of
tzimtzum; they are known as “tzimtzum in its literal sense” (tzimtzum ki-feshuto) and “tzimtzum in its non-literal sense” (tzimtzum lo ki-feshuto). Tzimtzum is a kabbalistic term that developed in the Zoharic tradition and was elaborated in the Lurianic Kabbalah of Safed. It addressed God’s presence in the world in the context of the process of creation. The kabbalistic doctrine of tzimtzum argues that when God wanted to create the world, He contracted “Himself into Himself” in order to leave “an unoccupied space” within which the creative process could begin. The idea is expressly attributed to R. Isaac Luria (“the Ari”) in Chapter 1 of R. Hayyim Vital’s book Etz Hayyim (Koretz, 1784):

Know, that before the emanations were emitted and the creatures were created, a supernal light was extended, filling the entire universe. There was no unoccupied place, that is, empty air or space; rather, all was filled by that extended light…. But then, the Infinite contracted Itself into a central point which is truly in the center of the light, and that light was contracted and withdrew to sides around the central point. Then an empty place remained with air and empty space. The Infinite then extended one straight line from the light, and in the empty space It emanated, created, formed, and made all of the worlds in their entireties (Etz Hayyim, Part 1, Chapter 1).

Many kabbalists from the 16th to the 18th centuries understood this argument literally and inferred from it the existence of an unbridgeable expanse between the Creator and His creatures. They reasoned that the infinite God had departed from the world, contracting Himself and retreating into the recesses of the infinite in order to leave an unoccupied space that would allow for the process of creation to begin. Were that not so, and were everything an eternal infinity that extended throughout space and time, how could there be any place for a created finite being, something opposed by its very finite nature to the infinite divine essence? This doctrine holds that the divinity withdrew from the world at the beginning of the creative process and therefore is transcendent to the world and situated beyond it. According to this view, held by those who take the doctrine of tzimtzum literally, the sole divine presence in this world — otherwise bereft of divinity — is to be found in the Torah. Accordingly, study of the Torah and immersion in halakhah are the only ways to achieve bonding with God. R. Elijah ben Solomon of Vilna (the Vilna Ga’on, 1720–1797) affirmed this doctrine of “tzimtzum in its literal sense.” He dealt extensively with Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah and sharply attacked the Hasidim, who, as we shall presently see, maintained that God had contracted himself into the world, in contrast to departing from it.

While the Vilna Ga’on used “tzimtzum in its literal sense” to develop a transcendental view that placed God beyond the world, R. Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht) took tzimtzum in a non-literal sense and adopted a diametrically opposed, immanent position in which God in all His aspects was within the world. According to this non-literal understanding of tzimtzum — adopted by the Besht as well as many other kabbalists — God did not contract Himself and withdraw from the world in order to make creation possible; on the contrary, He contracted His infinitude within the finite world, in the same sense in which “the divine presence was contracted [to fit] between the panels of the Ark [of the Covenant]” in a dialectical, back-and-forth process. To put it differently, He contracted Himself into the world when He created it so He could vivify it and maintain its existence as the soul does for the body, thus allowing for ongoing creation. From the ubiquity of the divine presence, on which all existence is dependent at every moment, the Besht inferred that every person can serve the God-Who-is-to-be-found-everywhere and can do so not only in the familiar manner of Torah study and observance of the commandments, but also at every time and in every place, in every manner and way, with every word and thought.

The Vilna Ga’on, in contrast, who adopted the doctrine of “tzimtzum in its literal sense” and a correspondingly transcendent view in which God was absent from the world and present only in the Torah, included the Besht’s doctrine of “tzimtzum in its non-literal sense” among his reasons for banning the Hasidim. The doctrine was one of divine immanence, which considered God’s presence to encompass everything in existence, and it served as a first principle, a starting point, for all of Hasidic worship. This form of divine worship, which rested on the cry that “all is God” and declared prominently that “the entire world is filled with God’s glory and no place is unoccupied by Him,” sought the divine presence at every time and every place, in every letter and every utterance. Those who affirmed that view saw divine sparks, divine spirit, and marks of holiness in the living, the inanimate, and the vegetative; in trees and in stones. They affirmed all ways of worship in which a person thinks about the God-Who-is-present-in-every-place-and-at-every-time and thus uncovers the divine substance of all existence.

Originally, the theory of tzimtzum was a way to explain the inner meaning of exile beyond its existential torments. The very process of withdrawal into the innermost parts of the divinity and the ensuing emanation into the created void, which had culminated in the catastrophic “breaking of the vessels” (shevirat ha-keilim), signified that nothing is in its right place in heaven or on earth, i.e., everything is in exile. The kabbalistic tradition concluded from the theory of contraction and withdrawal that a process of mending and restoration had to take place in heaven and on earth. The human role had changed profoundly, because the passage from exile to redemption is dependent entirely on the passage from “the broken” to “the restored,” or from the unjust world as it is known to us after the “breaking of the vessels,” to the world as it ought to be in its ideal, just order. The theory of tzimtzum thus delineated the gap between, on the one hand, exile/ enslavement/ persecution/ separation/ injustice / coercion/ silence/ “broken world” and, on the other hand, redemption/ freedom/ equality/ unification/ benevolence/ “world of speech”/ justice/ “restituted reality.” At the same time, it instructed the mystical way of thinking, focusing on the divine ideal order and emphasizing deveiqut (thinking of, adhering to, and bonding with the divine presence) and kavannot ve-yihudim (intentions and unifications, that is, a focus on the symbols of the divine ideals of the just world). These mechanisms for hastening the passage from exile to redemption were the contribution of the theory of tzimtzum to Jewish thought and to the history of freedom.

I spent two summers, before 11th grade and 12th grade, at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Mich., studying jazz piano and composition. Eventually, I became a solid, if unremarkable number-two pianist in the number-one jazz orchestra (there were two). Still, in my own head, I produced virtuoso flights of fancy, and occasionally I was able to condense the music I could hear in my imagination into notes and bars on a page. I tried writing full arrangements, with instructions for every instrument, but they just didn’t work, so I stuck to my strengths: new melodies and creative chord progressions. Midway through the summer, my friends in the elite jazz sextet agreed to try out what I’d written. I was tempted to supervise: After all, this was my musical vision. But that wasn’t the way it worked with jazz. “Give us the chart,” they told me. “We’ll take it from here.”

~

Tzimtzum, contraction, often implies withdrawal, pulling back, retreat. At a historic period of economic crisis — one that has touched even this journal — it is easy to imagine tzimtzum as an act of self-preserving constriction, a kind of defensive organizational belt-tightening. But in the Lurianic tradition, it has a generative meaning, opening up a space where creation is possible. In this sense, it has direct applications to organizational life.

Some years ago, leadership expert Ronald Heifetz developed the metaphor “getting on the balcony” — seeking the broader, long-term perspective on an organization’s work. Getting on the balcony isn’t just a way to evaluate an organization’s program effectiveness; it is also an opportunity to view that organization in the broader context of the ecosystem within which it operates. It means recognizing limits, seeking interdependencies, and understanding that no organization can achieve all its goals by itself.

Listening and letting go are the essence of organizational tzimtzum. Though tzimtzum comes in many forms, I’ll concentrate on three levels: outsourcing, coordination, and co-creation. Each represents a different type of relationship.

Outsourcing sits at the conceptual periphery of tzimtzum. Essentially, it means contracting with an independent entity to do something one cannot or prefers not to do. An outsourced business function or component generally is a means to an end, subsidiary to a larger process or product. Though it is managed independently, the ultimate output is defined and controlled by the contracting organization. Still, the decision to outsource does mean recognizing that someone else can do the work faster, better, more cheaply, or with greater impact.

Coordination comes closer to a model of tzimtzum insofar as it involves the acknowledgement that one organization is neither in control of the game nor indeed the only player. Coordination works among peer organizations where parallel rather than unilateral action might be more effective. In the corporate world, coordination is difficult, because it can result in collusion or market-fixing; in the nonprofit world, coordination can help reduce duplication, thereby freeing up needed resources. That said, the efficiencies that coordination can produce are not in and of themselves generative. Although economies of scale save significant overhead, they typically do not actually transform outcomes.

Co-creation* comes closest as a model of organizational tzimtzum, as partners actively make space for one another to contribute to the broader aim of achieving common goals. This requires the recognition that there are multiple paths to a shared vision, that no single organizational path is the only possible one, and that no single organization can be everything to everyone. Far from indicating weakness or ineffectiveness, organizational tzimtzum can leverage significant power. But that power lies in the field itself, not in any one actor within it. Inherent in this kind of tzimtzum is the recognition that organizations are vehicles, vessels with which to carry out a mission. Success means going beyond any individual organizational activity to realize a common vision.

~

On the evening of the last jazz recital of my second summer at music camp, the rickety wooden concert hall was packed. As the concert drew to a close, I heard the sextet’s rhythm section start to vamp out a pattern. A trumpet riffed over it, and then the whole horn section burst into my — no, our — composition. I’d given them 32 bars: a few chords and a simple melody. No matter what I heard in the solitude of my own head, no matter how much I might have liked to plan out the entire performance, the truth is that bringing the music to life was up to them. And it was nothing like what I’d imagined; it was so much better. And the ovation we shared — musicians and composer, partners in creation — was one of the happiest moments of the summer. Listening, and letting go, was all it took.

* I am grateful to Shifra Bronznick for reminding me of the qualitative difference between coordinated efficiencies and transformative collaborations.

In 1974, Sh’ma founding editor Rabbi Eugene Borowitz published an essay entitled “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contem­porary Leadership.”* The essay was an impassioned critique of the modern coveting of power and the subsequent abuse of that power by those in positions of leadership. More specifically, Borowitz argued that leaders (including clergy) were too focused on “the accomplishment of plans” when they should be equally concerned with “the humanizing effect on the people being led.” More dramatically, Borowitz stated that leaders needed to recognize “that people are always as important, if not more important, than the current undertaking.”

Anticipating by some two decades our contemporary fascination with kabbalistic paradigms, Borowitz proposed that (religious) leaders exercise tzimtzum (contraction). Taken from the kabbalistic myths of Isaac Luria, tzimtzum is the assertion that in order to “make space” for creation to emerge, God, voluntarily “contracted,” as it were. While touching on the other two core components of Luria’s system — shevirah and tikkun, the shattering of the vessels of divinity and the consequent human task of cosmic repair through restoring the divine sparks embedded in creation — Borowitz’ main argument in terms of leadership centers on the need for leaders to exercise restraint of power in order to “make space” for people to emerge in their full humanity.

Often misunderstood as calling for an abdication of leadership, Borowitz in fact argued for “a continuing alternation of the application of our power. Now we hold back; now we act.” This would help “ethicize the leader’s role” and presumably avoid the abuse of power that Borowitz targeted.

In the generations of rabbinic leaders since 1974, Borowitz’s model of tzimtzum was frequently referenced (often inaccurately), as an attack on leaders and as advocacy for “the people.” Changes in the rabbinate and synagogue life reflect many of the ways in which the model of “contraction” was applied.

Ritual decisions that were once the province of the rabbi were now turned over to “ritual committees” (an accurate, although no doubt unintentional double entendre). “High Holiday Committees” that once handled logistics now assumed control of the services themselves. My generation of (Reconstructionist) rabbis (I was ordained at the RRC in 1981) was taught to think of ourselves as “facilitators” or “resource people.” Our professional goal was “to make ourselves unnecessary” as we first taught and then transferred responsibility for Jewish religious life to “the community,” which would participate in “democratic decision making.” Many of my Reform and Conservative colleagues of that generation confirm that they were encouraged to pull back in a similar fashion.

If I had to borrow a paradigm from Lurianic Kabbalah as a model for the contemporary rabbinate, I would choose shevirah, shattering. The Lurianic myth asserts that the (divine sparks of) power unleashed when God contracted was so intense that the vessels in which it was contained shattered and, as a result, an inadvertent cosmic catastrophe occurred.

Rabbi Hayim Herring has pointed out that we live in an era when all forms of leadership — political, educational, medical, and so forth — are suspect. Clergy are no exception. There is an upside in not deferring automatically to authority (seeking a second medical opinion, challenging a child’s teacher). But in terms of rabbis and synagogues, the contraction of rabbinic leadership happened to coincide with the rise of a new generation of lay leaders, many of whom saw power as a limited commodity. For them to have power, it had to be taken away from the rabbi. What began as contraction often ended up as diminishment. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the catalogue of horror stories of “rabbinic evaluations.”

Put in Lurianic terms, the voluntary contraction of rabbinic leadership created a vacuum in which power often went out of control, resulting in the shattering of many synagogue communities and many rabbi-congregation relationships. The populist elitism of the havurah movement (“every teacher a student, every student a teacher”) played a significant role in the diminishment of rabbinic leadership, notwithstanding the often abysmal ignorance displayed by the neophyte student presuming to teach some aspect of Judaism with accuracy and understanding.

So where does this leave us? The remaining Lurianic paradigm is tikkun, or repair. (But please, not the omnipresent, overworked, and tired trope of tikkun olam!) Perhaps now, with the leadership pendulum having swung from one extreme to the other, we are at a stage where sharing the center is the appropriate alignment of rabbis and lay leaders. Rabbinic expertise and ability remain indispensible. (How many people really want to be their own doctors, lawyers, or dentists?) Lay ownership of and responsibility for the healthy functioning of communal life remains indispensible. (How many rabbis really want passive participants in public pageantry?)

And so, we return to Borowitz’s suggestion about leadership: “a continuing alternation of the application of our power. Now we hold back; now we act.” Insofar as we now more often view synagogues from an organic systems perspective rather than a static and binary one, leadership is an activity of the system, not a limited commodity held by one party at the expense of another. Partnership and participation can become the guiding principles of successful Jewish spiritual life.

It has been 36 years since Rabbi Borowitz first challenged us to rethink the ways in which power was held and used. That’s enough time for us to have grown up. Having passed the stage of adolescent rebellion, we are ready to settle down to the mature and demanding work of shaping Jewish life with the guidance of the specialists (rabbis) and the governance of the communities exercising leadership together.

* “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contemporary Leadership,” Eugene Borowitz, in Religious Education 69(6) November-December, 1974.

Several years ago, a dear friend of mine devised a family Passover seder in the hope of provoking domestic drama. The basic idea went like this: The Haggadah tells two stories, one about leaving Egypt (“We were slaves…”) and a second about idolatry (“In the beginning, our ancestors worshipped idols…”) While most sedarim revolve around the first, this one focused on the second.

After studying the midrash of Abraham smashing the idols, the first question was, like Nimrod’s fiery furnace, incendiary: (Adult) children were asked to review their upbringings and identify what they saw as their parents’ idols. After the conversation heated up a bit, the parents were then asked to signify what they saw as their own parents’ idols. Finally, in the spirit of covenantal solidarity, the whole family was challenged to consider how overcoming idolatry, like leaving Egypt, is a perennial challenge that requires delicate partnerships between generations to shatter enduring idols.

In this family’s seder, one resounding idol emerged among the children: Yale University. To be fair, no one actually believed that the school itself constituted idolatry. What I imagine they meant was that the institution had taken on a salvific stature of redemptive proportions. Light and gladness, joy and honor all depended upon acceptance into Yale’s sacred precincts. All but one member of the family had attended, and when that remaining family member decided to attend another very prestigious Ivy League school, this was seen by the patriarch as bordering on sacrilege.

Reflecting upon this seder led me to ask why I was once so driven to attend a highly prestigious university. In junior high, I recalled a class trip to the East Coast, where I was smitten by the ambiance of Harvard Yard. It was around that time that my favorite ninth-grade public school teacher impressed upon my parents that my best chance for admission to a top-notch university was to attend a celebrated local college preparatory school.

In retrospect, Harvard was not the right choice for me, from a social or academic perspective. I struggled to find and build community and would have done better in a more undergraduate-oriented institution. Lacking focus, I squandered many riches, including an outstanding Hillel, in which I had no interest until senior year. In my sophomore year, I managed to escape to live and write in Berkeley. But, alas, those Cambridge sirens beckoned and I lacked the fortitude to remain in Berkeley. When I really think about it, I was far more enamored with the idea of going to Harvard than with making the most of what it had to offer. For many first-generation parents like my father, higher education was a way up and out, the key to the kingdom, a ticket to social opportunity and economic mobility.

Now, having worked in a Jewish community high school for many years, I have often pondered the lure of the university. Why do American Jewish day-school students feel such awesome and irksome pressure to achieve acceptance into our nation’s most prestigious schools? When does the quest for admission begin to resemble idolatry, bestowing magical power and control where they do not belong? When does what should be relative become absolute? When does the admission obsession undermine rather than serve sacred ends?

Universities are wondrous places that can provide not only extraordinary opportunities but rich culture and values. The potential idolatry comes from two directions — failing to chart one’s course by what is within and by what is beyond. The former occurs when we alienate or fail to respect the dignity of what makes us unique, bowing to what is culturally venerated. The latter occurs when our vision is too narrow and we fail to navigate according to greater sources of meaning and purpose. In both cases, the focus shifts from “what gifts do I need to cultivate?” or “what higher purposes might a university education serve?” to “what do I need to do to get in?”

I continue to wrestle with these questions — in part to help my own children and professionally to help my students. So far, this is what I have gleaned: Learning, like power, has the awesome potential to foster human dignity, expand our capacity to exercise responsibility, and enable us to pursue sacred ends. If idolatry makes the relative absolute, confusing the part for the whole, then overcoming idolatry reconnects the power of learning with spiritual purpose and moral responsibility.

Live and let live is our answer to the diverse visions of prayer in our contemporary Jewish community. Let many options thrive, allow for diversity, and spare conflict. From where I stand as a religiously liberal Jewish woman, much is lost when we cannot pray together, but much is also gained. Gone is our ability to share in a common conversation with God; we gain innovation and the ability to preserve traditional formats of prayer. Like prayer, our community has many different approaches to kashrut. But here, I question how much we gain when we intentionally choose not to eat together.

The Latin root of the word companion (“com” — with, and “panis” — bread), literally means, the one with whom we share bread. This reminds us that connection comes when we break bread together. Much of the value of eating together comes not from the food itself but from the common humanity that emerges when we talk with others and acknowledge their faces around the table. I am not foolish enough to think that sharing a pizza will paper over the vast ideological differences that have molded the plurality of Jewish expressions; nor do I desire it. However, if we do not sit with each other, we lose opportunities to learn from each other, to broaden our experiences, and to stretch our understanding of what it means to be Jewish. Historically, kashrut was one means by which Jews connected to each other and were distanced from the non-Jewish world. For example, Jewish travelers in the pre-modern era often relied on the hospitality of Jews to feed them — a sign of trust and relationship with the other. Not being able to share a meal, then, means that we forfeit opportunities of companionship with other Jews, opportunities that are essential for maintaining community.

How does kashrut as a religious requirement impact our commitment to the diversity of Jews and Jewish communities? How can we foster the breaking of bread, a great communal table, if we do not eat as Jews with Jews in all places and at all times? Defaulting to the most stringent levels of observance — though it appears the most obvious answer — is not feasible on several counts. Making the standards of kashrut accord with the strictest interpretation is both impractical and often leads to a sense of coercion. It also glosses over how kashrut is understood and practiced at the edges of our community, where disagreement as to what constitutes strict observance exists.

Instead of setting standards, conversations about kashrut should be a means by which we connect across Jewish ideological divides — modeling understanding. The kashrut-observant have a responsibility to make their observance known in ways that neither negate nor belittle the dietary practices of others; to be as flexible as possible within their understanding of kashrut. It behooves those who do not observe kashrut to become educated and aware, without judgment, just as one would about other food restrictions, such as those compelled by allergies. Before resenting someone who requires a kosher eatery, consider whether there would be similar feelings about accommodating a Muslim person who ate only halal. By acknowledging from the start that there are many different approaches to kashrut, these conversations can become exercises in speaking with and learning from each other without judgment.

The organized community needs to be more creative in how it supports and encourages kashrut. We need to reduce the cost of eateries or events that are kosher so that the price does not become a barrier to participation. And we need to explore cooperative models for communal kitchens, ways that individuals or groups could pool resources to collectively purchase and prepare food. For example, Jewish and Muslim college students might even share a kitchen where both groups observe dietary restrictions; preparing meals and eating together might foster other healthy connections.

Unwilling to confront some of the complexities of kashrut, we lose the possibility of growing as a community, of celebrating and struggling together, and of looking beyond our assumptions about each other. When we figure out how to break bread together, we open the possibility of true understanding and companionship.