Kehilat Sukkat Shalom: A History
(Compiled in the winter of 2022 by Paul Eisenstein & Jodi Kushins with support from Rabbi Jessica Shimberg and Sharon Tinianow)
Our Founding and Early Years
In the autumn of 5765 (2005-06), a small and motivated group came together to discuss the formation of a new kehilah kedoshah—a sacred Jewish community—in Columbus, Ohio. These discussions gained momentum throughout the winter and spring of that year. The group, half-jokingly, referred to itself as The Little Minyan that Could in recognition of the “I think I can” energy we knew would be required to grow a sustainable Jewish community that placed lifelong learning, participation, and collective determination at its center.
In our efforts to create purposefully and with attention to the needs we wished to meet for ourselves and others who would be inspired to join us, this set of guiding principles was developed:
The Guiding Principles of The Little Minyan
- We offer anyone who wishes to join us a welcoming Jewish spiritual home- an inclusive place where every person is valued and respected for their ideas and participation.
- We provide a joyous dimension to our ritual and learning, with approaches that are innovative, flexible, interactive, and egalitarian.
- We accept our differences, as we experience God in a collective and personal way.
- We foster children’s embrace of Jewish life through enjoyable and dynamic intergenerational ritual and educational activities.
- We embrace life-long learning of Torah, Jewish history, values and interpretations, to further our spiritual fulfillment and Jewish continuity.
- We strive to make a difference by enriching ourselves, our community, and the world through social and environmental action (tikkun olam).
During that first year we created and held monthly Erev Shabbat services, met in homes, parks, and churches to celebrate holidays, simchas, and to study together. We even created a full schedule of lay-led High Holy Days offerings, including a green tashlich on the banks of the Scioto River, in the shadow of a monument to Native American Wyandot Chief Leatherlips. That event is now one of our best attended annual traditions. Its popularity is a reflection of our collective belief that awareness outdoors provides spiritual sustenance. Indeed, our kehilah’s first meetings coincided with Shavuot—one of the holidays used in ancient times to mark our people’s connection to the land—and over the years, we have built many traditions around the intersection of Jewish and environmental ethics.
In addition to providing new opportunities for worship, our lay leaders actively sought out and created new ways of approaching Jewish education to encourage greater participation and an ethos of communal learning across age and level of knowledge. We purchased a homeschooling curriculum from a Reconstructionist congregation in Maryland and families met regularly to learn together, actively including parents and other adults so that our kids understood that learning was a lifelong commitment. We intentionally created intergenerational learning opportunities for our community.
Inspired by what we continued to discover about practices around North America and a desire not to repeat experiences that hadn’t served or satisfied us, we actively included our children in all worship and holiday experiences. Our adults met in impressive numbers, twice a month, to research the nexus and activities of nascent congregations around North America so that we could borrow successful ideas and avoid ones that seemed not to fit our growing community. We read books together, including Finding Your Spiritual Home and Exploring Judaism, which introduced us, as a community, to Reconstructionism (now Reconstructing Judaism), and helped us to think about communal experience beyond synagogue models with which we were most familiar. We developed an organizational structure based upon values that include egalitarian participation and consensus-building, and emphasized,at its core, a love for and celebration of Jewish texts, history, and culture and their relevance to our lives. Finally, we engaged in conversations about what affiliating with the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation (JRF) might look and feel like for our kehilah.
Years of Growth
Within the first 18 months, the Little Minyan created a chuppah and celebrated a wedding, welcomed a new baby with a brit chayim (covenant of life), and assisted in creating a meaningful shiva/mourning period for a beloved parent. We continued to attract new members, despite a conscious decision not to “advertise” before we had clarity around our mission and had developed sustainable plans for the future.
The kehilah developed a healthy relationship with Covenant Presbyterian Church in Upper Arlington (a northwest suburb of Columbus) and met there regularly for worship and holiday celebrations while still using homes, parks, and community buildings for some events and for youth education programming.
Given our growth by 2008, we carefully considered our transition from an independent chavurah to a congregational affiliate of the Reconstructionist movement. A committee was convened to explore the philosophical and practical motivations behind the concept of affiliation.
On the practical side, we believed that affiliation with the Reconstructionist movement would help insure the long-term viability of our community. We wanted to join a national group whose practices and values were compatible with our Guiding Principles in order to have access to resources, educational curricula, and administrative guidance. We wanted to create an opportunity for members of the central Ohio Jewish community and others to have access to a Reconstructionist kehilah, ideas, youth movement, camps, and programming provided through Reconstructing Judaism. Additionally, we wanted to provide a solid foundation of Jewish learning for our children so that they might grow into Jewishly knowledgeable adults with a life-long love of Jewish learning. In early 2009, after several internal discussions as well as conversations with leadership of the movement, we voted to affiliate with the Reconstructionist movement.
From a theological point of view, Reconstructionist Judaism provided a framework within which our community could continue to explore Jewish thought and practice. At the heart of the Reconstructionist movement is a view of Judaism as evolving through time and a collective conversation about “reconstructing” Jewish practice for the modern era. In some instances, this means rediscovering the richness of traditional ritual. In others, it means using a new interpretation of a traditional psalm or prayer because the traditional language does not resonate in our current context. This ongoing process of reconstructing continues to suit the “spiritual yet skeptical” character of our community and the ways we worship and study together.
From the founding of our kehilah, there were a core of very active volunteers who sustained us in various ways and mostly behind the scenes. One of our most active lay leaders continued to provide spiritual nourishment and in 2009, Jessica Shimberg became our “Spiritual Life Coordinator.” She soon followed her calling and enrolled in the Ordination Program of ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, eventually became our home-grown rabbi receiving rabbinic s’micha in January 2018. In 2014, in appreciation for the ways in which our kehilah was being nourished by Jewish Renewal, we affiliated with a network of established and emerging Renewal communities worldwide.. These affiliations were pursued and achieved in ways consistent with our commitment to maintain progressive yet pluralistic values and to welcome every person who participates in our kehilah with enthusiasm and genuine appreciation.
Our More Recent Past
As our communal journey has unfolded over the past 13 years, we have wrestled with many of the questions and concerns that are common among Jewish congregations and spiritual communities more generally. Yet, we have been very intentional about creating a caring community that grows organically and remains committed to the ways in which our kehilah is distinct and informal in structure. Creativity, inclusivity, and hands-on participation remain our most valuable resources, rather than sacred objects or a permanent structure (see our current Guiding Principles). We do not want to recreate the congregations of our past or duplicate options that already existed in the central Ohio Jewish community.
On multiple occasions in our first 13 years, the notion of purposefully selecting a name for our maturing kehilah came forward. For many the name “Little Minyan” was friendly and familiar. Even our newest members suggested that the name conveyed the genuine welcome and ease they felt from the moment they walked into an event. Others longed for a name that reflected our culture and values. Some worried that “little” wasn’t descriptive of the kehilah we were becoming or the sustainable size we desired.
On a Shabbat afternoon in May 2019, after a deliberative process, our members gathered, in a backyard, beneath a giant maple tree, for a final conversation and vote. Rabbi Jessica observed, “It was a thoughtful and intergenerational conversation among the adults of our kehilah, those of b’nei mitzvah age and beyond. In fact, it was eloquent expressions from several of our teens and young adults (those who have grown to adulthood alongside our little minyan) that swayed opinions in the final stages of the decision-making process.” By the end of the meeting, we had a new name: Kehilat Sukkat Shalom (Canopy of Peace).
“The sukkah represents the spirit of our kehilah,” wrote Tova Seltzer, our first bat mitzvah. “It is a structure (built for the gall harvest festival of Sukkot) that starts out a little makeshift, built with joy in a backyard by a family or community. It is a space of intentionality and inclusivity where friends, neighbors, and the divine are welcomed.” Tova’s ideas are reflected in the design of the sukkah which must be open enough to the sky and the elements of nature that its inhabitants can see the stars yet it is sturdy enough to withstand the adversity of a storm.
Sukkat Shalom also evokes for many kehilah members the comforting words from our nighttime liturgy (in the Hashkiveinu prayer) when we pray that the Divine Mystery spread over us a sacred canopy of peace to shelter us each night (Ufros aleinu sukkat sh’lomeicha). This is a wish we hold not only for ourselves, but for all in need of justice and healing. As such, the name is a reflection of our strong commitment to tikkun olam, repairing the broken parts of our society.
Moving Forward
As we near the end of the second decade of our existence, we honor our history and pledge anew to make good on what our founders envisioned—journeying forward as a kehilah kedoshah, a sacred, intentional Jewish community.
In 2020, our beloved Rabbi Jessica moved away to marry and make a Jewish home with her husband and expand her spiritual work through Holdingthefringes.com.
We made a conscious decision at that time to return to our lay-led roots. Supported by a leadership development grant from Jewish Columbus, members have received education in Jewish environmentalism, music, Mussar, social action, and ritual design. We look to the future with our doors wide open – to new members and new ways of being and doing Jewish.
For more information about upcoming activities, please view our calendar and Facebook page.