Congregational Vote

As I look at my institutional affiliations, many have deteriorated with Covid, few have strengthened.  For a lot of reasons, I have felt particularly disaffected from my synagogue, a worthy refuge from another unfortunate congregational experience more than two decades earlier.  What was a place of growth opportunity with talented, though sometimes abrasive, clergy has greatly atrophied.  Skill, knowledge, and inquisitiveness have long since yielded to the mediocrity of inbreeding or paths of least resistance.  I am no longer a Giver, even have reason to think that prickly intrinsically challenging people are targeted for exclusion by the Officers, the Nominating Committees they appoint, and a languishing collection of committee chairmen who fill schedules on calendars with no interest whatever in the processes of Continual Improvement and Reflection that we experience in our professional lives.  They've arrived at the Promised Land of Undistinguished with no serious aspirations of offering a more exceptional Jewish experience.  It's hard to say if the talent has departed, easier to say it has been devalued.

Judaism has been a culture of forging ahead in prosperous times and in challenging ones.  Sometimes to forge ahead, you have to exit where you are,  whether that be Ur Chasdim to Canaan or Poland to NYC.  It also means that congregations that languish will become smaller, as most people really are willing to invest in their advancement.  Thus we are smaller.  There are a lot of rationalizations for this and no shortage of fingers to point, but as a congregation we now have little communal relevance and diminishing internal attractiveness, at least to me.

Yet, my personal assessment aside, I remain a member of the community, often a candid one or a person of discontent, but still a presence, though less loyal than I once was.  As we diminish in numbers, we diminish in money.  We also enter a phase of congregational senescence.  Our building where we congregated for fifty years has been cashed out.  We only own one piece of residential real estate, which may prove our security later, and have Torah scrolls of financial value.  But we have given up some or our independence.  Until Covid-19 kept us all home, we at least gathered in one place for worship, mainly for shabbos, nominally for daily minyanim, and squeezed by on yom tovim.  There is a governance which met on its appointed times, there were committees, though none large, none really advancing us as a synagogue with activities and meeting places perhaps a little under the table if they met at all.  It is possible to be a congregation of cyberspace, as Covid has taught us, but we would have a better future, already pretty precarious, if we had a mailing address, land line phones, and chairs.  It is here that paths of least resistance emerge with exploratory committees looking at other Jewish agencies with buildings rather than looking at rentable space as a more abstract concept.  We latched onto the local Conservative shul, not a bad shidduch, though we were always the stepsister to a congregation that started about where we were ten years ago but made decisions that moved them forward.  The disparity could be seen pretty much anywhere in the building that we would share.  I expected to hate being there, having departed for cause, but that was not the case.  I found those detestable machers who would swoop on the vulnerable and give a hint of credence to those anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, pretty invisable.  The people I met seemed personable.  I imagine they had some sort of agenda, as they could not have advanced themselves without one, though as a visiting tenant I never felt threatened.  Then again, I didn't run the place and did not have to appeal to them for anything I wanted.  Within our own governance I perceived some discontent, which didn't surprise me.

Then Covid shut down buildings.  They accept streaming on shabbos, so their worship continued on schedule.  Ours did not.  Our titled class has many delusions that repackage over time.  When our new Rabbi arrived, the Executive Committee proclaimed that if people could just come and see what we imported, they would want to be one of us.  Until they came and saw a very inexperienced but nice young man reading his Rashi notes for a sermon.  If we enhanced kiddush, more people would want to pay dues.  Not true either.  Congregational dwindles ensued, never a mass departure, but the actuarial realities of people getting older without replacement, people relocated for employment or retirement, some religious decisions more attractive to the inbred people than to anyone else.  So we find ourselves looking for what is likely to be our final space, with a race to see if we deplete our money or our people first.

While my observation detects the recessive genes of relentless inbreeding and formation of dysfunctional cliques, to be fair, those among the in-crowd have been diligent to task.  They desired space, found space, and negotiated terms.  Being a by-laws democracy, sort of, some key decisions cannot be implemented by our elected representatives but need the approval of a majority in attendance at a pre-announced Congregational Meeting.  While I had the shul on FB style Snooze, I signed in, watched and asked my questions, then voted with the majority to sign a lease on the proposed space.

I did not know how I wanted to vote.  One fellow was adamant about staying where we were, despite the fact that our current landlord really doesn't want us there indefinitely.  So once I understand the proposal, should my vote reflect what I want or am I an agent of the congregation who should allow what's best for the group override my own preferences?  It's not a bad financial deal, though I don't know how sustainable.  Two downsides, one for me, one for the congregation that nobody brought up.  I don't want to drive that far to attend shabbos services, let alone an evening meeting or activity.  Covid will end, either by vaccine or like all other epidemics from the Black Death to cholera to the 1918 flu, by the infection running its course.  There is always an endpoint to an epidemic, though some diseases remain endemic in lesser forms.  We have reasons to assemble.  If I don't want to drive there or find the location or even the room not to my liking, there are other locations to observe shabbos.  That affects me and I set it aside.  What affects the congregation is the capacity of the chapel where we would worship.  There was a time not that long ago when our usual attendance would easily overflow that capacity.  We would fit now, not really a tight squeeze but the room would appear amply occupied by our recent attendance levels.  Unfortunately, our recent attendance levels need to be boosted.  Accepting this as our worship space pretty much closes the door on expanding our congregation's worship attendance.  It's the current reality.  But I think it unwise to accept that as our destiny.

I voted in favor, as that takes a lot of pressure off the congregation and enables decisions going forward.  Whether I return when the space becomes operational remains unsettled.  I'm a worthy agent of the congregation when I need to vote, much like I tend to vote for candidates who support my vision for my country, state, and locality even if I might take a little hit in the process.  I can stand a few setbacks, not everyone can, so I vote for what I think would be best for the group unless the harm to me is unacceptable.  Having an address and on-site worship and not being subservient to other Jews is important enough for me to not impede the project with my vote.  But a building does not make the congregation viable.  The same officers have been in place with few changes since we sold our building.  The message that there was a decline for a reason that it is their responsibility to address in their official capacity, even if a few Sacred Cows need to be  schected in the process, never fully registered.  Having new space, particularly one contrary to any aspiration for growth, only reinforces our time limited trajectory.