Is Good Shabbos Nebraska Kosher?

This past Shabbos on Good Shabbos Nebraska - America's favorite Shabbos morning talk show, we had the legendary musician Lenny Solomon.  It was a fantastic Shabbos and a great way to take us into the mid winter Hiatus.

For the next two weeks Good Shabbos Nebraska is going to be on break.  We are taking down the stage and davening will just feature a short parshah monologue (I don't think I can ever go back to calling it a sermon).

We will return on January 25th with guest host Elinor Dunning - our first ever Good Shabbos Nebraska Bat Mitzvah.  It will be a historic episode.  In 20 years when the Good Shabbos Nebraska model is the norm in synagogues around the world people will remember that Elinor Dunning was the first ever guest host bat mitzvah!

Good Shabbos Nebraska has been very well received in Omaha, but outside of Omaha the show has met some controversy.  

The latest from the blogger Rabbi Reuvein Spolter.  He writes on the "Chopping Wood" blog about "divrei Torah and community issues."  

On Sunday morning Lenny Solomon was interviewed for the Jewish radio show JM in the AM.  He generously gave a shout out to Good Shabbos Nebraska (100 min)  and told people how much he loved the idea and the program.  

A few minutes later, Rabbi Spolter, in Israel, wrote the following. 

Listening to an interview with Lenny Solomon of Shlock Rock, who mentioned that he was just in Omaha Nebraska, where the rabbi, instead of giving a sermon, turns the entire shul into basically a talk-show set. (You kind of have to see it to get a sense of what he's doing: http://www.goodshabbosnebraska.com/#!about/c10fk. This raises so many questions: (1) What do the regular members think? (2) Is it working to boost the shul's popularity? (3) Finally, and perhaps most importantly, does turning shul into a makeshift TV studio (albeit a Shomer Shabbat one) cheapen the notion of mikdash me'at, and turn what should be a sacred space into yet another symbol of our popular culture? What say you Rabbi Jon Gross?

Lenny Solomon kindly responded with the following

HI Reuven - Just think Avraham Avinu. You are in Israel where people are on board with Judaism or not. Here in Omaha you need to be creative - out of the box. It frankly was the most exciting program I have ever seen. The sermon was given as a monologue a ala Johnny Carson. The Kids were involved. Torah is alive and well in Omaha. Kudos to Rabbi Gross! 

Thanks Lenny!

To answer Rabbi Spolter's questions directly - Thank God, my membership is overall very supportive.  It takes a lot of guts to support a Rabbi in doing something out of the box.  Good Shabbos Nebraska would not exist if it were not for the support of the Beth Israel congregation, and I grateful for their support.

After 13 straight episodes I think everyone would agree that it has been a success.  Regular attendance is up. Our regulars are coming more regularly, and we have seen lots of people who have never come in the past.

20 and 30 years ago most Jews had a bubby and zeidi that were religious.  Davening did not speak to the unaffiliated Jew, but the traditional synagogue still had a nostalgia that spoke to them.

Today, American Jews are 4th and 5th generation assimilated.  Their grandparents were already estranged from the synagogue.  The traditional format is alienating and intimidating to them.  Over the years I have stretched the bounds of my own creativity to make davening more meaningful, but there is only so much that can be done with the traditional format.

And I am not the only Rabbi who struggled with this.  This is a national problem.

Good Shabbos Nebraska maintains the traditional service and does not compromise davening at all.  It simply substitutes the sermon with something that speaks to everyone.

Although I have not yet had a respected halachic authority as a guest on GSN as of yet (stay tuned for season 2!) when I developed the concept of GSN I was in consultation with a number of Rabbinic authorities who all encouraged me to proceed with the program.

Etan G - the Jewish Rapper - really enjoyed the format.  In his words,

usually when a Rabbi gives a sermon, after five minutes you want to blow your head off.  On Good Shabbos Nebraska he had the crowd engaged for almost an entire hour - and 75% of it was Torah.

While I am not in complete agreement with everything he said - the show is usually much less than an hour, and I would say that more than 75% is Torah - but his point is that people are tired of sermons.  The format just doesn't work - even for the best orators.  That is why television features talk shows and not sermon shows.

At one point the sermon was considered a controversial innovation that was meant to engage people in the same way fashion as the non-Jewish culture.  Today it has become the norm in even the most traditional synagogues.  Today the talk show format is an anomaly, but who knows, perhaps one day this will be the new normal for synagogue format.

Just as Lenny Solomon elevates the songs of classic groups the like Beatles by putting words  of Torah to their songs, my goal is to elevate the format of Johnny Carson, Dave Letterman, and Jon Stewart but inserting words of Torah into their format.

While it may be controversial, in my view Good Shabbos Nebraska not only brings sanctity to the synagogue, more importantly it brings people to the synagogue, and it fulfills our primary goal which is to spread words of Torah and to get Jews to love being Jewish.

That is exactly what we do every Shabbos at 10 am ONLY at Beth Israel Synagogue - where every shabbos is a shabbaton!

The Goal of Good Shabbos Nebraska

This week at 10am is the world premier of Good Shabbos Nebraska (GSN), America's favorite Shabbos morning Talk show.

The headliner this week is America's Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.  Shmuley has an incredible following in Omaha and many people are excited that they will have a chance to hear him in person at Beth Israel this week.

But there are also many people who expressed interest in coming this week who are attracted to the novelty of the talk show format of Good Shabbos Nebraska.

I have even been contacted by other shuls throughout the country who are interested in throwing away their own pulpits and swapping them for a talk show of their own.

People have asked me what is the goal of GSN..

As I have written in an earlier post, Omaha's Jewish community does not have a culture of Synagogue attendance.  Since my article, the Pew research center has released a study about American Jews and the future looks bleak.

I know that hundreds of people are going to come this Shabbos to hear Shmuley.  (We are probably going to have to cut off the crowd if it exceeds 350 - so come early to ensure a seat!)

But my target audience is not the "one and done crowd".  I am hoping to catch a pool of 75 to 100 Omaha Jews who see the program and say, "this was fun.  This is something that I would come to again in the future."  I don't expect that they will come every week, but if 100 people decided that they will come once a month, or when they see an interesting speaker advertised on the GSN Facebook page - even if that speaker is not an international celebrity - that would be a great victory for Jewish Omaha.

Introducing - GOOD SHABBOS NEBRASKA

This week is the premier of GOOD SHABBOS NEBRASKA -American's favorits Shabbos morning talk show.

The city of Omaha has 6,000 Jews of which less than 2% attend synagogue on any given Shabbos morning. That is not a healthy statistic for any Jewish community.  

As I mentioned in a recent op ed for the Omaha Jewish Press, the most authoritative polling institute for religious life is the Pew Research Center.  Without rattling off any statistics, the very fact that they call themselves the PEW center tells us that PEWs - those benches that we have in Synagogues - are a reliable indicator of a communities vitality.  The JEW to PEW ratio in Omaha does not speak well for our community.

I chose the synagogue business as a career path because I have always believed, and continue to believe, that shuls build community.  When people go to shul they become more educated Jews, more passionate Jews, and more caring Jews.

When people don't go to shul their Torah knowledge suffers, they become detached from the needs of the community, and they become apathetic and start to wonder why we need a Jewish community in the first place.  

I love the Omaha Jewish community.  I have dedicated the last ten years of my life to helping strengthen this community, and I believe that this wonderful community has great potential.  But if we are going to ensure the future of our community we need to come back to shul.  

So to meet the needs of our community we are completely revamping our Shabbos morning format and introducing GOOD SHABBOS NEBRASKA!  (check it out at www.goodshabbosnebraska.com)

The pulpit format has had its time.  Today people want a format that talks with them - not at them.  So we are opening up our prime time Shabbos morning slot, and instead of a pulpit - a desk, chairs, and a coffee mug.  Instead of a sermon - an opening monologue.  

And most important instead of the same thing every week - special guests every Shabbos.  Our first guest is going to be America's Rabbi - the one and only - Shmuley Boteach!

Shmuley is the perfect guest for our new initiative.  He is certainly no stranger to the talk show format.  He has been a regular on Oprah and he hosted his own television show -Shalom in the Home - on TLC.  He will definitely make for a great speaker.  

Shmuley is not just coming as a speaker.  Just like on Shalom in the Home Shumley is coming here as a consultant.  He is probably the most creative Rabbi in the world.  Good Shabbos Nebraska is a great concept, but to get it off the ground and change the culture of our community we are going to need the input of someone who know how to create systemic change.  And nobody does that better than Shmuley!

As I write this, Shmuley is sitting with Elie Wiesel and the president of Rwanda running a program in New York City on Genocide that will no doubt inspire tens of thousands of people to take action and try and affect the terrible situation in Syria.  

Shmuley knows how to inspire people to action.  And Omaha's Jewish community needs action!

My modest goal is to see synagogue attendance in Omaha increase to 4% of our Jewish community - a 100% increase - over the next year.  It may not seem like much, but it is a start, and we have to start somewhere.  

So come out every week at 10 am to Beth Israel.  This week Shmuley Boteach, and every subsequent week we are going to have A list guests learning Torah and speaking on contemporary, relevant, and interesting Jewish topics.  Check out the full line up at www.goodshabbosnebraska.com or like our facebook page for regular updates.

Omaha Jews, come back to shul.  Learn the Torah, learn the needs of the community, and understand the uniqueness and importance of being Jewish so we can pass down a substantive and meaningful tradition to our children.