Excessive Programming

What is the right number and frequency of events?  Those arias of congregational performance that gather community, though sometimes at the expense of the normal rhythms of Jewish existence, or at least my concept of how living Jewishly expresses itself.  These events attract people, for sure.  Create kehillah, maybe, or a sense of obligation to be seen, as the Protestant sanctuaries depended upon for much of the 20th century.  Attract consumers, yes.  Create engagement, more open to challenge.

These shabbat dinners now pop up monthly.  Selichot this season morphed from worship, reflection, and transition to a spectacle.  There's something not quite right about breaking into a line hora as the congregation recites the Yom Kippur confessional for the first time.  The clergy are not roobs.  Most of the folks stepping and clapping could probably appreciate that too.  I remember selichot from college as the ultimate expression of kehillah.  We reacquainted for the first time since departing the campus the previous May.

Judaism has its times of communal gatherings.  Shabbos, the synagogue sukkah, mass attendance for RH and YK.  There are opportunities, even obligations, to publicly honor people.  We have forums for those fulfilling special projects to present their achievements.  Learning sometimes does better communally, though "teach me something" with no personal effort emerges as a trap.

We also have those private times.  Judaism has its organizations, but it also has its more subdued moments.  Shabbos dinner, mostly with my household, which expanded and contracted over the cycles of life.  A few friends join us at our table a few times each year.  Small gatherings to observe shiva.  Those moments I allocate for myself each Thursday to explore what four whose learning exceeds mine have to say about the upcoming Torah and Haftarah portions.  Solitary time, though not lonely time, reading selected reports in The Forward and elsewhere about Jewish life, history, culture, and more, then sending a note of my perspective to the authors.  That's engagement.

There's a place for joining in, though it can and does create consumers who opt in and out.  Engagement is not that.  It comes in the form of contributing, conducting a class, learning a Torah aliyah or Haftarah that you've not mastered before, cooking the Shabbos dinner, getting asked onto a committee because you have proficiency with what that committee does.  Those people shift from consumer to contributor.

And then we have the creators, the people who design the programs.  I see too much restriction with Dominant Influencers, gatekeeping entitlements, a role that even the most talented cannot easily penetrate.  Those creators design the menu for consumers.  

So how many shabbos dinners do I want to attend, especially when the food from my kitchen surpasses the contents of the foil chafing dishes?  How much entertainment do I want?  How many classes when nobody asked me what education might enhance my Jewish experience?  As we get into the Holy Days, programmed by a Steering Committee of what the Protestants would call their congregational elders, judging a very iffy Selichot that prioritized popularity over propriety, I could see some divergence between my private Judaism over programming.  And I control that private Judaism.