By Betzy Lynch in La Jolla, California
The Boards of Directors of the Lawrence Family JCC and San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, led by Board Chairs Liz Nederlander Coden and Hannah Cohen, will gather to begin imagining our next chapter. At the center of our conversation will be an ancient Jewish idea with very contemporary implications for leadership: tzimtzum, the act of making space.
In Kabbalistic teaching, tzimtzum describes G-d contracting the Divine presence in order to make space for creation. The idea is paradoxical: creation becomes possible not because G-d exercises more power, but because G-d makes room for something beyond G-dself to emerge.
Professor Mordechai Rotenberg, an Israel Prize–winning scholar and pioneer of Jewish psychology, transformed this mystical concept into a practical model for human relationships. For Rotenberg, tzimtzum is not about making ourselves smaller or disappearing. We make enough space for someone else to grow while remaining fully present ourselves. It replaces an “I or you” model, where one person’s influence comes at the expense of another, with an “I and you” model, where both can exist, contribute, and grow. Importantly, Rotenberg argues that tzimtzum strengthens rather than weakens because the relationship created can become stronger than either party alone.
That feels particularly relevant to the questions before us at this unique moment in Jewish life.
Our Board’s pre-retreat reflections describe an LFJCC that can help strengthen not only our own institution, but the entire ecosystem of Jewish life in San Diego and our broader community. To do that well, we need to understand more clearly the role we are uniquely positioned to play and recognize that leadership can take many forms.
Sometimes we LEAD.
Sometimes we BUILD.
Sometimes we CONVENE.
Sometimes we CATALYZE.
Sometimes we PARTNER.
Sometimes we SUPPORT.
And sometimes we intentionally MAKE SPACE for someone else to lead.
Our Board members imagined us becoming an even stronger connector, gathering place, incubator, and platform, creating relationships rather than simply attendance and building with people rather than only for them. They also recognized that sometimes another organization, community leader, or group has expertise, relationships, or ideas that we should enthusiastically amplify rather than carving our own path.
Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, of blessed memory, an American leader and philosopher of Reform Judaism, applied tzimtzum directly to contemporary leadership, arguing that leaders must remember that people are as important as, and sometimes more important than, the undertaking itself. Leadership isn’t only about accomplishing the work. It is also about creating the conditions in which other people can contribute, grow, and lead.
And that makes tzimtzum much more than an organizational strategy.
It becomes a practice for each of us.
Consider the following:
Can I listen long enough to discover an idea better than my own?
Can I share credit and ownership?
Can I invite someone into the conversation whose voice isn’t yet being heard?
Can I use my influence, relationships, or resources to help someone else’s idea succeed?
Can I step forward boldly when my leadership is needed and step back confidently when someone else is better positioned to lead?
Perhaps that is one of the most important leadership questions for our next chapter:
How do we use our strength not simply to become a bigger and stronger JCC, but to create more space for people, ideas, partnerships, and Jewish life to flourish?
We are thinking BOLDLY, while remaining deeply grounded in Jewish wisdom and in the mission that has guided our JCC for more than 80 years.
And we know that whatever comes next will not be built by the LFJCC alone. We will build it with all of you, because our Jewish future depends on all of us.
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Betzy Lynch is the CEO of the Lawrence Family JCC.