American Scripture Project applies the spirituality of Jewish Torah study, or parshanut - the careful dissection and investigation of text with love - to foundational American documents. Calling a text “Scripture” separates it from its mundane purpose and elevates it to a source of moral guidance (even if we gain wisdom from it through disagreement). Exploring American scriptures from throughout our nation’s history fosters the democratic values of dignity, respect, courage, openness, compassion, and justice.

Growing polarization in our varied communities – our families, workplaces, houses of worship, and local, regional, and national governmental and nongovernmental institutions – threatens to tear us apart. America’s culture of pluralism is losing ground to a rhetorical toxicity that separates families, sows distrust within and between communities, and poisons our belief in institutions. This toxicity emerges out of a spiritual brokenness – a deep loneliness, an unmet spiritual desire to belong – rather than any intellectual or moral difference about policy or politics. 

American Scripture Project rests upon the thick cultures and interlocking relationships of congregational life. Our theory of change is that when enough American clergy introduce the practice of exploring our national narratives spiritually with their congregations, this practice will help drain our political spaces of anxiety, contempt, resentment, and cynicism; and spur us us to wrestle with, understand, question, strengthen, and/or rewrite these narratives. Therefore, this is less a set curriculum or static collection of resources than an on-ramp to a methodology. Clergy-facilitators who subscribe will receive course materials and learning guides, along with training materials on how to apply the ASP text study method to non-Jewish texts and how to orient sessions around spiritual growth and meaningful dialogue. We observe that after approximately three sessions, colleagues begin to adapt the sessions to their style in response to what works best in their congregations.

American Scripture Project does not claim to be, nor is it designed to be, a history or literature course. The text is secondary to the goal of this program: to experience deep exploration of big American ideas in a respectful, courageous, and honest environment, even when discussing contentious issues. The potential library of American scripture is vast. The texts for this program are selected using the following criteria: 

• Incorporate the fundamental American narrative ideas of liberty, equality, exceptionalism, and justice.

• Attempt to represent both normative and marginal voices from our national history.

• Demonstrate the varied ways that narrative can be used to inspire citizens.

• Reach far enough back into American history to avoid arguments about current events.

Looking at how these texts challenge our biases creates a psychic and spiritual tension; American Scripture Project’s technique grows out of that tension, and from it generates deeper, richer, new, stronger ways to see our patriotism.

We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .

A group of people unified around a common identity. Our central goal is to help restore the underlying cultural forces unifying America’s “we.”  American Scripture Project aspires to respond to the volatility, mistrust, and uncertainty in today’s environment, and counter technology’s power to toxify our disagreements, corrode our politics, and undermine our institutions, so that we may practice maintaining meaningful relationships.

The act of asserting an idea. This was America’s formative moment, not the conquering of lands and peoples, not the revolting against the British, rather the proclaiming of a moral and intellectual framework—as opposed to an ethnicity, geography, religion, or a divinely anointed monarch—and then organizing a large group around that framework. This was a novel way to establish a nation. And this makes the American endeavor precarious, because our “we” depends upon our ability to “hold,” to assert, to proclaim, to believe in our idea. Amidst our unstable and confusing times, American Scripture Project is an opportunity for congregations today to regain this unifying habit, to “hold” together.

Truths exist prior to their discovery. Gravity was here before Newton named it. By the same token, the principle of universal human dignity at the core of the Declaration, and at the center of the American project, preceded America. What happened in Philadelphia in 1776 was a discovery upon which our national experiment in self-government was founded.

In religious language, this is called Revelation. Every religion tells a story about the discovery of its core Truth, whether in the lightning at Sinai, or in the golden plates buried in upstate New York. Religions then establish a tradition to protect, maintain, interpret, and bequeath that Truth. Over time, that tradition changes, reshaping believers’ understanding of the underlying Truth, and occasionally, the ossified traditions cause schism, as believers demand new avenues to Truth.

But however a Revelation story is told, and its interpretative tradition continued, it must be lived, in homes, schools, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. Big doctrines and hermeneutics may come down from a bishop or chief rabbi, but the local pastor relays them. And while this level of Revelation may lack tomes of rules and theological arguments, the Truth here, up close, is more palpable, real, intimate, and relevant. As Pirke Avot (the 2^nd century rabbinic compilation of wisdom) teaches, “When two sit together and words of scripture pass between them, then God’s presence abides amongst them” (3:3).

Those seeking Revelation’s truth create a circle of learners, but they are more than seekers, since the circle has mourned, laughed, cried and danced together; listened to and argued with each other; grown in esteem, frustration, and love for each other. No denominational edict can replace the power of a sincere personal condolence or apology at the right moment.

At first, in a new job, the local rabbi, imam, or pastor conveys Truth based on religious authority, but over time, by modeling honesty, kindness, courage, humility, and grace, that authority gets supplemented, and eventually replaced, by pastoral trust, moral respect, and hopefully communal honor. This honor the pastor brings to the community, as facilitator, guide, teacher, and convener of the circle of learners sitting with the text. These are the values we bring to American Scripture Project, and when we apply them with care, the circle of learners can assert, “We hold these truths.”

What kind of Truth needs no evidence, no scientific proof of its veracity? This is not a fact-based truth, established and tested through experimentation, observation, peer-review, and professional standards. Rather, this is a meaning-based truth, within which a critical mass of humans agrees to find purpose for their lives. We describe meaning-based truths with words like honor and dignity, grace and kindness, concepts that defy measurement. We know these things to be true because they elicit an almost autonomic response—we do not have to calculate or decide in order to act upon such truths.

This kind of truth determines roles, forms character, and even conquers mortality in its ability to make the value of our lives last beyond our limited time. Meaning-based truths are lived out in what David Brooks has called “eulogy virtues,” the kinds of traits we remember in our beloveds when they die, as opposed to the “resume virtues” which are often fact-based achievements and accomplishments, which barely merit mention at the graveside. Such a truth is “self-evident” in that life is meaningless without it.

Often, we hold to a meaning-based truth even against the undisputable evidence of a fact-based one. Surely the fact-based truths of American chattel slavery—with its suffering, degradation, death and abuse—could not cancel the meaning-based truth of human dignity. In fact, the disconnect between the two contributed to the slow (and violent) overthrow of the former by the latter.

Because of this mortality-conquering, fact-defying power of meaning-based truth, it must be sustained like a form of Revelation, with its story and its process of interpretation. When America says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” we allow no other idea to precede this declaration of universal human dignity. It becomes the starting point, and American Scripture Project attempts to create an exegetical tradition to help us understand the magnitude of this core American meaning-based truth.

If we are to take America seriously, how can we ignore the ways we come to understand it, to define it, to uphold it, and to live out its meaning?  As citizens we interpret America and tell its story, celebrate its Truth, teach it to our children, and affix it to the doorposts of our houses, and our gates (Deut 6:7-9). What else are the flags we hang, and the ideas we think as we see those flags?

Which means, of course, that American Revelation varies across our vast continent and throughout our diverse population, like the varieties between and within religious denominations. The African American way of American Revelation with its astonishing forbearance, resilience and strength surely contrasts with Ashkenazi Jewish stubborn curiosity, ironic humor, and loud pluralism, or New England Episcopalian pride, aspiration, and nobility. That is not to say that each lacks the elements of the other. Rather, that is to say our avenues to Truth, America’s Truth, the way we discover and encounter and interpret that Truth, will differ in emphasis, in style, and in resonance, and this diversity extends to myriad local communities with their idiosyncrasies, cultures and customs. This is why American Scripture Project rests upon the thick cultures and interlocking relationships of congregational life.

National leaders and organizations may try to recreate American Revelation, forming ways to rediscover our self-evident truths through mass-media and national campaigns. But the most powerful encounter with Truth, as Pirke Avot teaches, happens between two people, face to face, sitting over a text, breaking bread, seeking what is “self-evident.”

To create a way to reunify as a “we”; to restore our courage to “hold” convictions, even when we disagree; to encounter the Revelation of America’s Truth, in all its diversity; and to experience a process of understanding the meaning within that Truth, this is what American Scripture Project aims to offer our congregations and country.  

But values cannot be entirely taught with direct instruction. Rather, they must be experienced. Groups will discover that the texts in each session inspire a wide range of reactions, at times quite passionate. Participants will likely see their preconceived political positions supported or attacked. Facilitators should honor these reactions and then turn them into opportunities for group reflection. The following questions are go-to reminders that this is a spiritual context, not a political, partisan, academic, legalistic, or even a policy conversation. We hope to create a spiritual container where participants experience our democratic values in action.

What do these words mean to you and what experiences have you had with these words before?

Often, responses are echoes of rhetoric heard elsewhere, and by asking for personal experiences with a phrase or catchphrase, we can penetrate beyond meme-thinking and talking points. This will encourage courage and honesty as participants share the backstories of how they came to their beliefs.

What do these words say to you about what it means to be an American?

Connecting the text to the larger project of defining American identity is a surefire way to escape conversational cul-de-sacs and unnecessary controversies in the room. Also, the project of establishing national identity is, by definition, shared, which automatically generates respect for varied perspectives and enforces an assumption of dignity within the conversation.

How do you think other Americans might hear these words?  

Activating the imagination will elevate the value of compassion as participants consider voices not present, or unspoken. Simultaneously, since the circle of American storytelling has grown wider and wider over our nation’s history, including more groups and individuals into the normative version of our national narrative, considering alternative perspectives works toward justice.

The hypothesis of this program is that studying American scriptures can activate participants’ imaginations to see how the narratives of our country, which are also the basic ideas behind citizenship, should profoundly affect our behavior both within and outside our congregations. We have seen program participants begin to understand how narratives can shape the way we view our institutions – such as our synagogues and local communities – and have brought American Scripture Project thinking to those environments. We believe this can be replicated.

Our theory of change is that when enough American clergy introduce the practice of exploring our national narratives spiritually with their congregations, this practice will help drain our political spaces of the anxiety, contempt, resentment, and cynicism that have turned our rhetoric toxic. Therefore, this is less a set curriculum or static document collection of resources than it is an on-ramp to a methodology.

The journey begins with our introductory documents and video training sessions. While American Scripture Project can be started at any time, we offer a cohort experience which can help facilitators learn the ropes and adapt the materials for each community.

All training materials and the individual document session materials can be found in the Facilitator Hub, which is behind our paywall (Session 1 is open to everyone as an example). Session materials include a 5-7 minute “how to” facilitation overview video, a “how to” facilitator guide with handouts, and a downloadable handout in editable format for you to modify for use with your congregants. We will also upload a recording of the prior monthly office hour Zoom calls for each session after it occurs.

We ask congregations for an initial donation of $500 to join the program, and an annual contribution of $180 to remain a part of the community (Substack calls this a “Founding Subscription” and an “Annual Subscription”). For the 2025-2026 Cohort:

• Info Sessions (all the same): July 24, 2:30-3:30pm; July 29, 1:00-2:00pm; or August 6, 3:00-4:00pm for those who are curious.

• Once you sign on, we will provide promotional material which you can customize for your community.

• The facilitator Crash Course will be held on August 12, 2:30-4:00pm. This crash course will familiarize you with our philosophy; explain how to promote, prepare, and start session one; and provide tips and tricks for facilitating through common pitfalls while taking advantage of key opportunities.

• Monthly coaching will always be the second Thursday of the month from 1:30-2:30pm on Zoom, and our first session for this cohort will be September 11, 2025. At each monthly coaching, we will do a deep dive on one session and leave time for questions about other sessions as needed.

If you are considering joining the 2025-2026 Cohort, or you just want to be in touch, please fill our our interest form using the button below and we will reply with next steps.

Interested?

We have observed that after approximately three sessions, colleagues begin to adapt the sessions to their own ways of doing things in response to what is working best with their congregations. Because part of our core theology is that healthy spiritual exploration must be situated in a specific community, each with its particular covenantal values and culture, a one-size-fits-all approach is not optimal. Therefore, please start with our materials, and adapt according to what you know works for your people. Come to monthly office hours and use the comments section below each session post, where colleagues can ask and answer questions, offer ideas about what worked, or suggest changes to the materials. And even if you do not need help with a session, please share your wisdom with American Scripture Project clergy community. We are looking forward to hearing how these American scriptures worked for you.

In his 5778 (2018) Kol Nidre sermon, Rabbi Michael G. Holzman announced that his congregation, Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation (NVHC), would create a variety of programmatic experiments seeking to rebuild our local culture of democracy and overcome the polarization that has taken over our country. They would do this by creating a spaces for open and honest conversation, inviting engaging and relevant speakers, and facilitating opportunities for action. Members of NVHC do this work in covenant with one another – by asking questions, by sharing viewpoints, and by saying “shamati” – I have heard you.

From that initial sermon, Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation created a series of program models for how to rebuild democracy together as a Jewish community. These models included “Great Texts of America,” which was covered by the Washington Post (see below). The entire Rebuilding Democracy Project also received the 2019 Lippman Kanfer Award for Applied Jewish Wisdom and became the subject of a case study by the Aspen Institute (see below). Soonafter, Rabbi Holzman became part of the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America which published an article about his work in their journal, Sources (see below).

In 2022-2024, with support from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation, the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Washington, and the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation Tikkun Olam Fund, the Great Texts of America model became American Scripture Project. A pilot cohort of ten congregations helped us sharpen and refine our materials and pedagogy and demonstrated the need for a collaboration among clergy engaged in this work. From that experience we created this site as our online meeting place.

Click here to learn more

Read in The Washington Post

Read the case study

Read in Sources

American Scripture Project was founded at the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation, and our leadership rests upon the sacred partnership between our clergy team and lay leadership.

NVHC Clergy Team

• Rabbi Michael G. Holzman

• Cantor Susan Caro

• Rabbi Ashley Barrett

NVHC Prior Clergy (collaborators in developing American Scripture Project)

• Rabbi Jessica Wainer

• Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin

Additional Support

Emily Hummel, NVHC’s Assistant Director of Congregational Learning
Joe Miller, NVHC’s Executive Director

This program would not have been possible without the thought partnership of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), the Aspen Institute, the One America Movement, the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, A More Perfect Union: the Jewish Partnership for Democracy, and Civic Spirit. Since 2018, funding has been provided by the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Washington, and the NVHC Tikkun Olam Fund.

Visual Identity by Dirty Napkin.

NVHC Rebuilding Democracy Lay Team

Central to our work has been the sacred partnership between our clergy and laity. When rebuilding America’s underlying norms and culture of democracy, faith institutions have the particular advantage of mixing the spiritual, moral, intellectual, theological, and symbolic leadership of clergy with the governance responsibilities of laity (in addition to all of their individual talents, expertise, time, hard work, and generosity). This unique combination enables us to cultivate what John Dewey taught lies at the bedrock of democracy: “a vast mass of sentiments, many vague, some defined, of instincts, of aspirations, of ideas, of hopes and fears, of purposes.”

Ellen Goldman*, Chair
Andy Cohen
Bess Eisenstadt
Eric Eisenstadt*
Larry Katzman
Jill Klein
Andy Lacher*
Eli Lehrer
Ira Merin
Frank Newman
Michelle Probst*
Ellen Ranard
Avril Rodney
David Rodney*
Marc Rosenberg*
Susan Trivers*
Ruth Ann Whalen
Gershom Young

*peer coach for American Scripture Project

2023-2024 Pilot Cohort

We are enormously grateful for the insights gathered from our 2023-2024 Pilot Cohort. Rabbis from these congregations participated in our initial training and monthly coaching, received peer coaching for lay partners, and provided enormous amounts of feedback on our first six sessions.

Rabbi Malcolm Cohen, Kol Ami Synagogue - Tucson, AZ

Rabbi Alan Litwak, Temple Sinai of North Dade - Miami, FL

Rabbi Preston Neimeiser, Temple Beth-El of Providence, RI

Rabbi Brian Michelson, Reform Congregation Oheb Shalom - Wyomissing, PA

Rabbi Rafi Spitzer, Congregation Agudat Achim - Schenectady, NY

Rabbi Cookie Lei Olshein, Temple Emanuel of Tempe - Tempe, AZ

Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis, Congregation Kol Ami - Flower Mound, TX

Rabbi John Linder, Temple Solel - Paradise Valley, AZ

Rabbi Dan Selsberg, Temple Sholom - Bridgewater, NJ

Rabbi Stephanie Crawley, Temple Micah - Washington, DC

Using Jewish Practice to Build Healthier Communities

Welcome to American Scripture Project, a program that will bring your congregation together to grapple with our country’s poems, speeches, documents, stories, and other past writings. Through the encounter with texts, communities can confront tensions between our foundational aspirations and contemporary realities, deepen the conversation around what it means to be an American - and to be Jewish - in the 21st century, and strengthen the ability to talk across differences.

This project grew out of concerns about the growing polarization in our varied communities - our families, workplaces, houses of worship, and local, regional, and national governmental and nongovernmental institutions - which are the foundation of our nation. This problem affects democracy at every level, including the local synagogue Board. We have lost the ability to disagree civilly, and our divisions threaten to tear us apart. Diverse viewpoints turn into a toxicity that separates families, sows distrust within and between communities, and poisons our belief in institutions.

Our hypothesis is that this toxicity emerges out of a spiritual brokenness, rather than any intellectual or moral difference about policy or even politics. We believe part of today’s hyper-partisanship stems from a deep loneliness and a spiritual desire to belong. Thus, American Scripture Project utilizes the spirituality of Jewish Torah study, or parshanut - the careful dissection and investigation of text with love - to access this spiritual side of participants’ minds. We believe that the exploration of American scriptures - various texts written throughout our nation’s history to express great ideas - will reteach us (1) how to talk with each other in a way that fosters the democratic values of dignity, respect, courage, openness, compassion, and justice, and (2) how to wrestle with, understand, question, strengthen, and/or rewrite our national narratives.

Used initially with Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in 2018, American Scripture Project was recently piloted with 10 Reform and Conservative congregations across the United States. According to participants in the pilot, benefits of their participation in the program included challenging their preconceived views and gaining new insights about the texts, as well as building community through sharing and discussing ideas.

Project Purpose and Objectives

Americans have always been deeply divided over our national narratives - stories that tell us where we came from, who we are, and where we are going. But these narratives are more than stories. They sustain collective visions and national values, frame anxieties and hopes, and clarify individual duties and public roles. They embody values such as equality, religious freedom, prosperity and individualism, citizen activism, and constitutionalism.  

For over more than 350 years, Jews have come to America seeking and finding religious freedom, security, and economic opportunity, creating a Golden Age in the vast arc of Jewish history. Yet today, both here and abroad, antisemitism has reared its ugly head, threatening our freedoms and causing some to minimize their Jewish identities. The toxicity of our national discourse fuels that antisemitism, empowering hatred at both ends of the political spectrum.   

American Scripture Project aims to reinvigorate political discourse through spiritual practice. By “political” we mean the processes and norms that guide group deliberation and create policies. Politics is how we solve problems without violence. By examining American narratives with our  spiritual values of dignity, respect, courage, openness, compassion, and justice, we aim to transform how we live and lead, revitalizing democracy in the synagogue and beyond.

Participants in American Scripture Project can expect to:

• Read all or part of influential American texts and consider their meaning to personal identity and experiences.

• Consider the connections of the texts to the teaching of Judaism and Jewish values.

• Use the habits of parshanut to share perspectives and gain new insights from respectful dialogue with others.

• Reflect on personal, political, and historical biases and the tensions between the intent of the texts and present-day realities.

• Identify personal and community actions to constructively collaborate with those expressing opposing views.

By the end of the program, participants should be able to:

1. Comprehend the contradictions and tensions in the texts.

2. Recognize their own personal experiences related to the texts and understand how those experiences have shaped their American identity.

3. Engage more actively in their community.

4. Identify how participation in the program has helped their synagogue members better engage in discussions on difficult topics.

Approach to Learning

The suggested format for reviewing and discussing each session’s text is based on major principles of adult learning and effective instructional design. This includes individual preparatory work (reading and reflection in response to questions); engagement of participants (through listening and small- and large-group discussion); and recognition of future individual and group responses (to productively respond to differences of opinion, misconceptions, misunderstandings, inequalities, and injustices).

Individual preparation prior to sessions helps settle participants’ need to approach the texts using more familiar secular paradigms learned in school and professional life. This program’s explicitly spiritual learning approach may initially make some participants uncomfortable, given that educated, sophisticated, modern, rational thinkers are typically more accustomed to literary analysis, legal reasoning, or historiography. Instead, this program will present reflection questions in advance, at the start, and at the end of each session to help participants incorporate the ideas of the text into their individual identities and consider changes in their behavior.   

Torah study has always been first among the pillars upon which Jewish civilization stands. This is because the experience—the culture, the human interaction, the encounter with the sacred, the connection to past and future interpreters, the hermeneutics, the creativity, and the mystery and majesty of the text itself—functions like a gymnasium of the mind and soul, incubating certain patterns of thought, necessary character traits, and assumptions about human interaction. Three “technologies” related to Torah study stand out as extraordinarily helpful for healing American democracy:

• We are not meant to be passive recipients of the text, but active partners in the acquisition of truth. The Torah text intones, lo bashamayim hee, “it is not up in heaven.” Jewish tradition interprets this to mean that God’s truth is revealed through our participation in study. Similarly, American politics demands participation, not only when we pull a lever at the voting booth, but also when we engage fellow citizens about the country’s path and identity. When we invite learners to wrestle with a text or topic, particularly one considered American “scripture,” and especially when we do this in a spiritual context, the wrestling dispels cynicism and inspires possibility.

• Jewish study is not an individual engagement or a dependence upon the study leader. Even the most fundamentalist forms of Judaism engage with the text within a circle of learners or with a learning partner (hevruta). While the idea of “truth” implies clarity, simplicity, and a unity of thought, Judaism recognizes that humans as individuals are messy, inconsistent, complicated, and able to maintain simultaneously contradictory thoughts. Only God is fully One. The Torah ends with the lesson that “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the Eternal singled out face to face” (Deut 34:10). Only Moses accessed God’s Truth directly. Thus, we agree to seek the truth together, even when it is hard, knowing we cannot fully reach it. We build our relationship on epistemological humility. When we enter the circle of learners, especially to study the texts we share as American scripture, we find the trust necessary to hold citizens in a polity.   

• Jewish study thrives when it finds contradiction in the text. Our method is built upon the assumption that the scripture has an inherent truth, and contradictions challenge us to pull from the text (the Hebrew for commenting on Torah, drash, is the same as the word “to demand”) explanations that provide a deeper level of meaning. This assumption helps contain the complexities, paradoxes, and tensions found in our American narratives and instills humility within us about our views and positions. Torah study offers an approach that puts learners into a conversation about messy and often inconsistent and contradictory ideas, relying upon relationships to bridge the tension. It creates a superordinate identity stronger than any disagreement about a simple truth.

Finally, it is important that participants be engaged in a manner consistent with democratic values. We need to model the very values the texts acclaim – dignity, respect, courage, openness, compassion, and justice. This is purposefully embedded in the structure of each session through using opening and closing prayers and songs to set a tone for calm communal engagement. Groups can also opt to acknowledge each person’s contribution by responding with “shemati,” I have heard you. This tool can be especially helpful when conversation gets heated.

End-of-session reflections will cement participants’ experience of encounter with the group and the text. This will deepen individual understanding about how American narratives operate around us. Reflection on ideas heard within the session will also strengthen a community’s confidence with experiencing internal disagreement in public, ideally carrying over into other areas of congregational life and inspiring changes in personal leadership.