My congregation has entered into a space sharing arrangement now a few months in duration. For this calendar month, we find ourselves displaced from the main sanctuary as the larger space is required for the home congregation's weekly Bar Mitzvahs, for which we for all practical purposes have none. I have found it interesting to wander on the first floor of the building, watch the people, read what is on the tables and in the display racks. They have a lot going on, we have just over bupkis going on. There appears to a drastic congregational development gradient, until one assesses what has been developed. A bar mitzvah gives them the larger room, no bar mitzvah gives us the larger room, even though their congregation is double our membership. We read a full Torah portion, divided up among about 4-5 men on the weekends our usual reader is away. They read one third that on shabbat, also divided among 2-3 readers, something we could handle easily with a single reader. We include the liturgy in its entirety. They select tunes to the exclusion of recitative.
While the congregations are of very different size, it is our traditions that sustain us. We have no spectacles and not very many events. But we do have a core of activities which include educational sessions. They have congregational movies. They have name tags on a table for people to pick of as they enter. We are more like Cheers where everyone knows your name.
Which is more sustainable? Hard to tell. Which makes for a better experience? Not so sure. But there are some things that put Judaism at a disadvantage when you compromize. If people know tunes and happy songs but cannot read the words, let also the sentence that follows, no event will compensate for the lack of capacity. If you never go beyond that, you have static Judaism. We have a substantive foundation but a tenuous future. They seem to have trappings devoid of its underpinnings but a fair number of loyal adherents.
It's never really about going from one event to the next.
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