Spiritual solidarity

Achvat Amim Ruchani fuses social justice work with Torah study.

By ARIEL DOMINIQUE HENDELMAN
The program: Living together, learning and working (photo credit: KAREN ISAACS)
The program: Living together, learning and working
(photo credit: KAREN ISAACS)
Tikun olam – fixing the world and leaving it better than we found it – is a familiar phrase to almost all Jews. Tikun adam, the repairing of oneself, is a concept that is less well known. For the Jerusalem- based Achvat Amim (Solidarity of Nations) program, the two are intrinsically linked.
“I grew up in Hashomer Hatza’ir, the socialist Zionist youth movement, which is 100 years old,” Daniel Roth, Achvat Amim’s founder, says. “It was instrumental in establishing the Israeli kibbutz movement.
One of the ideological underpinnings is this idea of tikun adam and tikun olam, repairing the world and repairing ourselves, which are inextricable from one another.
“A lot of what Achvat Amim looks like on the ground reflects that. When I moved here, I did so to better myself through connection to peoplehood, community and culture.
I did that first and foremost by learning Hebrew. That’s the manifestation of tikun adam in my life. The tikun olam is being a part of the movement for human rights and self-determination for all people, and an end to the occupation.
Achvat Amim encompasses all of that.”
Roth founded Achvat Amim five years ago, in partnership with his wife, Karen. The program is now in its sixth cycle, and attracts applicants from all over the world. The structure consists of a group of participants living communally for five months, and splitting their time between education, volunteer work, and internships.
“Achvat Amim is a holistic program,” Roth explains.
“People come and they live together, learn and work. The learning takes place through a participatory curriculum that the groups are a part of building, and also through language learning in what we call ‘This Is Not An Ulpan.’ This Is Not An Ulpan is a model for language learning that asks people to be participants in society through the process of learning Hebrew and Arabic. The entire program is in a similar vein. It’s saying come here and be a part of the movement to better this place; be a part of the movement for human rights.”
Participants work once a week at the Hand in Hand school for Jewish and Arab children in Jerusalem. Positions vary, depending on skill sets, but range from teaching to coaching sports. The rest of the time is devoted to internship placements in either human rights organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights and Tent of Nations, educational organizations, or publications such as the Palestine-Israel Journal.
Until now, the regular track was the only one offered.
However, in February, Achvat Amim Ruchani will launch its pilot program. Ruchani is modeled after the parent program and is structured in a similar fashion, except that participants will also have the opportunity for religious studies, which will in turn inform their volunteer and internship work.
“Karen and Daniel started the program with the goal of giving people the opportunity to engage critically with this land and to explore the conflict in a safe space where you can be Jewish and ask hard questions; where you can love the land and question it at the same time,” Rachel Rosenbluth, Achvat Amim’s Ruchani program director, states. “A couple of years ago I had coffee with Karen. I told her that the program was awesome and if she ever wanted to have a spiritual version of it, to give me a call. I have had so many wonderful experiences in this land, but never have I found that I could bring all of the parts of myself together. I’m either too left in a religious circle, too religious in a lefty circle, too hassidic in a Litvish circle, or too feminist in a hassidic circle. I saw what Karen and Daniel were doing as an opportunity to bring religious young people into a space where activism and justice work are at the core, and where Judaism is the foundation upon which that kind of work is done.”
Rosenbluth finally got her chance after Achvat Amim received funding from a Masa grant, which allowed them to expand the programming. After a year of planning, she is eagerly awaiting Ruchani’s inaugural group.
She is quick to point out the irony in running a religious version of a socialist Zionist program, a type of program that tends to be very secular. But Rosenbluth’s grandparents were socialist Zionists. Those roots combined with a deep love for hassidic learning, make her perhaps the perfect orchestrator of just such an endeavor.
“My dream is to build a program that’s inner and outer, where one can really be all of the different pieces of oneself, learn about this land and meet the people of this land, while contributing to its betterment,” Rosenbluth says. “The way that looks for different people varies, which is why program participants are able to choose from many volunteering options, based on how they see the best way to contribute here.”
Ruchani, like Achvat Amim itself, is built on the foundation that participants should follow their passion, and that a democratic structure determines the shape of the five-month curriculum. Everyone has an internship for two days per week. Some participants will work with academics, some will be involved with conflict activism, some will volunteer with Israeli/Palestinian farming initiatives such as Roots, and still others will be more religion-focused.
All of that and more is available within the parameters of Ruchani. The two main components are working and learning. Working includes volunteering once a week at the Hand in Hand school and whatever internship the participant chooses, while learning includes the beit midrash as well as weekly field trips and seminars with participants from the regular track on topics relating to the conflict and the history of Israel.
“It’s not a top-down program; it’s very bottom-up,” Rosenbluth says. “When participants join, we’ll ask them what they’re interested in and what are their skills. We’ll have brainstorming sessions during orientation, where we will ask them if they want to be learning about water issues, economic issues, minorities in Israel, or Zionist history. Whatever it is, we will build the curriculum together. We want to match them with something that will be grassroots and constructive; no one’s going to sit in an office.”
In the regular Achvat Amim track, past participants have visited a military prison and met with a lawyer who deals with the conflict from the perspective of international law. They have also visited Kibbutz Harduf, which fosters Israeli/Beduin collaborative work. Field trips like these are offered weekly and vary incredibly.
In the beit midrash study, which is unique to Ruchani, there will be five different units, corresponding to one per month. Participants will have the opportunity to explore divergent learning spaces around Jerusalem, including Pardes and the Conservative Yeshiva.
Although the beit midrash education units are not yet set in stone, possibilities include Judaism and conflict resolution, Shabbat and mindfulness, Hassidism and the arts, and nationalism and religion.
“They’re also going to have the option of a weekly Torah portion class, possibly taught by students from Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo’s smicha program,” Rosenbluth states. “The idea is that the participants will also be connected to weekly classes happening in the area at places like The Homestead and Yakar, so as to tap into the community.”
The other distinguishing feature of the Ruchani program is that participants will live in a kosher, Shabbat-observant home. “I’m hoping for Judaism to be this dynamic, inner process that’s informing the communal work that they do,” Rosenbluth enthuses, “thereby strengthening themselves as Jews and cultivating their inner, spiritual lives. Because the most sustainable activism and communal, social justice work goes along with a very healthy inner process and education.”
For Ruchani participants, their Jewish identity is an essential part of their activism and consciousness.
Rosenbluth welcomes applicants with varying goals, interests and backgrounds. The program aims to provide a dynamic dialogue between who the participants are, what this land is, and how to relate to it.
“The goal is for this to be done in a really healthy and loving way,” Rosenbluth adds. “I think that that’s unique – to be able to safely ask questions and work towards a vision of peace and justice. Torah is the basis for that. I think it has to be. How can it not be? I yearn for and hope to practice a Torah of loving-kindness and compassion.”
Rosenbluth emphasizes, as does Ruchani itself, that the holiness of the land of Israel is pervasive and dear for many of its people. Ruchani’s ideology is that to embody Torah is to live with love toward one another and in peace with one another. No easy task to be certain, but Ruchani is blazing the trail.
“I believe that Judaism is a spiritual path towards a more unified consciousness and a more peaceful reality,” Rosenbluth says. “This land is giving us an awesome opportunity to put that into practice. It’s also a challenge. Can we really live Torah? Can we bring light? Can we be unifiers? We often talk about tikun adam and tikun olam: the repairing of one’s inner and outer worlds. Kabbalistically, it’s a fixing of the cosmos; to elevate, repair and illuminate the sacred in this world. This is where we get to do our best.”
Roth concludes, “We call it a program for lack of a better word, but it’s really a space for people to come and live in Jerusalem and take part in critical education and engage in real human rights work. Achvat Amim is aimed at being a part of life, not a vacation from it.
Learning and doing need to happen simultaneously.
Learning is essential to aiming our work in the right direction, and working is essential in enabling us to act in the world. That takes us from where we are to where we ought to be.”
For more information: www.achvatamim.org