Mission and Vision

Mission:

Bayit is building a soulful, inclusive and meaningful Jewish life for all ages and stages.  Our visionary teams of clergy, liturgists, artists, educators and other thought leaders across and beyond denominational life develop, test, refine and distribute tools for a Jewish future always under construction.

Vision:

From Bayit’s building vision emerge keystone principles for building Jewish life:

• Building is for everyone.  A Judaism in which all can be builders must uplift the leadership and innovation of all ages, all genders and sexual orientations, all races and ethnicities, and visionaries with all kinds of inner wiring.
• Building is for all streams of Jewish life.  A Judaism of wisdom must flow with the ever-changing streams of Jewish life, in every form that treasures diversity, and wise innovation rooted in Jewish values, times and practices.
• Building is for lived experience.  A practical Judaism puts experience first, bringing to life ancient designs (text, values, prayer, social justice, rhythms) with modern tools, structures and systems.
• Building is constantly in progress.  A Judaism that increases wisdom and completeness is always “under construction,” with tools that wisely and playfully “remix” tradition with innovation, what’s been and what’s next.
• Building needs both grounding and height. A Judaism of builders needs designs that serve their purposes, strong and stable grounding, and height to rise above foundations – all balanced to stand strong and gently move with shifting ground.
• Building needs the right tools for the right jobs.  Wise building uses design tools of research and development – to courageously try, measure, tweak and try again – balancing best practices and subjective experience.
• Building must be real.  A Judaism of real wisdom and lasting value must be authentic both inwardly and outwardly.

To fulfill this vision, Bayit inhabits the dynamic intersection of three overlapping centers of creative vitality:  

• Bayit is a multi-skill collective.  Bayit brings together diverse creatives in liturgy, ritual, visual art, music, thought leadership, pedagogical excellence and public engagement to create together what wouldn’t be possible alone. 
• Bayit is a dynamic encounter network.  Bayit innovates by consciously curating collaboration spaces that are diverse in denomination, demography, communal context, perspective, age, gender and sexual identity, so that imagineers’ strengths and differences can catalyze collective creativity and excellence.
• Bayit is a design-thought incubator.  Bayit uses modern design-thinking systems – grounded in system theory, and refined in leadership development and business circles – to think outside boxes, align creativity with use cases, scale production and hold ourselves and each other accountable.