Often I attend Shabbos morning services out of a sense of obligation. It is not unusual for people of my era. The Protestants and possibly the Catholics share this legacy. Synagogue or Church is the place you go on your weekend morning. Blue laws existed to my young adulthood. Stores remained closed, though Kosher butchers and Jewish stores in the states where I lived could choose to remain closed on Saturday in lieu of Sunday. There were places to get breakfast on Sunday, coffee shops, bakeries. Some eating places, though, did not open until after noon when church let out. Recreational facilities opened at noon. Place of worship served as a default. Sunday served as a communal time out, at least for the morning. The NFL still played in the afternoon.
Fractures began in my university years of the 1970s. Shabbos services were readily available wherever I lived. Social pressure to attend in a population that had escaped parental mandates disappeared. Still, regular student worshipers kept services adequately attended. Thirty years later, in my children's student years, I had occasion to attend their Hillel. People of their generation still filled two small sanctuaries, one Orthodox, the other Conservative, each time I visited, combining themselves to partake of Kiddush when both services had concluded. Still, the attendance represents a small subset of the University's Jewish students.
My own congregation, where I have maintained membership for 28 years, did fairly well, adding my generation to the one that preceded us. Young families entered at early career, raising children, staying indefinitely. The generation ahead of mine also had children, though few settled in the community. Perhaps we had elements of a Jewish Ponzi scheme where new players from the outside had to replace those who cashed out for Florida or relocated to be near their own kids or became actuarial statistics. Still, that system functioned. It no longer does.
How can we restore ourselves to multi-generational, if not intergenerational? For the last year, our Board and Membership Committee, with the Rabbi's professional and self-interest, embarked on a membership enhancement effort. And newcomers have added themselves to our rolls. You can only improve what you can measure, something that our people avoid doing in any depth. Coming to services out of perceived obligation yesterday, I sat up front, first row, taking the required two books along with a plastic bin to stash them and my tallis bag under my seat. The choreography of the Saturday morning services forces me to gaze from my seat at the very front to the back wall periodically. I did this enough times to survey who came. It seemed much like other Saturday mornings. One person I did not recognize, another the son of the man being honored at the remote anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah. Everyone else I could name. Our two sets of fathers of young children, who each attend as half-couples with much less frequency than they once did, did not join us yesterday.
Total attendance, about thirty individuals, more men than women, but not our most lop-sided attendance. Often, I count half-couples and full couples. Yesterday I did not, but no unusual drift from our usual pattern. How many under age 70? I didn't know who among us had reached their threescore and ten. How many under 60? That I could make a reasonable estimate. The Rabbi, son of man being honored, and likely the one person I did not know who drove into the parking lot at the same time as me, took a seat in the last row, and left before the service ended. So three for sure. And three other could be's. A doctor who comes about half the time, a fellow who participates regularly, and a new person who comes with increasing frequency, whom I've met a few times. So of thirty people, that leaves us at between 10 and 20%, with two of the for-sures being transient. Our internet allows us to retrieve publicly available information quickly, including people's ages if you know a few other things about them. The doctor and the regular participant go into the over 70 slot. The other woman is likely a contemporary of mine, likely past 60. So of the people in frequent attendance, the Rabbi is junior to the next youngest by at least ten years. I checked some new members not present. A couple in their 60s. Another doctor in her 70s. And another doctor in his early 70s with his wife in her 60's. And one real young adult, the grand-daughter and daughter of members traceable to the World War II era. I've not seen her at worship.
My own activities put me on a second tier. Bimah skills get me invited to the sanctuary's center table with some frequency. I attend Board Meetings as a member. I attend the meetings of one committee. I'm probably also their most inquisitive observer. Wanting to keep our synagogue from actuarial collapse seems a laudable initiative. Trying to do this without exploring how others succeeded, or failed, without tapping into those with expertise or experience on a project this important seems a form of folly. And should this be our goal, especially one that has not explored a system to do it?
A young woman I had a chance to interview suggested an answer. To enhance membership, the Rabbi and High Holy Day Committee designed an experiment. We would offer a sweetheart deal to attend our High Holy Day worship, one in which our synagogue invested heavily. For a nominal sum, about 4% of dues, people not affiliated elsewhere could join us. Only two takers. One, a couple in their 60s, already contemplated joining and did soon after. The third person came primarily wanting a place to worship without commitment, a woman who had her Bat Mitzvah with us when we had a more robust collection of families who still had children in their houses. I interviewed her afterwards in my capacity of Membership Committee member. This poised rising thirty-something, a product of our congregation, very familiar with us, assessed her experience at the Holy Days. My position required me to discuss membership, knowing that her past experience had many downsides. Rather than telling me she did not want to risk reliving any of that, she responded differently. She told me her impression. Our congregation was not a place that young adult Jews would seek out as a path to their growth. It is not who we are. We are a Medicare Club, seeking new people to protect our financial future and the Rabbi's professional future. That is our goal. Advancing a new generation to take the place of a declining one serves as a byproduct, if it happens at all, not our incentive for the membership enhancement that we seek. We might do better by accepting what we are.
I do not know which is the better path. For now, looking around, counting our successes, we've not done badly as a place where Jews in their later years come together. Worship, governance, events, even the rhythms of congregational life. What we are has emerged as our default. The challenge may not be in recruiting a new generation but in giving those with us the most fulfilling experience we can offer until the generational reality expresses itself.
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