By Rabbi Amanda Schwartz, Family Life Director at Judaism Your Way, and Jewish LearningWorks’ Voices for Good Fellow.
Originally published on eJewishPhilanthropy, June 9, 2025
“Invest in ideas,” Andres Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, argues in his 2024 book Tradition and Transition: Jewish Communities and the Hyper Powered Individual. I couldn’t agree more.
In my experience, the barrier to engaging in this type of deep thought is not to be found in the training Jewish leaders receive — a concern Spokoiny highlights, pointing out that Jewish institutions are focusing more on training leaders to be entrepreneurs than thinkers — but rather in our overflowingly full schedules. Who has time or the brain power to do the high-level thinking required to ponder what Judaism can offer the world in terms of philosophical responses to global warming and AI when we are scrambling from sunup to sundown, working to ensure we have enough students in the school to meet our budgetary needs, worrying if we have enough security in the event of an attack and responding to constant barrage of emails and texts, not to mention the demands of our personal lives?
I recently encountered a model outside of the Jewish world that I believe offers the potential to give Jewish professionals the time and brain space for this type of important philosophical and theological inquiry.
A “thought residency” for Jewish communal professionals, based on the framework of an artist residency, would offer the necessary ingredients to allow Jewish leaders to contemplate and articulate, to quote Spokoiny, “what [contemporary Judaism] contributes to the conversation of humanity.”
Residencies are commonplace in the arts world. There are even specifically Jewish arts residencies, though, those are not what I’m imagining in terms of a Jewish thought residency. The overarching goal of a residency is to remove the artist from their normal habitat and give them space and time where they have nothing else to worry about other than their creative process. Often these residencies are held in beautiful locations: on lakes, in forests, along the coast. The most revered residencies have chefs on site cooking delicious food for residents.
In May, I joined a five-day writing residency at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island in Washington along with six other women of different ethnicities, religions and ages from various cities. During the day, we had complete autonomy to rise when we were ready, be in nature, visit with one another and, of course, write where we wanted, when we wanted and what we wanted.
The absence of pressure and the absence of other responsibilities created an environment where anything was possible. It felt almost like having a bottomless pool of time. In Hebrew, the word for pool, braicha, and the word for blessing, bracha, share the same root; and indeed the expansiveness of my five nights at Hedgebrook felt nothing short of a blessing. Many of the Hedgebrook residents use the word “magic” to describe how the structure and setting have allowed them to create things that otherwise would have remained dormant in their minds.
I personally experienced this magic, finding myself able to write more quality words than I ever have before in that amount of time, getting the idea for this piece and even feeling called to write poetry, something that has never happened before in my life. A visit to the library at Hedgebrook further proves the success of the organization’s model: The shelves of the library contain books exclusively written by former residents. Thousands of books have come to light thanks to the generative time and space offered at this magical place.
In Tradition and Transition, Spokoiny traces the past two hundred-ish years of Jewish history through the eyes of three fictional women all named Rachel, each one living in a different generation. Spokoiny demonstrates how the Judaism and Jewish infrastructure that made sense for modern Rachel’s great grandmother or even grandmother, are antiquated for her. In the second half of the book, he proposes possible solutions for ways Judaism can reinvent itself, just like it was reinvented by Rachel’s foremothers.
My favorite chapter of the book is called “The Crisis of Meaning,” in which Spokoiny writes, “The vibrancy of the Jewish people will be dictated not only by how creative we get in terms of programs and organizational mergers, but by how meaningfully we can address the deeper existential yearnings and anguishes that have emerged.” One of the many great points Spokoiny makes is that in order to invest in revitalizing ideas in the Jewish community, we need “serendipitous exchanges between different people.” He argues that the need for Jewish innovation is now. There isn’t time for strategic planning or to rely on the chance that the right people find themselves together at the right time. Instead, Spokoiny suggests, “What is needed… is ‘engineered serendipity.’”
I experienced engineered serendipity every evening at Hedgebrook, where all of the residents and often staff joined together for an amazing meal. Since its foundation, Hedgebrook has been committed to bringing every kind of diversity together at their residencies. Without Hedgebrook, there is no way we would have ended up in a room together. While there was a designated start time, we didn’t need to leave the farmhouse table until we were ready. Many of our evenings reminded me of Shabbos lunches in the summer, when no one has any place they need to be and lunch stretches into seudah shlishit. Each woman at the table gave me some fascinating idea to chew on. Among them I found new mentors, teachers and friends. All of the women from my residency and I are now on a group text chain and we’ve been messaging ever since departing Hedgebrook. Even though we’ve left the table, our conversations still haven’t ended.
Just like at Hedgebrook, a Jewish thought residency would require a curated group of diverse individuals. But they would also need to be people who could and would leave their egos at home. One of the liberating elements of Hedgebrook was that in my entire time there, not a single person asked me “What do you do” or “Where do you work.” The questions instead were “Where are you from?” or “What are you working on?” Jewish thought residents would need to commit to attending for a set period of time, where they would be completely removed from their home and work responsibilities; that would mean no answering work emails or participating in Zoom calls. My suspicion is that anything less than five days is too little, and anything more than 10 becomes unrealistic. That being said, one of the writers said she once attended Hedgebrook for only two days, and that even that was worth it.
I imagine at a Jewish thought residency, the majority of the time would be unstructured, where the residents could be in solitude. Perhaps they would read philosophical works they’ve intended to get to for years. Perhaps they would sleep all day the first two days and emerge from their slumber on day three with fresh insights. Perhaps they would wander in the woods and think more clearly thanks to the fresh air and nature’s magical ability to let our brains relax and recharge. In the evening, however, all residents would come together for dinner and dialogue. Organically, the conversation would turn to the light bulbs that went off for them during the day. Hopefully, each light bulb would serve as a catalyst and group brainstorming would begin.
It may seem counterintuitive that giving Jewish professionals time and space to be alone could offer the key to innovative Jewish ideas. After all, we are a people who believe in davening in a minyan and learning in hevruta. Yet our tradition also recognizes the power that comes from solitude. After all, as we commemorated on the recent holiday of Shavuot, Moses went up to Mt. Sinai alone to receive the Torah — not to mention that his journey to leadership began in solitude when he encountered God at the burning bush.
On a more practical level, anecdotally it seems a large proportion of Jewish professionals, in particular rabbis, are introverts. I know I am. I enjoy attending conferences and learning seminars, but I also find them exhausting. At Hedgebrook, having the majority of the day to myself combined with communal time in the evening was the perfect balance, ensuring I had the bandwidth to think deeply and generate and I didn’t leave the residency feeling like I then needed a vacation to recover from extroverting.
The great news is that the Jewish community already has resources to test creating Jewish thought residencies with very little initial funding. There are countless Jewish summer camps that sit empty for most of the year. Granted, not all would work year-round due to climate constraints, but many could. Certainly some could open a bit earlier or stay open later to house residencies. Alternatively, many of our community members have second or even third homes, often in beautiful places, and which also sit empty most of the year. I imagine many would be happy to donate their home for a couple of weeks for the sake of the Jewish future.
A final inspiring thought I’m taking from Hedgebrook:
One of the residents shared that since her first residency on Hedgebrook in the early aughts, she has watched the local ecosystem, previously destroyed by logging, transform into a thriving forest with booming biodiversity. Had she not shared this with me, I would have assumed Hedgebrook’s forest was hundreds of years old; in reality, most of it is actually younger than I am. It gave me hope that huge change and creation can come in less than 40 years. I can only imagine the effect that 40 years of thought residencies for Jewish communal professionals might produce. But I know with certainty that we need it.
Rabbi Amanda Schwartz (JTS Class of 2016) is a rabbi in Denver.
