Elul has arrived. This sixth month of the Hebrew calendar serves as an intro to the Holy Days that approach the following month. Our synagogues have their usual cloth adornments changed to white ones. We are reminded to reflect on our missteps, things we did that caused harm to others or to the community or to ourselves. An abundance of these. We also have people victimized or treated in a less than dignified way, not just by individuals but by our Jewish institutions working within their customary formats. Often justified in the name of Achdoos, or public solidarity. Nobody caused these things, but often nobody takes responsibility or ownership of them.
I have my own gripes, accumulated over a lifetime, too often under a Jewish banner. Some worth pursuing, as my untoward experience often reflects customary practices that need to be reconsidered. Our synagogues and federations make great whipping boys. They populate with officers, the best and brightest, chosen for some mixture of obedience and deficit of contrition. People who think that if you resent your experience, there must be something inferior about you. Probably no better way to account for the institutional attrition, aging without optimal generational replacement, that plagues so many places less robust or secure than a generation ago. Malice rare. Insensitivity without accountability too common.
My own recent encounters probably illustrate the underpinnings as well as anything else. At synagogue, I only serve on one committee. Nobody invited me to it, but the chairmen tend to function with sign-up sheets. This one they accepted me. I'm not at the core of the mission, but I can be very useful. My ability to explore other organizations' experiences with similar projects and tap into experts has its place. And I've been invited to each meeting, attend nearly all, and contribute. No invitations to be part of the any committee activities between meetings. I could not attend a recent meeting due to travel. Before the meeting, I sent the chair a note to include me in the next project. I returned from vacation to find a follow-up note. I had been excluded again from something I wanted to do. Blackballed? Not an unreasonable conclusion based on who did get some of the assignments that I expected. I don't know. Pursue it? Probably I should, as it violates some dearly held principles.
As kids, later as an employees, we each brought a few strengths. Even if you brought no strengths, once on the team you were part of the team. The weakest athlete in gym class or camp still got to play his one at-bat, stand in right field, do five minutes on half-court basketball, or get pinned faster than a Prom Queen on the wrestling mat. A Bar Mitzvah kid, irrespective of achievement, got his morning in the limelight, with public appreciation for what he was able to accomplish. It also broke down, into exclusionary USY Cliques. There were also places where you had to earn entitlements. Scouts had ranks and they had merit badges. Boys needed neither to attend a camping weekend. Once there, though, the marginal kid still received responsibilities for cooking, cleanup squad, a chance to hold the flag. Being a member and being treated unconditionally were core values, with leaders committed to enforcing them.
Later in the workplace, once hired, once part of the group, people not only received responsibilities but trust. I had the good fortune to work in a high-end profession. Everyone took call on scheduled weekends, everyone got assigned to present a conference or two each year, everyone got assigned a committee or two.
Much of my Jewish experience has been more conditional than that, places with gatekeepers, places that judged people as useful or not. Inherently important is a very different mindset. In my younger years, I used to chant High Holiday Torah reading for one of the days, which varied from one year to the next. Only machers got aliyot, all men despite gender equality policies of that synagogue, all dressed in Brooks Brother's suits. Same men for each occasion each year. They hugged each other when they completed their blessings. Despite my flawless, expert chanting, I could expect two handshakes each morning. I was useful. I remember that decades later, long since transitioned to a different synagogue that values different things.
I'm still a HH Torah reader, though always Yom Kippur. Initially this occurred for practical reasons, as my wife and I attended elsewhere for Rosh Hashanah, where she could function more as a participant. Now that we have returned for all the Holy Days, I expressed an interest in swapping my YK reading for one of the RH readings. Too much trouble for the person doing the assignments. Forgive me, but a few years ago I gave part of my assigned reading to another newer member who had joined our Torah reading rotation for many a Shabbos. He deserved an invitation. My thinking of him, not the VP considering how to make our services more inclusive and honoring a decent man not yet honored. He had to learn it de novo, but succeeded. Often filling the same assignments by default bypasses people who deserve better. Despite my wanting a new challenge, I was again rejected but defaulted to what we've done before. Purposeful disruption sometimes has advantages over established practices. Insensitivity to my skill, my willingness to expand that skill, and a different perspective of being part of my congregation's RH experience. Pursue it? Maybe. After all, the Rabbi has a responsibility for advancing the participants, even when his VPs slouch a bit.
As we get into the services of the Holy Days, an individual has the task of bestowing honors on as many men as he can invite. Most require no advance skill. The vast majority entail opening and closing the Ark where the Torah scrolls are housed at specified times in the liturgy. Other men get asked to lift or tie a Torah scroll or open the ark when those scrolls are removed or replaced into it. When our congregation had far more people, it was easier to standardize. Most years I received notification of which page my Ark opening would occur. Two men ascend to the front at the same time. I knew who my partner was. As families left my congregation, the remaining men would have more than one opportunity to perform these over the course of several services. My invitations eventually shifted from Ark openings to more visible tasks. And I opted out a few years back. The honor, or more recognition, became less authentic. This serves as the school or camp rule that everyone, or at least the men, all get their At Bat. It is designated an Honor. I'm not sure it is. It was not earned. It's more of an entitlement of that male phenotype and membership that comprises the team roster.
For a few years I've declined these invitations. Not because I object to being recognized as a team member, but because I have a different sense of what it means to honor somebody. An Ark Opening is more of a Certificate of Attendance. During the Holy Days I like to be more of a contributor than consumer. My wife and I donate to the fund for the two people bestowed with real annual High Holy Day Honors. These go to two people or organizations that made activities of the synagogue happen, the creators or designers or sometimes yeomen. I do some of the Torah reading, in part because I know how, and in part because those present need to sit in a place where the effort and expertise have value. We honor others by recognizing their talents, their uniqueness, and their willingness to have everyone contribute and create. It requires sensitivity, something not conveyed with optimal consistency in my Jewish world over an adult lifetime. An Ark Opening hardly compensates for rejection, not only experienced but expected along the way.
We can show up. Woody Allen quipped that 80% of life is showing up. And that may be how many of the key people measure the success of effort. Attendance at events. But Judaism in its most alluring form also has a rhythm. It's a chance to not have a sign-up sheet but to seek out what people at their best can do and invite them to contribute, design, and create. I've found that too restricted, even sometimes stifled by key people. But the Honor comes from letting people perform, seeking them out, creating those dialogs where spirit prevails over groupthink.
So Elul, with its preliminaries, will move one day at a time to Tishrei, the cluster of Festivals, the chance to engage. A chance to take account, correct some of the insensitivities, to reconsider the talent in place, who you've sought out, who you've made more important than they were, and who you kept on the same list from last year.
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