HOME ARCHIVES LEGALS CONTACT DIRECTORIES EVENTS KOSHER SUBSCRIBE SPECIALS January 4, 2002 ~ Boulder Section Table of Contents Renewal rabbis share a life and a passion for Jewish spirituality Aish Kodesh seeks to elevate the soul Smaller than small -- Bigger than big -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Renewal rabbis share a life and a passion for Jewish spirituality By ANDREA JACOBS IJN Staff Writer Boulder has long attracted spiritual seekers -- especially Jews. In the 1960s, Jewish students adopted the cultural zeitgeist of flower power, peace and love. But in the 21st century, many Boulder Jews literally dance with old traditions suddenly made new. Rabbis Victor and Nadya Gross have been the spiritual co-leaders of the Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder (JRCB) since August, 2000. Enthusiastic and dynamic, their interpretation of Judaism approximates spiritual choreography -- metaphorically and in the flesh. Married for 28 years and the parents of four children, the Grosses offer the successful interplay of their own marriage as a model to Boulder's renewal community. "We consider relationship the primary spiritual practice," says Victor, 55, "and we've been doing this with each other for a long time now. "We do this dance with one another," he says. "We weave together a tapestry of individual strengths but try not to step on one another's toes." Nadya Gross, 46, extends the dance analogy. "While one is leading, the other is supporting. I always feel partnered by Victor. We each have different skill sets, and there's a lot of overlap. But I never see us as working individually." Relationships, whether marital, work-related or invested in one's cat, form the core of spirituality. Developing right relationships leads to a good relationship with G-d. As rabbis, the Grosses "get to practice every kind of relationship," says Nadya. "What's important is learning how to do that dance with others; supporting individual development within the context of relationship." The relationships in the Torah are fraught with sibling rivalry, scheming, sadness and betrayal. While Victor agrees most of these human connections fall into the dysfunctional category, the narrative also encompasses positive relationships: Moses and Aaron, Moses and Miriam, Joseph's two sons. "Somehow they learned to do it right. "The theological expression of our existence is that we're supposed to be in a relationship with G-d and people. This is the essence of the whole Jewish experience." Co-rabbis for three years of the Aquarian Minyan in Berkeley, Calif., before coming to Boulder, the Grosses received a joint smicha from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, considered the father of the Jewish Renewal movement, in 1997. "For us, it was an expression of a new paradigm," says Nadya. The Grosses integrate chasidism and mysticism into what they describe as their "way of being Jewish and doing Judaism." At Jewish Renewal services in Boulder, worshippers experience ecstatic davening and deep contemplation, says Victor. According to the couple, the majority of JRCB members come from backgrounds "as varied and unique as any other Jewish Renewal community." Some were raised in traditional Jewish homes. Others left Judaism, dabbled in Buddhism and other belief systems but finally returned to their own heritage. There are also many interfaith couples with children. One of the underlying principles of the Jewish Renewal movement is that individuals embarking on a spiritual quest are responsible for their own learning. The rabbis serve as facilitators; they don't supply an answer book. "There are a lot of long-time spiritual seekers in Boulder," says Nadya, "which makes for a lot of light." Searching beyond the confines of one's own faith tradition is something the Grosses understand quite well. They both chose the Jewish Renewal movement following a long association with Conservative Judaism. They also spent most of their lives in California, where just about anything goes. Victor Gross grew up in Washington State. He wanted to be a criminal lawyer, but abolished that thought forever after hanging out with an attorney for a single day. "In the '60s you were supposed to know what you wanted to do for the rest of your life immediately after high school," he laughs. "I was floundering. A few months later I realized that the most important person in my life was my rabbi. I wanted to be like him." Victor trained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Victor was attending the University of Judaism in Los Angeles when he met Nadya, the daughter of an Israeli father and American mother, through United Synagogue Youth, the Conservative movement's youth organization. Says Nadya, "Victor was an advisor, and I was in my last year of USY. He was kind of my counselor." Apart from her early years in Israel, Nadya had always lived in California. "You could say I'm a California girl." Victor and Nadya were married in September, 1973, right before the Yom Kippur War. Nadya entertained serious dreams of becoming a rabbi, but at the time that wasn't allowed in Conservative Judaism. Instead she became an apprentice to a Conservative cantor, "and even that couldn't be widely discussed." She then received a degree in rabbinic literature from the University of California-Berkeley. For a while Victor and Nadya served as a rabbi-cantor team at a small Conservative synagogue in California. That's when their mutual disenchantment with the movement reached an intolerable level. "I was saying 'no' more than 'yes' to congregants," recalls Victor. "I kept thinking, what's going to happen to all those people I just turned away? Have I also turned them away from Judaism? The framework of Conservative Judaism didn't help me confront the spiritual needs I was encountering. I was getting increasingly dissatisfied." In the mid-1980s the Grosses left Conservative Judaism and started their own synagogue, Ohr Chadash, in the San Fernando Valley. Following their theological instincts and little else, the couple created an independent spiritual community that quickly attracted like-minded individuals. "We'd never heard of Jewish Renewal, " says Victor. "Those first few years, all we knew is what we did not want to be -- but we had no idea what to replace it with." Intense study of Jewish mysticism and chasidism convinced the Grosses that these were legitimate spiritual avenues to pursue. "Suddenly we discovered that there were others like us out there," Victor says. "And the common denominator was Reb Zalman." Victor suggested to Nadya that this would be a perfect moment to fulfill her former dream of becoming a rabbi. They entered the mentorship program led by Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi in 1995. The leap from Conservative Judaism to Jewish Renewal "was huge," Victor admits. "It was a profound experience for us both." The Grosses first came to Boulder for one of the yearly conferences convened by the Jewish Renewal movement. Not surprisingly, they instantly fell in love with the college town whose heart accommodates so many different philosophies. Boulder's physical beauty matched the beauty of its residents. "Whether secular or Jewish or non-Jewish, there's a strong community consciousness here -- a sense of belonging," says Nadya. Until the weekend they were asked to lead services at the JRCB, the Grosses were certain that California was their destiny. "We thought California was where we were supposed to be," Nadya says, "but Boulder just spoke to us." The added bonus of "being near Reb Zalman" sealed the deal. Most people search for a spiritual home, says Victor. "And they believe they find it, only to discover it's transitory. Ultimately, the life path all individuals follow is a quest for that center in their own being and in the universe. And hopefully there are a number of paths." The JRCB is a "safe place to be" for those dangling "their big toe back into the warm waters of Judaism," Nadya says. There is no judgment, no standard, no knowledge bar that demands scaling. With 200 adult members, 80 children enrolled in the religious school program and even more adults who don't formally identity, the JRCB entices people with a spiritual mixture of dancing, davening and excellent music. "There have always been great musicians here," says Nadya. People calling the JRCB number will hear Nadya's soothing voice wishing them "a beautiful now." While the thought is genuinely offered, it does smack of New Ageism, a criticism the Grosses, and the Jewish Renewal movement as a whole have heard repeatedly. According to Victor, "We hear that all the time -- and usually people are sneering when they say it. But I'm not embarrassed by it." Occasionally, comparing Jewish Renewal to some New Age ideologies is a legitimate critique, he continues. "But I think we're smart enough to recognize and avoid" the comparisons. "Reb Zalman has shown in his writings and oral teachings that we're not superficial. "If anything, our movement is extremely deep. We're profoundly committed to the historical path of Judaism, while at the same time bringing the teachings of chasidism and mysticism into the 21st century," Victor says. Before the term Jewish Renewal existed, dancing Jews with a mystical propensity were lumped into categories like New Age Judaism or Hippie Judaism, he says. "But our sophistication is verified in the name itself -- Jewish Renewal. We are continually influencing other streams of Judaism. I'm always amazed when I ask congregants and rabbis the source of something new, and they say, 'Jewish Renewal.' "Actually, I'd be more than satisfied if the Jewish Renewal movement disappeared because it fulfilled its task of renewing Judaism in the 21st century." Wherever their spiritual journey leads, one can rest reasonably assured that Nadya and Victor Gross will be enjoying their beautiful now. RETURN TO THE TOP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aish Kodesh seeks to elevate the soul By KATHRYN BERNHEIMER IJN Boulder Correspondent Matt Finberg was raised Conservative in Maine. When he moved to Boulder from Washington DC almost 10 years ago with his wife and young daughters, the business lawyer joined Bonai Shalom without thinking twice. He started Boulder's first Tot Shabbat at Bonai Shalom. He spent a year on the board, two years as vice president and two more as president. After his tenure, he sat on the board with all the other past presidents, still fully invested. After his divorce three years ago, Finberg did some soul-searching. "I had to come to terms with the reality of who I was," he explains. "I needed to find answers and support that didn't exist in the Conservative world." Finberg asked himself what it was that attracted him to Judaism. "I realized I needed a relationship with Hashem that was consistent. I wanted the magic. "Why did the sages for thousands of years study Torah when they could have done something else? I realized Judaism is more than a nationality with a set of rituals." Finberg found himself attracted to chasidic traditions, and discovered the example of Shlomo Carlebach and the teachings of Rebbe Nachman. "I'm a chasid," he says he realized. "I'm a joyous, G-d and heaven loving person who wants to dance with the Torah. The realization totally changed my perspective." Finberg is now president of Kehilath Aish Kodesh, "a Torah observant community that is welcoming to all Jews who share the joy and spiritual practices of mitzvos, Torah study, prayer and tikkun olam." Aish Kodesh grew out of Beis Midrash Shalom Al Yisrael, which was primarily a study group that periodically brought in guest rabbis from around the world to lead Shabbatons. "Last year we decided we wanted to become a regular shul," Finberg explains. "We decided to shift away from these very expensive extravaganzas," which Finberg notes had served the purpose of helping identify the core group of members. Six months ago, Aish Kodesh began formally accepting dues-paying members and now has a membership of 50 individuals. One third are full-time members and the rest are associate members who also belong to another congregation. Although Finberg says Boulder's newest congregation hopes to attract more core members, it also plans to continue offering "programs and learning that attracts people who don't necessarily want to be Orthodox." "We've just begun to reach people who will become our core members," Finberg continues, "people who are missing the magic, the connection that elevates the soul." Aish Kodesh is reaching out to other Jewish groups and co-sponsoring events with other synagogues. On T'Bishvat, for example, Aish Kodesh is partnering with Jews of the Earth and the Jewish Renewal Community on a seder following its own Shabbaton. "We're helping to build community, creating unity and peace in Klal Israel on a grassroots level," he adds. "We want people to see our humility," he adds. "We're not a group of experts. We're all ba'alei teshuvah. We're learning on our feet. We're inviting people to come in and help us learn." Last summer, Aish Kodesh hired Yehudis Fishman as resident Torah teacher and spiritual leader, and bought a house in North Boulder that serves as Fishman's home and the group's shul. "It's a little like being a rabbi, a rebbitzen and a shammes," Fishman says of her position, adding that she expects 15 people for lunch on Shabbat. Moments later the doorbell rings. It's a neighbor, Aaron, who thanks her for the Chanukah gift she's left on his door. She asks if they will be joining the group for lunch. She returns to the interview. There are now 17 coming for lunch. Fishman loves telling the Aaron story. On Sept. 11, shortly after she arrived in Boulder from New Mexico, her computer wasn't hooked up yet and her phone line was down for some unknown reason. Feeling isolated and numbed, she sat on her front porch. A red cat appeared and kept her company. She fed the lost cat and called the number on its tag. Later, as the group was gathering for a minyan to say Kaddish for a member's father, they found themselves one man short. The young man who lived across the street came to retrieve the cat. Aaron introduced himself and mentioned he also had a dog named Shlomo. Sensing he must be Jewish, Fishman invited him to be the 10th man. He agreed. Fishman introduced him to the group with the clever line, "Look what the cat dragged in." Fishman is a noted scholar who taught Torah on all levels, from preschool to advanced adult education in Santa Fe, NM, since 1989. She was one of the Judaic teachers in the Santa Fe Hebrew Day School. She has mastered sophisticated Polish chassidic texts. Fishman combines the warmth of a rebbitzen with the wisdom of a rabbi and says she's settling into Boulder nicely. "It really helps to have the JCC here," she notes. "It's a big help in interacting. The interaction in the community is more permeable than I've seen in other communities. That's nice to see." For now, she's busy just jumping from event to event, class to class. She teaches chassidic masters and the weekly Torah portions. She delivers the d'var Torah on Shabbos and offers teachings. And she cooks meals for the vegetarians and meat eaters who are hungry after davening. Fishman admits she does not quite feel entitled to a day off yet. "When I do that will be a sign that things have really taken off." RETURN TO THE TOP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Cornell, (left, in blue shirt) and Carl Wieman with the apparatus used to achieve the Bose-Einstein condensate. Photos: Ken Abbot- CU Boulder Smaller than small -- bigger than big By CHRIS LEPPEK IJN Assistant Editor It was the sort of moment filmmakers, novelists and lyricists love to depict -- victory, validation and vindication all at once. Six years ago, Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell lived it for real. The University of Colorado physicists had just achieved, and largely confirmed, a scientific breakthrough that Albert Einstein predicted seven decades ago, and which many of their most esteemed colleagues felt was virtually impossible to do, at least by the methods the Boulder researchers were using. The "Bose-Einstein condensate" -- the amazingly complex result of bombarding and trapping hyper-frozen atoms with lasers -- had dominated Wieman's and Cornell's research time for half a decade. The two physicists have worked together in CU's laboratories since 1990, with Cornell originally a doctoral student under Wieman. They had pursued the elusive condensate doggedly and incessantly, in the face of skepticism, and often with blind faith. On June 5, 1995, using an ungainly but effective device they had constructed themselves, they achieved it. They spent awhile trying to prove themselves wrong -- the accepted course of prudent scientists -- and when they couldn't, decided to present their findings to two prestigious conferences of physicists which were fortuitously scheduled just three weeks after their discovery. In other words, the perfect forum. Cornell, a senior scientist at Boulder's National Institute of Standards and Technology, describes his feelings at the announcement in terms that sound characteristically understated. "There was a certain sweetness to it," he says. Wieman, who teaches physics at CU, is characteristically more liberal with his words. "Half of it," he says of the pleasure of announcing their findings before their colleagues, "was the look on their faces. The other half of it was that we knew that these were all good scientists and that they'd be looking for things we might not have done right. We were expecting that, and they threw up all their challenges. In the end, they were all thrown out and they ended up widely agreeing." Wieman pauses for effect. "That's the ultimate scientific moment." But it was still not as glorious, they say, as actually witnessing the fruition of their years of work together -- a tiny, elliptical-shaped cloud of gas that indicated nothing less than an absolutely new form of matter. That was even better, Wieman hastens to add, than the one which came just last autumn, when the Nobel Prize Committee announced that Wieman and Cornell would share the maximum scientific honor with Wolfgang Ketterle of MIT, who came in with his own condensate breakthrough shortly after theirs. "To be honest," Wieman says, "I really found it much more exciting and, in a way, thrilling to see the Bose condensate than to get the Nobel Prize for it. Don't get me wrong, the Nobel Prize is great, but it wasn't quite the same." The Bose-Einstein condensate -- termed a "realization" by Cornell and a "creation" by Wieman -- proved the 1924 theory of Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose that when atoms are successfully cooled to an extremely cold temperature they would realign themselves, creating a new form of matter. Greatly summarized and grossly oversimplified, Wieman and Cornell followed in the footsteps of many past and present physicists in seeking to prove this elusive theory, managing to cool atoms of the alkali element rubidium to a few billionths of a degree above "absolute zero," the Kelvin temperature at which all movement and heat cease to exist. Their homemade device consisted of state-of-the-art cooling technologies, coupled with lasers which were, astonishingly, relatively inexpensive components designed for CD players, a necessity imposed by limited funding. The lasers initially "trapped" the cooling atoms, which were then kept in place with a magnetic field. Bombarded by photons, the atoms began slowing down, which lowered their temperature. They grew colder yet, through a process of elimination, by which those atoms which retained their heat were methodically "kicked out" of the sample. It was an improvement to the magnetic field designed by Cornell -- termed a "time-averaged orbiting potential trap" -- that caused the remaining atoms to cool sufficiently to allow the condensate to form. When it actually happened, Wieman and Cornell's condensate sample consisted of some 2,000 very, very cold rubidium atoms, and lasted for about 15-20 seconds. To the non-physicist, that brief moment probably sounds pretty non-dramatic, if not anti-climatic. But to Wieman and Cornell, it was the realization of a long-cherished dream, and a scientific conquest they both realize they'll probably never have a chance to repeat. Just proving the theory itself was self-validating, and immediately conferred an undeniable scientific badge of honor. It also proved that they were on the right track all along, something which many of Wieman's and Cornell's colleagues had long disputed. While dismissal is too strong a word for the early reactions to their work, says Wieman -- the senior researcher on the project and its primary fundraiser -- they certainly did encounter skepticism. "It really was a problem, the belief that our approach, if not the whole subject, was looked at with a great deal of skepticism," he says. "We had a great deal of trouble getting money for it. There were a lot of issues on exactly how atoms would behave at these unprecedentedly low temperatures. We had some hunches that turned out to be right that weren't widely shared." These were, Wieman adds, "ordinary hunches," not highly educated guesses, and he admits that some of them were pretty shaky. "In research you can go through a solid career where you're not going very far out beyond what's known," Wieman says, "but you're never going to make a very big splash. If you want to do something like the Bose condensate, you have to go beyond where everyone else is thinking and you have to go way beyond the data. It's a real risk and you worry about whether you're right or not. On the other hand, the issues people raise as to why it wouldn't work are very helpful. You think, well maybe they're right and you think through the arguments and you end up smarter. Dealing with skepticism actually strengthens a lot of things and greatly increased my own understanding." Cornell's view is similar. "I don't think we were considered crazy but there were a lot of people who thought we were wasting our time," he says. "It made it, for instance, more difficult to get ideas like this funded, especially early on." Cornell remembers all too well what it felt like looking for a research position in the early 1990s. He was turned down repeatedly when he began explaining his basic ideas about the Bose-Einstein condensate, soon to be shared with Wieman in Boulder. In essence: "They didn't buy the idea and I didn't get the job." Still, he acknowledges, the skepticism invariably helped them. For one thing, he thinks it may have made him work harder. "I think everybody finds skepticism a little discouraging, but for some people it can be a real spur." And Cornell can see both sides. He says he sometimes sees the same conservative streak in himself, when students come up to him with what he thinks are probably "wild and crazy" ideas. "I'm skeptical that it will work and I tell them so," he says. "But at the same time I hope that it will encourage them." Ironically, when the big moment came, Wieman wasn't even there to see it. "Actually, I was out of town," he says with a laugh, "but I got a lot of phone calls. I was pretty convinced after a day or two. There was a strong element of, 'Look, we've got to be cautious here, we can't get carried away. Don't let yourself get fooled.' Science is littered with the corpses of people who did that. After all, we're human too." More than five years later, long after such self-doubt had disappeared, CU President Elizabeth Hoffman congratulated her researchers on winning the Nobel Prize, calling the condensate "one of the 'Holy Grails' in the world of physics." Neither disagreed with Hoffman, but they are both anxious to avoid hype. "If you call it the Holy Grail, that's definitely misleading, but if you say it's a Holy Grail, I guess I'd go along with that," Cornell says, offering a slight qualification. "It's a nice thing because first of all it's something people have been wanting to do for a long time. It's a piece of a puzzle. It has a lot in common with many interesting things that have happened in physics." These include laser technology, which deals with energy; superconductivity, which deals with solid matter; and the condensate, which works with gases. "All of them," Cornell says, "are pieces in the puzzle." Wieman also quibbles with Hoffman's "Holy Grail" reference, but only on mildly technical grounds. "The more common comment, actually a quote from a fellow physicist, is that it was the Holy Grail of atomic physics," he says. "It got sort of glorified since then, but people in my field really had been seeking this for a long time. "The Nobel Prize is really a recognition of the impact," Wieman continues. "It really has become in a very few years a major sub-field, with conferences on it and hundreds of researchers working on it over the world. It's given them an entirely new system to do experiments on, and it's really a fascinating new system. It has these weird, non-intuitive behaviors we associate with quantum physics, but instead of being buried inside atoms, on the subatomic scale, it's brought that up to almost human-size scale. There's a sort of visceral appeal to that if you're a physicist, but it also allows a wide range of new experiments, new things you can do." In other words, the relatively large scale of the Bose-Einstein condensate has to a degree opened up the smaller-than-small scale usually associated with atomic physics. The discovery of the Boulder researchers thus brought a whole new perspective to the idea of actually working with atoms, the most basic building block of matter itself, and for the past five years physicists -- including Wieman and Cornell themselves -- have been taking full advantage of that. One would have to be a physicist to truly appreciate the significance of that fact. One would have to be considerably more than that -- perhaps even a prophet -- to describe how the Bose-Einstein condensate might one day actually be put to use. Although some commentators have already suggested that the condensate, and some of its resulting discoveries, will find application in enhancing the speed and reducing the size of computers, Cornell is quick to dampen such enthusiasm as premature. Still, there will likely be an eventual indirect impact in that and other areas, he says. "If you want to make progress in quantum mechanics, you have to understand it on a very realistic level," Cornell says. "Ironically, Bose-Einstein condensates are not very small. They've very large. They occupy the whole sample. The value then is that it won't help us make very small computers but it does let us study the interactive properties of any small particle. If we are to succeed in nano-technology that has to be understood." Wieman is similarly reluctant to make predictions as to the practical value of the condensate breakthrough, pointing to an earlier physics discovery -- the laser. Although developed in the mid-1950s, the laser's practical impact wasn't realized by most Americans for at least 20 or 30 years. "The first thing one has to realize is that the time scale for things to progress from the fundamental physics discovery stage to the application state is typically decades," Wieman points out. "I think most people don't appreciate that. It wasn't like the laser was invented and people were seeing it in supermarket checkouts and CD players the next day. You have to develop an appreciation, a deep appreciation, for the unique capabilities of these discoveries. Our Bose condensate is just like that. Nobody has ever had a material that behaved like this." Which is not to say that science and technology won't eventually catch up, he adds. "At the same time, it's reasonable to expect that there really will be significant applications. I base that hope just on the fact that it is really the atomic analogue to laser light. Lasers are really useful because all the light is doing exactly the same thing, so you can control it. In our condensate, all the atoms are doing the same thing, so you can control them any way you want to -- anything you want to do manipulating a bunch of atoms around." The ability to control atoms, which Bose-Einstein essentially enabled, will undoubtedly have practical value, "but there are enormous engineering challenges to going from the lab samples we have to something you're using to build nano-structures and electronics," Wieman says. "It's still got a long way to go. The hype is progressing well beyond the research at this point. People have a very limited imagination as to what something new and different can be used for. We can almost never really anticipate the important applications. That's the consistent message we get from basic physics research." This is not a frustration, however, since such blind progress fascinates Wieman. "That's what great about science," he says. "It reveals areas where we can progress which nobody could have conceived of in the original experimental stages." Interestingly -- perhaps a little disappointing to some -- neither of these Boulder scientists says they have seen evidence of the divine plan in the subatomic worlds they routinely observe. Cornell is a self-described "sympathetic atheist," meaning that while he doesn't believe himself, his wife is a practicing Catholic and his children go to Catholic schools. His studies of the most elemental components of the universe itself have not inspired religious faith in him, although he does know other physicists who have had exactly the opposite reaction. "I really see practicing science like practicing art -- something we do to wrest meaning out of a meaningless universe," says Cornell. He has many motivations for pursuing science, including this: "I like to do science because I find it a method of finding meaning in meaninglessness. But that's also a reason why I have children, so that's not unique to science. On a more prosaic level, I've always wanted to tinker with things and experiment." Wieman, after a moment's hesitation, answers the same question in a different way: "Not religious at all," he says. "I see that nature is governed by certain laws and it has this beautiful structure and organization in the way that things fit together. I don't find any need to invoke anything beyond these fundamental laws to explain our existence and the universe as we see it. I see it as things waiting to be discovered. I think it's fantastic that mankind can discover things that are so far beyond the obvious; that we can discover there are such amazing things about the universe through our scientific pursuits." 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