Call Benji Brandzel a “Minyan kid.”
For as long as he can remember, his family has been active in the East Bay-based Aquarian Minyan. He celebrated his bar mitzvah with the group and has been a cantorial soloist at Minyan High Holy Day services. Now 18, he serves on the Minyan’s “council” or elected governing board — its youngest member.
As the Minyan marks its 25th anniversary this month with a typically lively mix of workshops, rituals and parties, members are asking themselves how to ensure that involvement such as Brandzel’s is the norm rather than the exception.
“The biggest challenge right now is how to make [the Minyan] more than a one-generation phenomenon, how to transmit it to our children and their children,” said Aryae Coopersmith, a longtime member and shomer, or president, of the council. “What we would really like to have is hundreds and hundreds of kids like Benji.
“It’s not easy to do,” he admitted. “We have to ask ourselves a lot of questions.”
The Minyan, a Jewish Renewal community characterized by exuberant music and dance-filled worship, has formed a committee to come up with answers.
Ideas include a family camp with Jewish programming. Another is to have Minyan teens lead High Holy Day services.
The Minyan recently instituted “mishpacha nights” encompassing Shabbat services and potlucks especially appropriate in time and tone for families. And a Minyan youth group will bring children ages 7 to 12 together for adventures and community projects.
Engaging young people in the Minyan “is going to be the big determining factor for the future,” said Chasya Wolley, whose 6-year-old daughter attends “Minyan Little Kids,” a Shabbat afternoon program that involves singing, storytelling, crafts and other activities.
Wolley, a middle school teacher who lives in Martinez, started attending the Minyan last fall. Back then she went by her birth name, Cynthia. Now she also goes by Chasya, the appellation her grandfather used for his granddaughter. It means “one who receives compassionate protection for God.”
That name, Wolley said, represents the sense of latent Jewish spirituality Aquarian Minyan has helped spark in her. “I love the beautiful, alive communal worship experience,” she said. “There’s joyful, celebratory worship.”
It has been that way from the beginning, when the group grew out of workshops conducted by former Chassidic Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
Meeting in private homes, the Minyan’s worship — which often incorporates chanting, drumming, tambourine music and spontaneous dancing — touched the hearts of people who felt they had reached a dead end when it came to Jewish spirituality.
“It’s people who are coming together who are not satisfied in conventional Judaism, who are coming together to renew the holy,” Coopersmith said.
That’s what Wolley was seeking when a friend introduced her to Aquarian. “I grew up in a Jewish family where being Jewish was a cultural heritage and an ethical system but nothing spiritual was ever approached,” she said.
From its first days, the Aquarian Minyan stressed egalitarianism and participation. This was not to be a passive worship experience.
Reuven Goldfarb, an active member of the Minyan since the start, remembers the key role improvisation played in early worship sessions.
“There was a sense of anticipation, excitement,” he said. “There was a certain magic in the air and sense of pent-up energy that was going to be released sometime during the evening.
“At one point during the evening, there was sure to be a rousing Sh’ma,” he continued. “There would be meditation, sharing. It would generally be kicked off by whoever felt it was time for that. There was an urgency and pressure for everything to be very real.”
Goldfarb’s wife Yehudit, a founding member of the group, said there was little doubt that the group would have staying power.
“We had an image this was a worldwide happening that should go on and on,” she said. “What I remember most was a soaring spirituality where the yearning was to connect with God or the universe or the Divine, something beyond ourselves. What then happened was we felt connected to each other.
“We’ve grown from about 30 people coming togetherfor Shabbat every week to the equivalent of a congregation and a network worldwide.”
The Minyan now has approximately 150 dues-paying households. To this day, services take place in members’ homes, since the community has no permanent building and does not wish to obtain one.
Self-led by members for 22 years, the Minyan hired part-time spiritual leaders, husband and wife team Rabbis Victor and Nadya Gross, last year. Several months later, the rabbis received their smicha, or rabbinical ordination, by Schachter-Shalomi.
One of their main challenges, the Grosses say, is instilling the Minyan with a strong organizational foundation while not squelching its highly independent character.
“What we’re facing right now in the Minyan is developing an infrastructure that ensures a future while remaining true to the original impulse, which was to be innovative and spontaneous and flexible,” Nadya Gross said.
Though the Minyan has a decided tilt toward Jewish Renewal, members have a wide range of backgrounds and levels of religious observance.
“All the denominations are welcome, and we span all denominations,” Yehudit Goldfarb said. Non-Jews have come to worship there; some have converted.
“We haven’t made that distinction,” Goldfarb said. “People who are interested spiritually have come and felt at home even if they’re not Jewish. One of the things we’ve always had is the sense that everyone counts.”