Kumah Festival Begins!

Dear friends,

This evening we launch the third Kumah Festival, and all of us in the leadership team are feeling excited. The New Shul was founded on principles of creative engagement with the world and with the tradition, a search for “an old way that is new,” as Rabbi Nachman said. The Kumah Festival works to continue and expand those principles.  

In this week’s Parashah we find the phrase: “You shall eat old, old grain, and you shall clear out the old to make room for the new.” This verse seems to contradict itself. Are we enjoying the ancient or clearing it out to make room for the contemporary? Rashi tells us that the “old, old grain” will be of such good quality that it will have staying power for a long time. Like good wine, it will mature. Its maturation process, however, is related to the renewal that comes in each season.  

This exchange between the beauty of the ancient with the abundance of new ideas is what lies at the heart of the Kumah Festival. One infuses the other. When we will be celebrating Norman Lear this evening, we will be experiencing a century of creativity that sprung out of centuries of Jewish ideas. When we will be listening to Letty Cottin Pogrebin on Monday, we will be exploring our generation’s tactic toward women’s empowerment in relation to the incredible work of Second Wave Feminism. When we come together to watch the film Boycott we will be exploring a flawed contemporary response to a hatred that has accompanied us forever, and continues to plague us. And on Shavuot night we will celebrate our most important ancient gift, the Torah, in a new way, with ancient Hebrew, modern English, dance, music and wine.  

I hope you can join us for our rejuvenating spring festival! 

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha