I was delighted when Zvika Krieger came to Chochmat Halev, my Renewal Jewish community, as our spiritual leader. In his previous position he had been the founding Director of Responsible Innovation at Meta/Facebook. Who better to renew the exciting project of Jewish renewal than someone steeped in the discipline of design and innovation.
I have found many of the drashes (commentaries on the Torah) that Zvika offers weekly to contain kernels of design wisdom in them, even when he doesn’t identify them as such. So I was excited when he agreed to join our conversation at the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) about design consciousness from a Jewish Renewal perspective. I was keen to hear what he might have to share in a context where the connections between the many creation stories embedded in the Torah and our contemporary practice of design might be made more explicit.
Zvika did not disappoint.
The first 10 minutes are a meditation that Zvika offered at the intersection of the soul traits of “Gevurah” (strength, boundary) and “Hod” (splendour, perseverance) as a resource that allows us to keep moving forward when we’re in what he names the “mushy middle” of the design process.
At 00:10:16 on the video time bar Zvika tells his story of his journey at another intersection – between design and spirituality.
At 00:26:55 he offers a reflection on the place of “wisdom of the heart” and “wisdom of the mind” in design and design consciousness and at 00:35:47 he offers thoughts about the portion of the Torah called Shemini
Finally at 00:43:15 he takes some student questions.
