Interview

Rabbi Yehoshua Engelman

Rabbi – Educational Director, Yakar Tel Aviv, Israel
Tel Aviv

Rabbi Engelman is the rabbi of Yakar in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is also a psychotherapist and has composed four musical albums based on texts from the Tanach and modern Israeli poetry.

How long have you been involved with the NGO?

For about 18 years since the founding of Yakar in Jerusalem, and for 2 years since founding Yakar in Tel Aviv.

Why did you get involved?

Yakar best expressed my beliefs and ideals.

Have you always worked in the NGO field?

For several years I was self-employed as manager of my own cleaning business, and I currently work as a psychotherapist and as a composer-musician.

Why is nonprofit work important?

People forget that helping those in need is also the path for growth of those working in the field, and NGOs empower those working in them, make them better people, through helping those in need. Besides which, bettering society should not be a centrally controlled or uniform matter, rather something which is multi-faceted, respecting society's fringes and variety, harnessing people of many paths to do what they believe and are good at. Even if the government were to fund all NGOs one would have to decline the offer.

Did you have an inspirational figure in your life growing up?

Several teachers inspired me in various ways. The most inspirational were the humblest, people who were not only wise giving great teachers who related to different people in differing ways, but who seemed to have no pride about being thus and doing so. Perhaps the most inspiring was one Rabbi Freiman who showed how learning and helping needy could be experienced as one doing and being.

Are there other selfless leaders out there you admire? If so, who and why?

There are very many, I hear about them constantly, and feel humbled when meeting them or hearing about them. But inspiration is not only something which ''happens''; It is to be sought, thirsted for, and when one seeks - then one finds many inspirational figures, and one finds inspiration in many people.

If there is one place or issue out there in the world you could personally explore, what would it be?

I would most love to explore cultures close to home, Arab and Muslim countries surrounding Israel, preferably in their own language. One so often hears about ''conflicts'' as if these follow a pattern, rather than each being a result of a unique interaction in which two people, countries or cultures find themselves, from which they could rather learn and grow. The closer these are to us, the more they mirror us and can enhance our own search for identity.

What is the mission statement of your organization?

Yakar believes in commitment to learning Torah that is relevant to our deepest being while upholding our intellectual integrity. Yakar challenges its community to think deeply and creatively about their identity and its relationship with world at large.

When was it created, by whom, and why?

Yakar was created by the late Rabbi Mickey Rosen (deceased 2007) after creating Yakar in London which rejuvenated and stimulated, challenged, and energized British Jewry, he then re-established it in Jerusalem where it continues functioning. Rabbi Rosen dreamed that a Yakar Center in Tel Aviv, which would be uniquely appropriate to Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural center, and its milieu, would interact and challenge the city's way of seeking to model itself on western secular society.

What is your operating budget? What would you do with more funds?

$130,000 a year. More funds would be used to fund Friday morning classes which have stated this month and which are greatly needed by people who cannot attend at other times. Funds would also facilitate our social activism projects, and spirituality tracks for exploring Judaism's participation in world religion and culture, and also go to funding Torah-film study programs with filmmakers involved in Yakar and teachers showing the relevance of spirituality and religion to modern society through cinema and associated media.

Outside of funding, what are some of the biggest challenges it faces? Or, specifically, what is the most frustrating part?

Prejudices. Israeli society is simplistically divided into orthodox and secular people, many people fearing being swayed and persuaded to change their lifestyles if they open to their own souls and traditions. Tel Aviv has aspirations to be a middle-east New York rather than being a place of merging of religions and creation of a new type of authentic spirituality, one deeply engaging with the modern world and creating from and in it religious search. This is a great challenge and frequently a frustrating one, often needing to awaken people before they can at all hear, but a very satisfying one when those people see and understand that they may have left their own soul's needs unattended for a long time.

What is your dream for the NGO?

To foster and inspire similar centers in Israel and abroad, places which attend people's deep spiritual needs, that can embody and exhibit the universal idea of perennial religion which can enhance people on their own path of personal growth and attention to the needs of others. Social concern and activity become so much deeper and sensitive when enhanced, informed, and connected to authentic religion and deep wisdom.

What would you consider Yakar’s greatest accomplishment?

Overcoming many people's preconceptions and prejudices about what a Jewish center is and can be, for them personally too, that it can be professedly Jewish yet open and engaging and part of their cultural menu. Also in empowering congregants' and students' own ability to teach, work, help and enhance others, do charitable work, lead services and spread their own wings.

What are three things about Yakar that you wish people knew?

• That we are open to every person of any persuasion, creed, belief, religion and race
• That we seek, hope and desire to learn from all those who enter
• That we do not have "the answers"

Do you think media accurately portrays the issues your organization represents?

The exposure we have received has been positive and fair, given the limits of media in representing complex outlooks and its simplification of matters. We have preferred to ''prove'' ourselves in doing before publicizing ourselves.

How can people get involved?

By sending us an email or contacting us!

How was the grant given by explore through the Annenberg Foundation used?

• To fund the teachers in the programs teaching Kabalah and Jewish meditation
• To fund and publicize series and lectures conducted in partnership with the Tovanah (Vipasana) Center in Tel Aviv and with Yakar's Center for Social Concern
• Reaching out to people who would otherwise be wary of searching

Do you think it had an impact and how?

As regards numbers — Yakar in Tel Aviv has become known outside of its immediate vicinity with hundreds of people entering its gates every month from towns far outside of Tel Aviv. It has also created an awareness that things can be done differently - whether prayer, learning, or social justice activities. This has, perhaps inevitably, brought some criticism from the "religious establishment'' that is, by nature, wary re: things not being done in the conventional way.

What was your biggest surprise when explore came to visit you?

Meeting Charles! Also - seeing how the whole team of explore - the Imam, the P.A.'s, film crew, photographer, everyone - was enthused and interested in discovering and learning, and not there just to do a job.

Why is it important to be a selfless person?

That’s a little like asking "Why is it important to be awake?" When one awakens to selflessness one knows how slumber-like one's previous existence was. One is alive, awake, to the extent that one is selfless, but it's hard simply decide to be selfless; rather one can hope, choose, and strive to be ever more selfless. Being selfless isn't ''important'' so much as it is blissful, enhancing, beautifying, makes one more caring, empathetic, flexible, supple, good-company, attentive, empowered, lighter, giving, alive!

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?

Myself. Also - bigotry and racism.

What do you believe to be the biggest challenge facing our planet today?

Ignorance, and greed. People seek increasing possessions and power for fear, fear of not ''having'' enough, measuring up, etc. One cannot fight evil, stupidity, faithlessness, only try to broaden and spread wisdom, goodness, faith. A planet where people seek wisdom and understanding - seek being - would be one where people are interested only in that which facilitates freedom and is needed to pursue these, a world disdaining distractions from knowledge, which abhors avarice.

What do you think will be our planet’s biggest challenge 10 years from now? 25 years from now? 50 years from now?

Greed.

What is the key to living a happy life?

Compassion, compassion, compassion.