[This post is an AI readout of Heller Stern and Allen’s approaches – Notebook NLM]

A series of Jewish Literacy and wellness programs drawing on the approaches of Dr. Miriam Heller Stern and Rabbi Adina Allen would aim to cultivate Jewish creativity as a vital force for personal growth, spiritual engagement, and community resilience in a dynamic world. This merged approach would move beyond traditional models of Jewish education to foster habits of creative thinking, rooted in Jewish wisdom and expressed through diverse, accessible modalities.

The core philosophy would be that Jewish creativity is a “whole-souled and organic reaction to life’s values”, engaging senses, emotions, imagination, intelligence, and will. It’s about generating chidushim—novel ideas, original interpretations, and new responses—that have value for individuals, communities, and society. This creative process is seen as a means to make sense of chaos, foster healing, and continuously “remake ourselves and our world”.

A series of programs could be structured around four interconnected facets of Jewish creativity, as articulated by Dr. Stern, and deeply enriched by Rabbi Allen’s methodologies:

1. Creativity as Interpreting: Harnessing Ancient Wisdom Anew

    ◦ Concept: This facet focuses on engaging with Jewish texts, stories, and traditions not merely as passive recipients of knowledge, but as active interpreters seeking new meaning. It emphasizes asking “What could this mean? What does this mean to me? How does this impact others?” using a range of lenses and forms of expression.

    ◦ Program Elements & Methods:

        ▪ Multi-modal engagement: Learners would explore Biblical figures and narratives through song, visual art, poetry, and classical midrash, as exemplified by Alicia Jo Rabins’ “Girls in Trouble Music” project. This allows for a “multilingual” approach to understanding and expressing ideas, accessing dimensions beyond conventional language.

        ▪ Perspective-taking: Activities like those designed by Ariel Burger would invite participants to interpret illustrations, assign titles, and imagine stories, preparing them to hold nuance and complexity in real-life “dueling narratives”.

        ▪ Connecting to self and Sacred: Participants would be encouraged to see themselves in Jewish stories and use them to create their own Jewish future, fostering self-understanding and connection to the sacred.

2. Creativity as Curating: Crafting Personal & Communal Narratives

    ◦ Concept: This facet teaches intentional choice-making, helping individuals develop a sense of aesthetics, values, and criteria to guide their lives and Jewish practice. It’s about shaping one’s own proud, informed, and authentic Jewish narrative in an age of autonomy and choice.

    ◦ Program Elements & Methods:

        ▪ Values-based decision-making: Exercises would prompt reflection on personal priorities, relationships, and activities, developing a “clear and calibrated compass” for choices, similar to curating a social media feed or a music playlist.

        ▪ Designing experiences for self and others: Participants would learn to create coherent and meaningful Jewish experiences, from Shabbat meals to Bar/Bat/B-Mitzvah projects, recognizing what is meaningful to diverse audiences.

        ▪ “Playful sampling and remixing”: Encouraging participants to borrow, sample, and remix elements of Judaism to create something new, rather than always creating from scratch (“DIY Judaism” vs. curating). This acknowledges that not everyone feels empowered to invent entirely new rituals but can confidently adapt existing ones.

3. Creativity as Making: Bringing New Offerings into Being

    ◦ Concept: This facet focuses on the expansive act of creating “new offerings”—original ideas, solutions, art, experiences, or rituals—using available resources and trusting the creative process. It aims to dismantle the myth that creativity is only for “natural born creatives” or requires high technical skill.

    ◦ Program Elements & Methods:

        ▪ Overcoming creative barriers: Workshops would provide safe environments to experiment with various media, like collage (as Dr. Stern uses with Kabbalistic sefirot to explore values) or movement (as Jon Adam Ross uses to invent “choreography of prayer”), helping participants discover meaning through the process, even if they initially feel discomfort.

        ▪ “Make art about it”: Directly adopting Rabbi Allen’s practice, programs would encourage participants to engage in art-making as a way to “make sense” of challenging situations and emotions, fostering meta-cognition and self-renewal.

        ▪ Material exploration: Drawing inspiration from Dr. Stern’s use of Aramaic incantation bowls or kintsugi, programs would integrate diverse materials and art forms to foster imaginative expression and resilience.

4. Creativity in Collaboration: Building Vibrant Jewish Communities

    ◦ Concept: This facet emphasizes cooperating with others to interpret, curate, and create together, drawing on complementary talents and perspectives to produce something greater than what could be achieved alone. It promotes “productive conflict” and constructive critique within a supportive learning culture.

    ◦ Program Elements & Methods:

        ▪ Collaborative art projects: Activities would foster group creative processes, allowing for diverse skillsets to contribute towards a shared objective, as seen in the “learning company” model.

        ▪ Structured feedback: Implementing protocols like Liz Lerman’s critical response or the Jewish Studio Project’s norms (“follow pleasure and refrain from judgment”) would ensure constructive critique and psychological safety for risk-taking.

        ▪ “Ecology of talent”: Programs would aim to create environments where participants feel valued for their contributions, fostering a “scenius” where creative genius emerges from a “cultural scene” or community.

Wellness Integration: Throughout all facets, there would be an explicit connection to wellness. The creative process, including activities like singing a nigun when words fail or engaging in art-making to process emotions, serves as a tool for emotional grounding, healing, and coping with uncertainty. The ability to continually reconstruct one’s world, find unity amidst chaos, and apply Jewish wisdom to contemporary problems directly contributes to mental and spiritual well-being and resilience.

This integrated series would provide “intentional spaces to practice making curatorial choices” and engaging in the creative process, empowering Jewish learners to “write their own narratives” and utilize “Jewish navigation tools to chart their pathways to human flourishing”.