Limmud's mission and promise: Wherever you find yourself, Limmud will take you one step further on your Jewish journey.
Limmud New Orleans Mission: Limmud NOLA's mission is to celebrate Jewish life and learning in all of its diversity and to strengthen the Jewish community of New Orleans by bringing together Jews of all backgrounds and ages for learning experiences guided by the values of learning, choice, diversity, and volunteerism.
Limmud's mission is informed by the following values:
Learning
Learning embraces personal development, knowledge, and skills. Learning changes people, inspires action and opens new worlds. There are many inspirations that can offer opportunities for learning. Everyone can be a teacher and everyone should be a student. We encourage the creation of a learning environment in which people are able to reflect and grow.
Community and Mutual Responsibility
Limmud is a community of learning. We can achieve more together than we can individually. We both gain and should give something back to the Jewish and the wider community.
Enabling Connections
We aim to create opportunities for communities and individuals to connect. We recognize the strength of providing a space where spiritual, emotional, and intellectual connections are made.
Expanding Jewish Horizons
Limmud strives to create collective and communal experiences, through which we strengthen and develop our Jewish identity.
Participation
Volunteerism is a key feature of almost everything we do. We are all responsible for each other and for the communities we create; everyone has an important contribution to make. We encourage participants to take an active part in all we do.
Diversity
We value diversity in all that we do. We value choice in form, content and style. We believe in the richness of our diverse community and create cross-communal and cross-generational experiences. We value accessibility, and aim to be accessible to all. We encourage people not to stereotype others.
Empowerment
We inspire people to be ambitious about their contribution. We challenge people and trust them to rise to that challenge. We see the potential of individuals and communities and support their development. We empower people to make choices and provide the information to make informed choices. Power lies with the participant.
Commitment to Respect
Limmud expects all participants to be respectful of one another and to recognize that all volunteers are also participants. Personal attacks are not acceptable within session material. To ensure that informed choices can be made, we ask presenters to provide biographies.
Argument for the Sake of Heaven
Limmud does not participate in legitimizing or de-legitimizing any religious or political position found in the worldwide Jewish community. Limmud will program its events in such a way as to avoid religious or political conflict. However, we do recognize and appreciate that "arguments for the sake of heaven" can make a positive contribution to furthering our education and understanding.
Religious Observance
Shabbat and kashrut are observed in all public areas. We recognize that in private areas people will behave as they wish. Should participants wish to hold a prayer group, they may do so providing they supply all resources and are responsible for the session or prayer group in its entirety.
