Looking back… looking forward
Chai Mitzvah celebrates its first anniversary
By Cindy Mindell

WEST HARTFORD – At a community celebration on June 9, 50 Jewish adults from throughout greater Hartford marked a milestone: the culmination of their year-long personal Jewish journeys as the pioneer group of Chai Mitzvah, a new program that engages adults in a lifelong pursuit of meaningful Judaism.

Piloted in the community last September, Chai Mitzvah was first conceived by Scott Shay in his 2006 book, “Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry.” The new effort encourages Jews to reconnect with or deepen their Judaism every 18 years post bar- or bat-mitzvah.
“The ages of 31, 49, 67, and 80 and up are times of great transition,” says executive director Audrey Lichter. “Chai Mitzvah recognizes that adults grow throughout their lives and offers an opportunity to mark these life transitions in a Jewish context.”
Each participant designs his or her own year-long Chai Mitzvah program with five components: a personal learning commitment, a monthly communal learning class at the Mandell JCC, a Jewish ritual to take on or deepen, a social-action project, and a communal celebration.
While all 19 area congregations originally joined the pilot effort, this year’s participants represent 12 of them. Each congregation selected a lay leader to serve as a Chai Mitzvah mentor and work in house with participants.
Chai Mitzvah community educator Galya Greenberg created the curriculum for the eight monthly community learning groups, who met at the Mandell JCC and discussed a different topic each month.
“Although we originally thought that the groups would meet according to age cohorts, it evolved into mixed generational groups, which everyone found more exciting,” she says. “One of the thrills about helping to develop a new program in its pilot stage is this flexibility to grow and change as conditions demand! As an educator who has worked primarily with children and teachers, facilitating discussion among a group of adults who spanned generations, towns, and Jewish denominations was a new challenge that turned out to be extremely rewarding.”
Through these interactions, Greenberg saw a live example of what Lichter refers to as the community-building quality of Chai Mitzvah.
“Not only did the community learning component build community among the participants at each synagogue, some of whom met for dinners and discussions of their own, but it built community among a group of people who otherwise might never have met or spoken with each other,” she says. “A group could have people ranging in age from their 30s to their 80s, who were members of congregations ranging from P’nai Or to Young Israel to unaffiliated. The richness and variety of life experiences and religious background led to stimulating discussion.”
“People have taken this as an opportunity to do something personally meaningful to them,” Lichter says. “One woman started to light Shabbat candles on a regular basis, another went to a mikvah for the first time. A 67-year-old man learned to read from the Torah.”
Vivian Zablotsky had tried to pursue Jewish learning on her own, but was not very consistent. After hearing about the new program last year from Nina Lichtenstein, the Chai Mitzvah learning coordinator, she became a participant and continued on her personal learning journey.
As part of her ritual and learning components, she studied the Sefirot, the Kabbalistic descriptions of God’s 10 attributes.
“For personal growth and balance, I awoke each morning saying the prayer, “Modeh Ani,” [“I give thanks”], and incorporated a movement meditation using the Sefirot as a daily ritual,” Zablotsky says. “On the holiday of Shavuot, I shared my new-found understanding of the Sefirot and my experience of the Chai Mitzvah year with a women’s learning gathering. One of my favorite places to do my movement meditation was while walking along the water at the reservoir with my learning partner, Nina Lichtenstein.”
For his social-action project, participant David Silver took his family to visit several area group homes for the mentally challenged, run by the Jewish Association for Community Living.
“At each location, we ran a Shabbat program with songs, poems and readings, and explained some of the themes of Shabbat,” he says. “My son Gabi has also done a magic trick at each location! Usually the residents were responsive and clearly glad that we came to share Shabbat with them. At the conclusion of our program, we lit the Shabbat candles and said the Kiddush blessing over grape juice. At one of the homes we stayed for dinner and had more time to get to know the residents. I feel that spending time with these groups has been a true mitzvah enjoyed by all.”
The 10 participants from Beth Sholom B’nai Israel in Manchester, led by Rabbi Richard Plavin, gave a special presentation to their congregation during Shavuot about their experiences.
This year, Chai Mitzvah staff will create pilot programs in New York City and on Long Island, thanks to a grant from the UJA-Federation of New York. The greater Hartford area will enter its second pilot year, welcoming another 80 participants. Chai Mitzvah staff-members are meeting with all participating congregations to evaluate the program and discuss how to engage the first group in mentoring and other roles.
For more information: www.chaimitzvah.org

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