“The Synagogue is the sanctuary of Israel, born of Israel’s longing for God. Throughout our wanderings it has endured as a stronghold of hope and inspiration, teaching us the holiness of life and inspiring in us a love of all humanity” (1) Such is the liturgical expression of the function of the synagogue in our people’s past.

As we look toward the Jewish future, it would be appropriate to view the synagogue in more futuristic terms.

Future Shock

The synagogue in essence is to serve the Jewish people as the absorber of “future shock” by providing an environment for its members to experience a stability which at the same time supports change. Alvin Toffler popularized “future shock” as a means of putting a handle on the ‘phenomena of coping with increasingly rapid technological, social and personal change.

Toffler defines “future shock” as “the distress, both physical and psychological, that arises from an overload of the human organism’s physical adaptive systems and its decision-making process,”(2) or in simpler terms, “Future shock is the human response to overstimulation.”(3]

Toffler’s “future shock” concept may be approached from two perspectives. Firstly, recent studies conducted point to the likelihood of sickness following an individual’s undergoing a great deal of stress due to changes in one’s life. It is now “possible to show in dramatic form that the rate of change in a person’s life – his pace of life – is closely tied to the state of his health.” |1|) Secondly, culture shock is that “profound disorientation suffered by the traveler who has plunged without adequate preparation into an alien culture “(5) in which he is “forced to grapple with unfamiliar and unpredictable events, relationships and objects. His habitual ways of accomplishing things…are no longer appropriate… in this setting fatigue arrives more quickly than usual.”(6)

Toffler’s thesis is that the speeding up of the rate of change in our society is bringing with it increased stress with concomitant illness and fatigue. What culture shock is to the traveler, future shock is to those who stay at home!

The synagogue is the Jewish institution that is best able to provide support for its people to deal with future shock. The synagogue historically provided the Jewish people with important antidotes to the phenomena of culture shock and the crises of personal and seasonal change.

• Ethno-therapy
• Sacred Aging
• Could Judaism be Ethno Therapy for Future Shock?

Link to Ethnotherapy Revisited

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jewish-ethnotherapy-revisited-nicolas-behrmann-rabbi-pmp/

Link to Ethnotherapy Framework

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/therapy-framework-jewish-ethnotherapy-nicolas-behrmann-rabbi-pmp/

Link to Rabbi as Ethnotherapist https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rabbi-ethnotherapist-nicolas-behrmann-rabbi-pmp/

Jewish Religious Education as Ethnotherapy – an early 1970’s approach