Being Manipulated

http://forward.com/opinion/336718/a-humbled-aipac-is-paying-a-price-for-growth/?attribution=articles-hero-item-text-4&attribution=articles-hero-item-text-4

AIPAC held its annual meeting, an extravaganza of Zionists, of which I include myself, though some of the in your face positions leave me wondering at times.  I've never attended the annual meeting, though increasing numbers of people do.  I've got enough vacation time and it's Washington location is easily accessible.  I'm a little put off by the expense, and as I read about JJ Goldberg's account in The Forward I might be a little put off by the people who go there.  It comes across in the report as Macher City, people who restrict or even manipulate what they want you to know, the experience they want you to have, and even when the people who count think applause would sound good.  Federation Types everywhere absorbed in their own importance thoroughly neglectful of the reality that the rabbinical tradition of Judaism that has made us enduring depends not only on diversity of opinion but on its expression and analysis.  Manipulation = Attrition.  I definitely looked askance of reporter Goldberg's account of the event.  While attendance is up, I have little desire to be a part of the extravaganza that he wrote about.

Seeking Feedback

 

It had been a while since I attended Kabbalat Shabbat at our Reform synagogue, once a Friday night destination during my year of kaddish when I needed a quorum of ten Jewish men at a time when my work obligations would permit my attendance.  Having had a fond experience, I continued to attend periodically in the years thereafter but a congregational decision to move the service an hour and a half earlier, similar to the other two congregations, made attendance unrealistic for me.  Then recently I got home early, the candles were lit early in winter, dinner served, and still time to get there.

Shabbos most anywhere comes with a handout on arrival:  who will be davening, which Rabbi or guest will give the sermon, events in the coming week that cannot be missed and might even be worth the price of admission.  This time at this congregation, a summary of a congregational survey and related focus group opinions accompanied the usual Shabbos bulletin.  Ordinarily I would expect some confidentiality to this but I was probably the only non-member other than the organist present.    It made for brief but thought-provoking reading.  Their members had been questioned on how they became affiliated, what keeps them engaged, what they might like the congregation to be like five years hence.  Very little of the reported results constituted a surprise.  People liked the clergy, past and current, friends who were members often brought them along as the initial contact with the synagogue, some were consumers of things synagogues offer from Hebrew school to Sisterhood.  Interestingly, though not surprisingly, the strongest attachments came from personal initiations to participate.  People joined committees because an individual asked them to.  A sign-up sheet to volunteer to daven shacharit is probably less likely to get the schedule filled than a personal call from the gabbai inviting you to do shacharit next Shabbos.  Not all congregations grasp that, and those that do not grasp it adequately can create some rather inflexible USY cliques that carry on to reassembly at Hillel in college, but these folks seem to know better.  And they like having kids present in the building.  It makes everyone feel like they have a future.  So yes, the survey and its results were proprietary but with conclusions that probably could have been projected without having actually done the project.

While the conclusions had a measure of pre-survey predictability, there is no surrogate for being asked what you think.  Sometimes the feedback is very simple.  You call a service rep at the help line and an email comes the next day asking you to rank several attributes of yesterday’s phone bank contact.  However, after half a century of being a consistent participant of a Jewish community, whether Hebrew school, teen group, Hillel of two major universities and a few congregations, nobody has ever asked me what I think about my participation and how it might be upgraded.  I’m more of a consumer perhaps.  The leaders build a trough and count how many snouts partake of what’s in it with no regard for whether the contents might be refined from what is offered.  Certainly people making small talk will ask what I thought of the Rabbi’s Yom Kippur sermon or the fundraiser gala, but they seem to be counting dollars or attendance as the metric of what people think.  I’ve never been asked about a composite experience and don’t often volunteer the thoughts though I imagine the Federation annual solicitor can figure out that requests to be put on the Do Not Call List reflect organizational interaction to some extent.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism recently announced that they have engaged a professional firm to tease out what their members think about their experience to date, what they might aspire to moving forward, and maybe even acquire a better sense of how to put a cap on some fairly consistent attrition.  You not only have to solicit opinion but be sensitive to the opinion, something which the Reform congregation seems to have done very well. 

A few year ago a book called Relational Judaism by Ron Wolfson became a focus of moving congregations from a top down model to more of a people matter model.  It’s still a work in progress.

Shabbos Ready

Sometimes I get annoyed with the congregational leadership.  Sometimes the irritations are petty, sometimes they seem to be neglecting activities that portend the future.  Among my beliefs, probably true though maybe not, is that if Shabbos does not measure up as a synagogue's centerpiece, none of the other offerings will compensate for that.  And so it was when the last few times I entered the place of worship and found that nobody had placed the necessary Chumashim, or in the main sanctuary even ample siddurim.  I have come into the building on a Shabbos morning to find the talesim strewn when it would have been more attractive to find them neatly folded.  My daughter visited in January, commented that she felt chilly, yet the basket of woolen or acrylic shawls kept in a basket for that purpose were not displayed in their usual conspicuous place.   So last Shabbat with the President in the pews I pulled him aside and asked him to count books in a few of the rows.  I then asked if there was a checklist of who had to do what for Shabbat.  There wasn’t.  Moreover he seemed rather annoyed at the question but at least not hostile, something that I cannot say when I posed the suggestion to the Ritual Chairman at Kiddush who retorted in his lawyerly way that if I thought it was important I could write a draft myself, give it to him and he would have the Rabbi edit it.   Hardly Embracing/Engaging/Enriching as the logo on the Home Page displays.

So should I write it?  There are things that are just fine.  The Torah is always at its proper place, the big print haftarah book is always to be found.  Kiddush has been a reliable centerpiece worth the price of admission every week.  The weekly newsletter is mostly accurate.  Never saw any litter on the floor on Shabbos morning.  If a mechitza is needed it is set up.  Yet there really isn’t a sense of having to correct what is obviously deficient, and perhaps even a little irritation with the messenger. 

There was an interesting study some years back.  With the disclaimer that I didn’t read it but know about it second hand, it involved neurosurgeons in a training program whose entering class was tracked forward many years.  Of the cohort, most become neurosurgeons in various communities but a few achieved major prominence or became department chairmen while some dropped out of the residency to do something else.  The one consistent characteristic that separated the future stars from the drop-outs was their tenacity in correcting their own shortcomings, whether spending extra time in the research lab or acquiring a mentor to show them the fine points.  They were the ones who moved ahead.  That's true of upper tier places of worship as well.