The following is a list of questions that participants (or prospective participants) in the ECE have asked in the past. You can read through the full list or click on any of the questions below to go directly to the answer to that question.

1. What are the goals of ECE?
2. Why is learning critical for revitalizing congregations?
3. Is the ECE trying to make everyone more "frum" (religiously observant)?
4. Why would my congregation want to be involved?
5. Who are the principal leaders?
6. What types of congregations are involved?
7. How does the process work?
8. How was the process developed?
9. What assistance can we expect to receive?
10. Why can’t we just have access to a list of successful programs?
11. Do the participating congregations work together?
12. Where does the religious school fit in?
13. How much time will it take and when is it over?
14. What is the difference between ECE and Synagogue 2000?

1. What are the goals of ECE?
ECE strives to help congregations discover how learning can revitalize their synagogue communities through a tested and proven multi-stage process of working toward becoming both:

• Congregations of learners— where members of a congregation have a common understanding that Jewish learning is for everyone, and where they experience a range of engaging and stimulating opportunities for learning; and


• Self-Renewing Congregations—with increased capacity to be proactive, deliberative, and reflective, to experiment continually, and to practice collaborative leadership among lay and professional leaders.

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2. Why is learning critical for revitalizing congregations?
Learning is critical because:

• Learning is at the core of our identities as Jews;
• Learning brings people together, creating the sense of community so many are seeking;
• Learning enables individuals to connect personal dilemmas to Jewish social and ethical values;
• Learning tends to spill over into other aspects of congregational life, affecting members’ approach to prayer, to ethics, to ritual practice and celebrations, and to community building and social justice;
• As our sages taught (Pirke Avot 2:7), "The more Torah, the more life!"

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3. Is the ECE trying to make everyone more “frum” (religiously observant)?
No. The ECE does not have any preconceived notions of what the content of learning should be in any one congregation, nor does it hold any one vision as the ideal. There is no cookie-cutter approach to what congregations must look like or what they must do. You will decide what the substance will be. Your consultant’s role—and the role of the ECE process—is to help you to articulate, intensify, broaden, and realize your vision. Although the ECE is based in the Reform movement (at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education of HUC-JIR in Los Angeles), the ECE project is multi-denominational; it respects the movement affiliations and ideologies of its participant congregations.

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4. Why would my congregation want to be involved?
Congregations that have worked through the ECE process have experienced greater vibrancy throughout the synagogue community, coming not only from new learning options, but also from:

• Knowledge of, and response to, member interests and concerns;
• Identification of communal purpose and direction;
• Development of new leaders;
• Partnership of lay leaders and professionals.

Involvement with the ECE brings to your congregation the ECE’s wealth of information, resources, support, and experience along with the expertise of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education. ECE materials, research, consultation, kallot (gatherings), and Internet-based tools provide a proven infrastructure and process to enable revitalization. Without these, the process would be far more difficult, would take much more work, and the likelihood of sustainable success would be reduced.

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5. Who are the principal leaders of the ECE?
Dr. Rob Weinberg is the Director of the ECE, having served the program for seven years as organizational change consultant. He has developed many of the program’s critical guidelines and methods, and has frequently advised individual congregations. With a professional background in organizational culture and development, Rob has consulted with Fortune 500 corporations and a wide range of other Jewish organizations.

Dr. Isa Aron served as Founding Director of the ECE since the launch in 1992, and continues to serve as Senior Advisor, providing expertise in Jewish education innovations, program development and congregational change. In Becoming a Congregation of Learners (Jewish Lights, 2000), Dr. Aron documents how learning can become a pathway for congregational revitalization, using much of the experience of the pioneering ECE congregations, and outlines a roadmap for congregations embarking on this journey.

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6. What types of congregations are involved?
Participating congregations vary by size (300 to nearly 3,000 member units), geography (urban, suburban and rural in all regions) and culture. In some of the congregations, learning was central before starting, and in some other congregations, learning was active only in the religious school for young children.

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7. How does the process work?
The ECE process leads each congregation to its own destination; there is no preconceived set of programmatic outcomes. Each congregation forms a task force of 20 to 40 staff and lay leaders. The task force engages in a process of revitalization consisting of five stages:

1. Preparation and self-assessment ("Readiness") – a diverse group of members learns about the congregation’s history and culture through exercises, reflection and study to enable them to make a decision about whether or not to proceed, to set realistic goals, and to provide a foundation for future work.
2. Visioning – a variety of exercises enables the task force to articulate its vision (or dream) of the congregation as a Congregation of Learners.
3. Experimenting with a number of short-term programmatic enhancements ("low-hanging fruit") – the task force creates a number of small, innovative, and easy-to-implement programs that have been suggested in the course of visioning and provide the congregation a taste of the future.
4. Outreach to the congregation – the task force hosts small group conversations with representatives of the community to promote the idea of a Congregation of Learners, to brainstorm ideas for innovative learning and to get feedback on the vision.
5. Exploration – based on a few priorities identified in the previous phases, the task force forms working groups around three to five themes. Each working group typically assesses congregational needs, studies the theme through articles and speakers, investigates what others do, experiments, and develops a plan including staffing and funding requirements.

These phases frequently lead to a long-range plan to realize the vision or to a series of innovations to be phased-in as resources become available. The ECE provides knowledge, information, tools, templates, consultation, and a forum for learning from other congregations to support each step of the process.

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8. How was the process developed?
The ECE process was designed by a team of more than 20 experts over a period of eight years representing a wide range of disciplines and experience, including: organizational consultants; a specialist in public school change; researchers in the areas of educational change and adult learning; and Jewish educators with experience in a wide range of settings. In designing this process, we borrowed from work done in corporations and public schools, bearing in mind the many differences between congregations and these other organizations. We tested this thinking in the pilot congregations systematically and refined the process. As new congregations join the ECE, and as congregations who are not officially part of the project utilize the model, our ideas and methods are continually refined.

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9. What assistance can we expect to receive?
The ECE is constantly developing and refining the various ways in which we provide congregations with information, resources, and support. Depending on the specific project and community, and as our online capabilities develop, congregations may gain access to:

1. A consultant selected and trained by the ECE;
2. Community-based and/or national workshops with other ECE congregations;
3. An Internet-based Team Workspace to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of the congregational team;
4. A wealth of tools for synagogue transformation including exercises, text study guides, articles, worksheets, and other materials;
5. A mentor drawn from congregations with experience in synagogue transformation and programmatic innovation;
6. Online distance learning modules that profile Jewish educational programmatic innovations in action and integrate with a guided adaptation protocol;
7. Opportunities to learn from and converse with both innovative program creators and national experts in congregational education and synagogue transformation; and
8. A virtual community of other people like themselves who are actively engaged and/or experienced in their own synagogue transformation efforts.
   
   

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10. Why can’t we just have access to a list of successful programs?
Working toward revitalizing the congregation requires much more than a batch of new programs and classes. For a lasting change to occur, a shift of culture is frequently required. Indeed, the nature of the change will be different at each congregation, in keeping with a congregation’s history, current culture, location, ideology, size and demography. Also, to attempt to implement new programs and expect cultural change would be to lose the opportunity for reflection, discussion and debate that lasting change requires. While ECE congregations have learned a great deal from each other, they also learn that the experiences of another congregation must be evaluated through the filter of the history and culture of their unique community.

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11. Do the participating congregations work together?
Yes. Leaders from ECE congregations meet periodically in community-based and/or national gatherings (kallot). In addition, our vision for the future includes enabling congregations to share their experiences through an Internet-based "virtual" community of other people like themselves who are actively engaged and/or experienced in their own synagogue transformation efforts.

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12. Where does the religious school fit in?
Once a congregation has evolved a culture of learning, and once learning among adults has become the norm, the number of options for successful learning among children will multiply. Experience has shown that when a core of adults is clear about the place of learning in Jewish life, and they themselves are committed to learning, creative and meaningful learning opportunities for children arise naturally. See information about the DrEAMRS Consortium and ECE’s San Francisco Bay Area-based Innovative Models of the Religious School projects for background about new efforts based on ECE’s study of innovations and alternative models of the religious school. In each of these efforts, congregations work to re-imagine their religious schools using ECE knowledge and tools.

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13. How much time will it take and when is it over?
The pilot ECE congregations took two to three years to work through the five-stage process. With each new project, ECE is continually searching for ways to accelerate the process and to create results with fewer resources in less time. Yet the experience of the pilot congregations is instructive. Having realized significant progress toward their own vision of what it means for them to become a Congregation of Learners and a Self-Renewing Congregation, pilot congregations have discovered that capabilities built through the process are applicable in many arenas of congregational life including governance, planning, and programming. For example, one congregation has successfully adapted the "Preparation" stage to an ambitious program of leadership development. Other congregations have used their "Visioning" skills and techniques to set priorities and focus the efforts of committees. Still other congregations have applied the ECE’s approach to "Outreach" (community conversations) to learn about member needs and to tailor new initiatives. Once committed to the values and process of the ECE, these new tools and methods make the ECE a journey that continues.

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14. What is the difference between ECE and Synagogue 2000?
Since 1992, ECE’s work with congregations has been grounded in the belief that learning is the primary pathway to the revitalization of congregations. The ECE emphasizes a process for synagogue revitalization through which each synagogue clarifies and pursues its own vision. The ECE is currently working to increase its reach to congregations across North America through distance learning technology, Internet-based communication tools, and virtual community. Synagogue 2000 has initially focused on a curriculum of prayer and healing as the beginning points of synagogue transformation and is now beginning to address ambience and learning.

The ECE was founded by Dr. Isa Aron and is based at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Synagogue 2000 is a freestanding organization founded by co-developers Dr. Ron Wolfson of the University of Judaism and Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman of HUC-JIR, New York.

The originators of ECE and Synagogue 2000 are colleagues who often look for collaborative opportunities. Indeed, in 1999, ECE and Synagogue 2000 sponsored a joint gathering of alumni of the two projects.

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