The greatest obstacle to change, perhaps, is the unwillingness to wait for it.

So when Jonathan Wolf agreed to chair a committee to rethink Oceanside Jewish Center's Hebrew school, he knew that patience would be the toughest part of the undertaking.

"People hear about a good idea or an exciting program, they say, 'Let's start it now,'" said Wolf, vice president of the Conservative synagogue. "They're itching for change."

But for Oceanside Jewish Center on Long Island, one of five pioneering New York congregations to take part in Experiment in Congregational Education's Re-Imagine Project, there would be no swift changes. In fact, what ensued for Wolf and an intergenerational cohort of 25 Oceanside Jewish Center congregants and professionals was an 18-month exhaustive examination of Hebrew school.

The committee followed the Re-Imagine Project curriculum. They looked at the history and evolution of Oceanside's Hebrew school, studied models of educational change, and even probed what the Torah and Talmud had to say about implementing and adapting to change. Wolf believes the resulting modifications to the congregational school at the 70-year-old synagogue will have staying power.

Two years after joining the Re-Imagine Project, funded in the New York metropolitan area by UJA-Federation and the Covenant Foundation, Oceanside Jewish Center will launch the "Shalom Initiative." Come fall, Sunday school, long a staple at Oceanside, will be supplanted by Saturday morning Hebrew school. Students at the school also attend Hebrew classes twice during the week.

"A key part of Judaism is recognizing and celebrating the beauty of the Shabbat, and we decided to build a program using Shabbat as a focal point," Wolf said.

Shalom, in addition to being the Hebrew word for "peace," is a Hebrew acronym for Shabbat; limmud, or learning; utefilah, prayer; and mishpocha, family. ("Not just the students' families, but we're looking at the whole congregation of a family," Wolf said.)

In observance of Shabbat, students will neither write nor play instruments during Saturday classes, but will study Jewish texts, sing, act and take part in certain crafts. Once a month, the synagogue will host family Shabbat services, targeted at students and their parents.

While changes are just beginning to emerge from the first five New York-area pilot synagogues - the Conservative Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Plandome, and two Reform congregations, Commack's Temple Beth David and Temple Israel of New Rochelle, in addition to Oceanside - 15 additional New York-area congregations recently joined the network of Re-Imagine synagogues.

As such, their task forces will have access to ECE's guided Web site, where they can take "virtual visits" to congregations with a variety of innovative educational models already in place. During the virtual tour, task force members can read about the different programs; listen to interviews with synagogue congregants, lay leaders and professionals; and watch short "Day-in-the-Life" documentaries showing the various Hebrew school models in action. The site also asks task force members to write down comments and questions, which are reviewed and answered by ECE staff.

In addition, ECE, which works with synagogues across the country, is in the final stages of building its Online Resource Center. There, Re-Imagine congregations and alumni congregations will be able to access articles, studies and books about synagogue change, Jewish texts about decision making and interactive exercises about the process of making change.

A $1 million grant from UJA-Federation's Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal is funding the project's regional expansion. Hebrew school enrollment, at the 20 participating congregations, ranges from 70 to 750.

One of the newer Re-Imagine congregations is North Shore Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Port Jefferson, L.I.

Rabbi Howard Hoffman said that the synagogue took the Re-Imagine challenge because congregational education is a lynchpin. "If we're going to reach out to families, and win then over as synagogue adherents, our window of opportunity is while their children are in Hebrew school," he said.

He said the project, launched at North Shore about a year ago, has given the synagogue an opportunity to review and renew its vision for congregational education in the 21st century.

Despite shouldering a considerable responsibility, the committee, according to Rabbi Hoffman, appreciates the opportunity to have their say, given that synagogues are often top-down operations. North Shore's Re-Imagine team has not yet finalized its educational goals, but deliberations have been fruitful, Hoffman said.

"We've already expanded the circle of involvement," he said. "I predict the people involved in Re-Imagine will be future synagogue leaders."

Re-Imagine has been equally energizing at Reform Scarsdale Synagogue-Tremont Temple, where the task force is considering beginning pre-bar mitzvah studies a year earlier and better engaging parents in their children's Hebrew and Judaic studies, according to Rabbi Stephen Klein, who called the initiative "a very healthy way to enhance congregational education."

Other participating Re-Imagine congregations are Conservative synagogues Ansche Chesed in Manhattan, Huntington Jewish Center, Temple Beth Sholom of Rosyln, Temple Beth Sholom of Smithtown, Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere, Temple Beth El of Bellmore, and Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation; the Reform Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, Reform Temple of Forest Hills, Temple Israel of Jamaica, and the Community Synagogue of Rye; Manhattan's West End Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation; and Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, a non-movement-affiliated synagogue in Manhattan.

The project is not for flailing synagogues with major structural and leadership deficiencies. Instead it challenges stable, even thriving, congregations not to become complacent. "Synagogues cannot say, 'We're perfect and our work is done,'" said Cyd Weissman, Re-Imagine's New York coordinator.

"For the most part they are congregations that say, 'We have a good religious school.' We do an awful lot of things right,'" she said. "They might even say, 'We have a great school. And yet at the same time we know there is something different we could be doing.'"

She said Re-Imagine's protracted period of required reflection, study and analysis, which lasts between 18 months and two years, allows each congregation to carefully weigh, and ultimately implement lasting change.

Weissman emphasized that the goal of the initiative is not only to help tweak models of Jewish supplementary education, but to change the way synagogues think about change and light the "spark of experimentation" among a wide-ranging group of committed congregants.

"The dynamic in the congregation shifts from the educator pulling or enticing people into good programs because he knows they are educationally sound," she said, "to a group of people who have had their own personal insights about what they want for their children's Jewish education, propelling new possibilities."

According to Weissman, ECE research shows Re-Imagine task force members view their work in an overwhelmingly positive light. "They report the work of volunteering is transformative for them building relationships with lay and professionals alike that help them feel more connected to the synagogue-more of a sense of belonging," she said.

Wolf underscored that the aforementioned "spark" has been ignited at Oceanside Jewish Center. Wolf said that the process of rethinking congregational education might prove to be as significant as the Shalom Initiative and other modifications Re-Imagine ultimately spawns.

"The project taught us to be reflective," he said, "and it taught us about the journey of change."