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After nearly two months of intense social distancing, we are all finding ourselves longing for things to return to normal — and recognizing that it might be a long while before that happens. But is a return to business as usual really what we should aim for? The extended disruption gives us a chance to take stock of how we’ve operated up to now, consider alternatives and even build a better vision for the future. We’re already seeing that happen across the Jewish world. Jews of all denominations have tapped digital tools to deliver the Torah and connection that had been largely analog. The heartbeats of Jewish life — weddings, funerals, bar and bat mitzvahs, studying Torah, cooking together, telling jokes and daily minyanim — have been reimagined to match the circumstances. And communities are stepping up to support their neediest members in new ways. But those have mostly been quick fixes, responsive and scattershot rather than carefully considered and coordinated. What if we had a shared vision for the Jewish future, so we could do more than just fumble our way there?

Professional Development in Relational Learning Communities: Teachers in Connection consolidates a decade of action research from three successive cycles of week-long summer seminars for teachers, all designed to foster a Relational Learning Community (RLC). The clarity with which the book documents how disparate theoretical frames animate the seminar’s design and the intentionality behind each of the seminars’ practices is notable; it is the unique blend of gravitas and heart with which Raider-Roth and her faculty approach their project, that leaves its deepest impression on the reader.

Day schools don’t last forever, but they should. Here’s the typical pattern: Parents send their kids to a day school. The kids graduate. The parents become uninvolved. The kids, well, they grow up. They get married, have kids and, if everything goes as hoped, send their children to day school. This is a flawed model. The huge gap in a family’s active day school engagement is one reason that schools face such serious sustainability issues, and why they serve only a small fraction of the population. The solution to this problem — and perhaps to the problem of Jewish day schools in general — is that the schools need to think bigger.

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network (SPN) has launched #MakeItHappen, a new micro-grants initiative that invites individuals to submit ideas for creating Jewish experiences in their communities. Between October and December 2013, SPN will select up to 50 ideas from around the world to receive micro grants of up to $1,000. Five ideas could receive up to $5,000.