What can your organization do for 9Adar 2015?

There are many ways your organization can commemorate 9 Adar. Following are a number of suggestions to get the juices flowing… If you are a synagogue, school or campus, go to the bottom of this page for links for more ideas.

Traditional Fast Day Customs (Minhagim)

1. Fast (ta’anit) — Forgo your daily latte and instead donate your $5 to an organization of your choice, helping other in need.
2. Fast from destructive speech (ta’anit dibbur) — For a week before 9Adar, observe when you say things that aren’t so positive or necessary. Keep a journal. On 9Adar, replace those tendencies with only positive speech or silence.
3. Contribute (tzedakah) — Hold a fundraising event at work. Organize colleagues prior to 9Adar and help them donate to an organization that they feel creates more peace in the world. Educate colleagues about the value of being a rodef shalom for others in the process.
4. Self-reflect (teshuvah) — Create a list of the colleagues you work with on a regular basis. Identify areas of potential conflict between the 2 of you and decide how you will work to pursue more peace/harmony within those relationships.
5. Pray — (tefilah)
6. Cook/eat — (se’udah)

Be a Rodef Shalom for the Day

1. Create a Rodef Shalom Agreement (Haskamah) — Hold a staff meeting where the goal is to create a list of 8 interpersonal agreements that will make your staff work together more harmoniously. Pick one of your colleagues with which to create an agreement.
2. Greet others as a rodef shalom — Smile at people you don’t know today. Take the time to be present and listen during all your conversations.
3. Be a rodef shalomin your own conflicts — Revisit an unresolved conflict with a colleague. Take that person out for coffee and try to resolve it.
4. Be a rodef shalom for others in conflict — Identify two colleagues who have conflict between them. Make a meeting with them and sit down with them and try to help them work through the conflict.
5. Be a rodef shalom by facilitating a constructive conversation — Pick a department or group of employees that has been experiencing a great deal of conflict lately. Hold a meeting where the goal is for them to create empathy on both sides, with the goal of helping them to understand each others positions by the end of the meeting.
6. Invite a professional rodef shalom — Identify someone in your community who you feel is working professionally to create more harmony for others in society. Invite that person to come speak with colleagues.

Learn/Teach (Talmud Torah)

1. Write
2. Study/read/listen — Set up an hour of staff development time to study some classic Jewish texts on Jewish peacemaking. Include quotes or articles from conflict resolution theory.
3. Give a dvar torah (words of Torah)
4. Teach
5. Announce/share/tell
6. Create

Examples

The following examples from 9Adar 2014 that may generate additional ways for your organization to participate:

• Encounter offered to use their facilitators for constructive conversation about Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read more…
• Shakla v’Tarya held a workshop about constructive conflict and machloket l’shem shamayim with 18 Israelis, primarily from the business world and posted tips on the 9Adar blog.
• Plugta held a tour for about 30 people in Bnei Brak in honor of 9Adar, including a tour of Punavitch Yeshiva (which suffered major disputes in the 1990′s eventually splitting the yeshiva practically into two yeshivas) and discussion between secular and orthodox Jews.
• The Rehovot Mediation Center, in conjunction with the municipality, held a special communal-wide day for conflict resolution and building bridges. The municipality declared the day as the “City Mediation Day”. Programs took place in 10 schools. 9Adar was exposed to more than 1,500 students. About 40 mediators were present in each school and participated in the activities of the day. Dr. Dak Eliyahu from Bar-Ilan University lectured about co-mediation.

Links for synagogues, schools and campuses with ideas of what can be done on 9Adar.