The Darndest Things

To the best of my memory, the first book I ever read cover to cover must have been Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things.  I was a new reader, probably in second grade exiled to a school annex at the local Firehouse, as my district could not keep up with new construction that suburban migration to my district required.  TVs showed images in Black & White at the time.  Art Linkletter's House Party had considerable popularity.  It ran in the afternoons.  My mother wouldn't miss it.  When I returned home from school it would be airing.  At the end, Art Linkletter added a signature segment.  Each day he would interview children about my age selected from the local schools.  He asked each a question or two, presumably unrehearsed.  And those kids responded in the darndest ways.  He compiled favorite responses to create a short book, which I read in paperback.  YouTube has captured some of those sessions for anyone with cyberspace access who might like a chuckle, long after this classic has faced into the history of American public media.  I've never forgotten those sessions or those kids or that book.

Without knowing it, being much too young, one of our Chabad Rabbis recreated a version of this, which is why I earmark every Simchat Torah evening to attend there in lieu of my own shul which essentially has no children.  Simchat Torah and Purim evenings depend on children for the vitality of the festivities.  In the evenings, we got flags to wave and engage in minor sword fights with the sticks.  For those who returned the next morning, and a many did even when it meant missing school, hijinx continued.  Friends would bring squirt guns.  The Cantor could expect some kids to tie his shoelaces to his tzitzis.  He could be a good sport in different ways, adapting prayer melodies to what the DJ's then played on the Top 40 or the sounds that introduced our favorite TV shows.  Congregations of 70-somethings, mine and too many others across the USA, cannot generate that controlled irreverence which Simchat Torah and Purim require.  We are scripted to decorum.

Chabad seems to attract children who attend on Simchat Torah with their parents or grandparents.  A few Lubavitchers have large families, but most in attendance seem to be Jews attracted to the Chabad environment without adapting its Orthodox observance stringencies.  Each year about thirty pre-Bar Mitzvah children attend.  There seem to be some women nominally in charge of the group, maybe volunteer parents, maybe teachers in their Hebrew school.  They assemble in the sukkah for the last time, that repast between Mincha of Shemini Atzeret and the onset of Simchat Torah.  Some cake, some salads and spreads with crackers but never bread to put them on, liquid refreshments adult and pediatric.  The Rabbi has prepped the children in advance.  They will each be asked, one at a time, as they sit in chairs lining the front of the sanctuary what they will pursue in the New Year to enhance their Jewishness.  

Their two minutes in the spotlight arrives as they parade in with flags, taking their seats in roughly size order.  While adult women and men take seats on different sides of the sanctuary, the physical barrier known as a mechitza is temporarily removed, largely to enable dancing with the Torah Scrolls that will be taken out of the Ark at the front of the sanctuary when the children's interviews conclude.  

Each child has his or her prepared answer.  They will give a coin each day into a tzedakah box.  Some will recite the Modeh Ani prayer on arising or the Shema on going to bed, almost never both.  Some will begin lighting candles every Friday night with their mothers.  Some of the older ones will add the Psalm of the Day.  Other's will begin making Challah at home.

While all seem laudable, all seem to miss some of the essence of what being an optimal Jew entails.  Nobody over several years has ever committed himself to having lunch at school with the classmate who always seems to be alone.  They put coins in the tzedakah container's slot, but never consider where the accumulated money is best donated, let alone why.  Some might be old enough to have cell phones.  Nobody has ever committed to leaving it off from candle lighting Friday evening through Havdalah on Saturday night.  And if anyone ever announced that he would not join his father at the Pornhub screen until after Havdalah, the Rabbi would be able to begin his sequel to Art Linkletter's best seller of the 1950s.

Judaism has its identifiable trappings.  Observances of all types. Who has the most stringent standards for Kosher, Shabbos, Study?  Mezuzot on all doors.  Coins in the tzedakah box.  Who puts on their tefillin every day and wears tzitzis under their shirt?  Just what the kids pledged themselves to do.  But it's not only kids.  Reddit as its r/Judaism has many participants, primarily young adults of secular Jewish background, who seek to strengthen their Jewish identities.  They pose to the more experienced Jews how they should go about it.  What books might they read, what videos would enhance their quest, maybe pledging to read the weekly Torah portion in translation each week as primary text.  Should they buy tefillin, or maybe put a mezuzah on all the doors of their apartments. Those elements particular to Jews.  What too often bypasses them may be the realization that many people across the globe do things that are honorable but no longer uniquely Jewish because we have succeeded in bringing to the world standards of conduct, days of respite to our calendars, advocacy for ourselves and for others who we can help move forward.  Those are missing from the r/Judaism requests, as they were from the kids as they announced to their adult audience what they might like to pursue.

When I respond to the r/Judaism seekers, I will recommend written resources for their learning, while discouraging primary Bible readings.  From our earliest reading years, we learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before us.  We read physics texts, not the lab notebooks or research papers of the people who wrote those texts.  The seekers need to read commentary of people before them who have proficiency to share.  The primary Bible sources are not ignored but put in context.  That is Chochma, or Wisdom, one of Judaism's pillars.  We have Tzedek or Righteousness expressed in many ways.  As Kindness.  As Generosity.  As Respect for boundaries of our traditions, whether in our diets or our calendars.  So turn off the cell phones, designate an empty jar to put spare coins into so they can be donated periodically, don't demean people, be a friend when friends are scarce.  Not overtly ritual but Jewish.  The Chabad kids sort of have Kehillah or Community, the r/Judaism seekers understand they need to be part of one.  But methinks they are too quick to gravitate to a synagogue.  Jewish gatherings are sometimes social, sometimes for advocacy, sometimes for communal learning.  The r/Judaism adults have much too restricted a view, the Chabad kids have exposures directed by parents.  Chochma, Tzedek, and Kehilah have a common destination.  We recognize the intersection of these as Kedusha or Sanctity.  Making Kiddush on Friday night contributes to sanctity, but Holiness is never stand-alone.  It is mindset, communal, behavioral, sometimes avoidance of immediate druthers.  The kids at the Rabbi's House Party interview may get there.  So might the Reddit explorers.  But they will have to think about what to strive to become Jewishly in a more expansive way than I heard at Erev Simchat Torah or read on the Reddit app.

Seeking Chabad

I made a reservation to be at Chabad for erev Simchat Torah.  There are times I prefer to be there.  I've never been mistreated there. I don't even know if it's possible to be treated poorly there, at least if you are male.  In our modern era where everyone slights everyone else, such places are rare. They have their ingrained customs, a few of which exclude me, though I've never felt excluded.  In many ways just the opposite.  Their legacy Rebbe z"l insisted that people be brought closer than when they arrived.  And his shlechim who I've met never disappoint.  Kindness has a very high value there, as I learned in other settings.

I particularly seek out erev Simchat Torah.  They have a mincha service for which I am helpful to their minyan.  Then they have a small buffet in their rather large sukkah, though the requirement to be in the sukkah has passed by then.  They do not charge for the meal.  I eat judiciously, though their Rabbi sometimes nudges me to help myself to more.

What attracts me, though, comes between the meal and the formality of maariv services with its hakafot, where the Torah scrolls are paraded though the sanctuary and, weather permitting, outside while songs are sung and the men, only men, dance with the scrolls.  Many also lift up their kids in lieu of holding a scroll.  Yet that is also not why I target this evening for being there.  Before maariv, their assistant Rabbi sits all the children in a line, boys and girls together, approximately by age with the youngest on the left.  He poses them a question, usually asking what type of activity they will assign themselves going forward to perform the required mitzvot more consistently.  He starts with the younger children.  Questions of this type are fairly easy and answers plentiful.  They will help mom with shabbos dinner or say the traditional prayer on arising every morning, or be nicer to their brothers.  As the kids get older, many already performing what is expected of them, the answers get harder.  What do I do now that I can do even better, not correcting what I am neglecting, though there is some of that.  Everybody can donate a little more to tzedakah, or maybe the same total amount but giving on a set schedule.  They have a study curriculum in school.  They can add some study not required of them in school.  And they can be a little more patient with their younger sibs or more helpful to their parents. I think of my answers as he goes, keeping them to myself.

While each child announces his or her upcoming resolve, the very personable Rabbi cheers them on and makes his share of quips that cause the parents, or observers like me, to grin a few times.  In some ways the event reminds me of the final minutes of Art Linkletter's House Party, where he would interview four school age children during the final few minutes of his daily show.  They would say the darndest things, which became the title of his book.  

I have a synagogue too, one that does not generate frequent grins considering the regularity of my attendance.  Simchat Torah is a festive time.  Chabad seems more predictably festive.  And they have kids.  And they exude kindness, not out of obligation but from imprint.  I've never been treated poorly there.  It's the place for me to be as we approach the very end of our Holy Day season.

Impromtu Haftarah

It was my intent to attend shabbos services with my own congregation this week, but forgo the next.  By now I have a protocol of when to go and when they can make their minyan with other men.  In the absence of a hired rabbi, we have congregants speak after the Torah returns to the Ark.  Rather than invite those who have the most to convey, they settled for a sign-up sheet, which creates the risk of Dunning-Kruger's who overestimate their erudition having too much presence on the schedule.  That came to be this week, but still I was willing to go.  I'm masked out.  We are probably the only place that still has everyone involuntarily masked.  But still my bye week was next week.  What I was not willing to do was go there without my wife, who felt a little tired.  While my first inclination was to stay home too, she suggested I go to Chabad instead, a place that I always enjoy attending, though never frequently enough for the novelty to wear off.  This being the parsha where men listen to their wives and do what they say, not always with the best result, I acceded, driving to Chabad.

My congregation edges slightly over a minyan.  Chabad's assemblage of ten men seems more secure, though despite a later starting time than most Orthodox places, did not reach the magic number until just moments before needed.  I chatted with their door attendant, asking him if he were armed.  He was not, but with a little conversation before entering the sanctuary I learned he was a native of South Africa who did his compulsory military service there before emigrating. However, he never acquired proficiency with a pistol.

After taking a seat, I followed along in the Siddur as best I could, noting landmark passages amid the leader's undertone to find the right page.  Eventually Torah reading arrived.  To my surprise, after the second Aliyah, the Rabbi/Torah reader approached me to ask if I wanted to do the Haftarah.  Now, I can do any one proficiently with a week's notice. Sight-reading more iffy, particularly one I've not done before.  I asked for him to read the next Aliyah, a long one, while I assess whether I am perhaps a Dunning-Kruger haftarah chanter.  Chabad commonly truncates the standard Ashkenazi portion, as the did this week.  While Isaiah has a lot of vocabulary unfamiliar to me, sometimes tongue-twisters, there weren't a lot of these.  With the shorter reading I assessed my ability to pull it off.  At the end of the Aliyah, I consented, looked the words over another time while he continued the parsha, then did a pretty decent effort for the Haftarah.  I learned later, that they have a small cadre of sight-readers, though less than they once did.  A few handshakes followed, and the service continued to its conclusion, this time without a customary sermon, though Yizkor earlier in the week probably captured the rabbi's thoughts from his bimah.

People there recognize me as a member of someplace else, that same someplace else to which a handful of those in attendance once belonged.  People drift off for a variety of reasons, but since status quo usually serves as the default, there is often a measure of discontent prompting the transfer.  One person was sent to Cherem by my congregational Rabbi, another VP basically accompanied her husband as he became more a fixture at Chabad.  A surgeon's daughter married into Chabad, so he also became one of their pillars.  A few decided they wanted a place identifiably Orthodox with a mechitza.  Lots of reasons.  Seeing me there, they assumed some preference on my part to be there instead of my own shul which is true, some irritation, also true, some shul shopping on my part, not really.  But I was pleased that their Rabbi invited me to do something there, while my own place opted for sign-up sheets in lieu of recognition of who might be capable.  

As much as I like worshiping with that group, being recognized for a skill that I offer, Chabad has a difficult reality.  They will welcome anyone and hope to influence you in a favorable way.  You cannot influence them, as their structures and practices are set from afar with an element of immutability.  Communal congregations, including my own, do not have that constraint.  They are a composite of their participants who create their character, or at least can be.  That is until their own leadership impedes that advantage.  Which is why I even consider being someplace other than my home sanctuary for selected shabbatot.

Relentless Pursuit of Mediocrity

One shabbos per month, our Cantor takes off, leaving Torah reading to the congregants.  We have started a periodic service where women can be participants with a few strings attached.  While coming to the rescue grudgingly during the Cantor's illness, I thought I could have the subsequent month enjoying shabbos morning someplace else, whether Chabad, Beth Tfiloh, or atop my new mattress as our Cantor makes his return.  It is not to be, at least for one shabbos.  This has been assigned to our Partnership Minyan.  The Aliyah Meister assigned the readings from the weekly portion of Yitro.  All are short except for the one with the Ten Commandments which comprises less than a full column and is familiar to many of us.  Who does the Aliyah Meister ask to do it?  Three highly experienced men.  Based on availability it defaulted to me.  I suggested that in a month one of the women assigned a shorter on can learn that one and somebody with less experience can do the shorter one.  Then she offerred me that shorter one.

Sometimes they just don't get it.  I took the one with the Ten Commandments whose text I mostly know.  Our Logo reads Embracing-Engaging-Enriching.  If you reassign everyone what they did last time and never challenge anyone to enhance their capacity even when the opportunity and the need is glaring, the people can never progress.  This Partnership Minyan has been a showcase with mixed results for a few years.  It's purpose was to provide women left on the sidelines a chance to advance their capacity.  They have the same women and the same capacity.

Does anyone hold responsibility for this?  I would think the Rabbi who approved the project and set its ground rules.  You just cannot have people languish, watch them languish, and not try to remedy this.  In the Rabbi's absence we now have people reading other people's Divrei Torah.  Hello?  We are all university graduates who can write a 5-minute talk on a topic from the week's Torah reading.  Two people do that, one especially well and the other more than adequate.  Reading somebody else's work to me, particularly a short work,  just doesn't cut it, except for maybe an audiobook read by the author or professional actor.  Personal engagement will drive the future of our failing congregation.  We have some in the search for our new location lest we be homeless.  We had it clearing out the building we sold.  However too many decisions default to expediency when the better decision, from Rabbi's contract extension to how to get the weekly portion read at an acceptable level, involves some hardship but a chance to rise to the occasion.

Delayed Trip

One of the realities of being retired after a productive but demanding career has been too much discretionary time.  I did a lot better as an employee where somebody set tasks for me and created my work schedule than I did as an independent practitioner where I set the schedule.  I have very few times recently when I have to be in this place at this time doing that.  If I did not create tasks and deadlines I might be so fundamentally lazy as to not do much.  But I have an exercise schedule that I have maintained with observable benefit to my well-being.  Shabbos arrives at the time the Chabad calendar says.  Come next month, I expect to have scheduled classes at the Osher Institute of the University of Delaware.

Making my own schedule has been challenging.  I do not want to be like my patients on Medicare whose life's highlight often seemed to be their doctors' appointments.  I arrange a series of trips, mostly day trips to museums or places not far away that I've not been to before.  This year I went to see The Mummers Parade on New Years Day.  This morning it had been my intent to drive the four hours or so to the Pennsylvania State University where I have never been before, staying two nights at a hotel.  To my great disappointment, the weatherman indicates two days of heavy rain or wintry mix starting tomorrow and continuing to my drive home, so as much as I'd like to escape my house for a short while, traveling it drier weather seems more compatible with being a tourist.   I had the good sense to get a cancellable reservation and will reschedule shortly, hopefully for next week.

And Then There Were Ten

At Chabad last shabbos, having decided to attend there monthly.  In the spirit of shabbos, I suppose, they start a little later than AKSE but finish a little later as well.  It is their custom to have the ba-al tfiloh actually recite the full text of each psalm which makes the preliminary service longer but also gives me more of an incentive to read along and get more familiar with the Hebrew.  Since they start later, I tend to arrive earlier in the service than I do when I attend my own shul but the flow of attendance there seems much like the flow of attendance anywhere with a few people there at the onset and a crest of the bell curve of arrival time just before Torah reading.  The first Kaddish usually does not have the required ten men at either place but usually does at the official call to prayer, known as the Borechu.  As I entered, I was #8, taking my usual place in the back table to the right of the men's aisle.  Not much activity as the prayers moved along in their usual sequence.  As we approached Borechu and the kaddish that precedes it, a high schooler arrived with his father to follow a minute or two later leaving us at exactly ten at the time our quorum was required, much like the Japanese "just in time" supply system that keeps their production efficient.  Of the ten, eight generally attend weekly, one Hasid in a traditional attire was probably visiting one of the Rabbis, making me the more random attendee which enabled the service to move onto its desired sequence.  By Amidah repetition there were a few more men, making the minyan secure.

So had I been someplace else that shabbat, their service might have been less than it could have been, at least for a few extra moments.  By Torah reading, there were enough men in attendance to distribute the various honors, but for a few moments before that I was tacitly essential.

The Yom Tovim

We're not quite done.  Midway through Chol HaMoed Sukkot, not yet bentched lulav.  

It remains the time to think about Judaism, what went well, what did not.  I kept to my synagogue plan set in November 2014 to go to my congregation if somebody else benefited from my being there, usually as bimah participant but to honor a special guest as well.  Will continue that through the end of the calendar year.  Been to Chabad once a month and Beth Tfiloh once a quarter as planned.  Went to a transdenominational Rosh Hashana, one in existence for 25 years but only attended by me for about five.  I think it's where my synagogue experience tops out.  Participants have been top notch.  No pretense   No formal Rabbis.  Probably the best application of meritocracy to a synagogue that I have encountered anywhere.

Rabbi Robinson, our community's Reform spiritual leader and in my mind the most articulate Jewish thinker of my town posted his YK sermon: 

 http://rabbiyair.blogspot.com/2015/09/yom-kippur-morning-5776-holiness-of.html?showComment=1443689618718#c1564464014608044707

He often focuses on synagogue development for his congregation with implications that are applicable anywhere.  He took an interesting approach, maybe even a nihilist one, to isolate the strengths of his congregation and move them ahead while not trying to remedy the short comings.  His reasoning, which I always hold in great respect, is that if you do something well you can proceed to excellence.  If you focus on correcting a weakness, the best you can hope for is mediocrity.  It's an interesting perspective with all sorts of applications.  If AKSE cannot move women ahead effectively, then write off the project, accept the reality that young families will see us as a dinosaur and promote our excellent kiddush and Sisterhood and small cadre of daveners.  Accept shabbos morning as a variant of Hebrew school beyond redemption with those interAliyah Sound Bites and make the AKSE Academy project sparkle since it has the potential to sparkle.  I'm not sure that this type of writing off one's deficits is really in keeping with the spirit of the High Holy Days, but I can respect the reasoning behind it.  

My own initiatives of what I might like to pursue Jewishly still come in June and December but the fall holidays set the background.

An Afternoon's Optimism

Been under the weather for about a week, bronchitis or some other upper respiratory symptoms, enough to get me to the doctor.  In a recovery mode now.  When I planned my six months in December 2014 I put into the tasks a series of three museum visits in different cities.  I had been to the Landis Museum during the winter and decided to check out the University of Delaware Mineralogical Museum this weekend.  No inclination to attend shabbos services at my home congregation, not enough inclination to return me to Chabad, so I worshiped no place but kept the day as protected time, having breakfast, getting a latte, then a soda.  The museums open at noon so around then I headed off to U of D.

Even though I've been to the University many times, driving through most of it at one time or another and walking the length of Main Street where businesses interface with campus, I've never explored the classroom and residence portions.  It turns out that this weekend, the University set aside the day for accepted students and their parents to visit as they decide where to matriculate.  Parking rules suspended.  Everyone seemed so enthusiastic and helpful.  I parked near the Mineralogical Museum in the Geology Building which itself lied amid a science and engineering complex with the Student Union just a few buildings beyond that.  It was a small but pleasant display, samples of the stuff they tried to teach us with marginal success in 9th Grade NY Regents Earth Science.  Not sure who donated the several significant looking gold nuggets.  No diamwww.chabadde.comonds, rubies or sapphires, some relatively crude emeralds but mostly the stuff that constitutes the middle segments of Moh's hardness scale, yet specimens of natural beauty and crystal formation.

This did not take very long.  UD has three museums, one a photography exhibit on pre-civil rights African American experience and achievement, the other at the original College Hall a small painting and drawing exhibit, both small, both manned by very pleasant students who could answer a few questions about the display and seemed genuinely pleased that a visitor took enough interest to ask about it.

To get from the science complex to the building where I assume the deans hang out I had to traverse a good part of the campus, the college green hidden from traffic but with abundantly filled bicycle racks, a few students lolling on the green with a book, aware that finals could not be far off.  There were activities announced on bulletin boards, visiting prospective students on guided tours, scatting young ladies with blue Ask Me t-shirts.   It's a place where you can immerse yourself in the world's future, if only for about two hours.

But I did not take a comparable amount of time to worship that shabbos morning.  I don't know if any of the kids on campus did either.  What I can say, though, is that the future that I wandered through at the University would not be duplicated any shabbos morning at my synagogue or even Chabad.  Eventually these kids will have to fill in schedules and meet deadlines just like they do at my synagogue but doing these things is part of the process of their advancement.  For us, whether at shul or at work, filling the schedule has become the end point, devoid of any future growth.  At UD the museums reflect a small element of memory or knowledge.  Work at the hospital where residents expand their skills while patients recover also reflects a future.  Shul though, even on shabbos morning, is the museum.  People seem to have lost the ability to tell the difference.  Optimism seems much more limited in that environment.  But as long as optimism exists elsewhere, it can be captured elsewhere, as I experienced yesterday.

Being Interactive

Went to Chabad again for second day Pesach.  The Rabbi greeted me in the corridor as I was entering.  He asked me about my Seder the night before, a small family gathering that took effort on my part.  I returned the question, learning that their community Seder was attended by seventy.  The number surprised me, since it did not include college students who have their own center on the University of Delaware campus and were off that week for spring break.  So the conversation moved to how he identified 70 people who might be in need of a Seder, mostly people who lived alone that he knew about and invited.  Now for a long time, I've wanted AKSE data organized to enable that sort of thing, looking at individuals to invite to participate, but there seems no incentive beyond calculating membership by household billing statements.  He assured me that in the computer age, what he did successfully to enable people to attend a traditional Seder was not that difficult but you have to want to think about people who you can serve for their benefit rather than yours, another lesson not quite grasped by medical organization either.

Worship proceeded.  After Torah reading, the Rabbi cited a misheberach for the sick.  Two of my electronic friends, both women, had undergone intricate surgery for potentially life threatening diseases.  They had provided me their names so I went to give it to the rabbi.  He stopped me, indicating that the prayer was for men, then signalled me back for their names when he gave the healing prayer for women.  After the service I asked him if when he visits the hospital he sees all the men on his list first, then backtracks to the women.  Of course not, he told me.  The separation of men and women in the prayer, which is done in all congregations but I had never seen divided before, was done out of respect for the women in his tradition.  It had to do with the grammar inherent in the prayer.  The prayer is recited in a generic masculine grammatical format.  Chabad believes the women are entitled to their prayer modified grammatically in a feminine format so it is repeated with a separate list but the prayer itself having wording targeted to the people on the list.  When he visits the sick, it is done geographically by hospital floor with backtracking if somebody is not available for the visit when he first stops by.  Not men first, then women.

If there is anything at AKSE that I think has disappeared, it is those discussions, the random moments of inquiry and exploration, those teaching moments that crop up every day in hospital rounds when you encounter something that engages your mind and use that opportunity to connect with somebody else's mind.  It keeps SERMO vibrant, a forum where a physician can post a comment, clinical, political, or some other element as life as a doctor, and dozens of others will pick up on the presentation and write back.  The AKSE kiddush experience of Nice Shirt, Nice Tie, Nice Kippah out of Dale Carnegie to neglect of what was said in the sermon and its implications or more substantive discussions of what is really a diminishing experience that is losing the diversity needed to keep it attractive poses a real future problem, not just an overlooked opportunity.

When Shabbos is No Longer the Centerpiece

As a child, Mr. Zeisel, my Orthodox friend Howie's father took me aside one Rosh Hashana and suggested I return one shabbos to see what his synagogue is really like.  I did.  From then onward, more than half a century later, shabbos has been the centerpiece of my Jewish observance and the experience through which I judge the synagogue experience.  High Holy Days could be absolutely wretched, a performance in processing people through Judaism to subsidize fifty other weeks in which the Jewish pageant really plays out.  People go to the Beach Outlets to make themselves memorable for Rosh Hashana.  But there is a subset of us that have no need to feel memorable but to isolate some time each week to put away the studies and courses of college and medical school, seeing people as friends who share the college journey and not as competitors for the next professional destination.  After graduating, I no longer had the same people at my side all week, leaving shabbos as the time to reacquaint with people I missed during the work week.  Shabbos took on more of separation of time.  I attended shul because I wanted to attend shul.  There were the formalities of the worship, the type of ritual or formality that encourages a mixture of community and respect.  Torah got read, tunes chanted, kiddush made, sometimes lunch eaten, then off to a quiet afternoon, usually alone, sometimes with recreation not available to me at other times.  The shabbos morning destination only failed me once before, I relocated its venue, restoring it to what I had come to expect.

Unfortunately, it has been failing again.  I can assign blame if I want, and until recently that was what I wanted.  But not now.  It really isn't anybody's fault that I show up ever less frequently, rationing my shabbos mornings at my own congregation to twice monthly and now to when I have an invitation to do something useful to somebody else while I am there.  I'm not indifferent, I'm actively disappointed with the experience, would replace it once again if it were as easy as last time.  I have been going to AKSE out of my perception of obligation more than any desire to worship there on shabbos or renew acquaintances with anyone I've not seen in a week.  I sit and stand, stare into space, no desire to interact or challenge myself.  I've almost returned to Hebrew school when I am there.  Rabbi's vision of what he wants to impart to us and my vision of what I might like to receive just don't mesh.  I can protest but the baalebatim seem deaf to any opposition,  perceiving probably correctly that they have pretty much already lost as many members as they are likely to lose.  Yes, the concept of shabbos is the same everywhere, but I guess I am not the same everywhere.  There is salvage at Chabad and Beth Tfiloh but not really replacement of the experience that once made me an AKSE shabbos advocate and more eager participant than I have been in recent years.

Only a relatively small subset of our Board attends with any regularity on shabbos morning.  They pay dues, rather large sums at that, so there must be some attractions to survive when the shabbos experience implodes.  And there is that experience of Temple Square, where as a non-believer, I am formally excluded from entry into their building of worship, yet remain in awe of the parts to which I have access and in admiration of the people who enabled this.  Even within an American synagogue mindset, the baalebatim of fifty years ago probably appreciated that worship may not be their sustainable centerpiece, designing their buildings with sanctuaries that took up only a small amount of floor space, improvising for the few occasions when large crowds came for worship, but expanding the activities of the shul to be more of a club, a House of Assembly.  As worship deteriorates for me at AKSE, there are elements that seem to be going well when they have a champion to make it go well.  Kiddush and other food presentation have become more attractive.  Money seems to be handled in a more responsible way.  The Sisterhood events seem stable.  So maybe there are participatory surrogates to compensate for a deteriorating worship experience.  These can never be the centerpiece but they can you by, at least for a while.

Morning at Chabad

It's been a while since I was last at Chabad on shabbos morning.  While my quest for an uninterrupted Torah reading was not fulfilled there either, I very much enjoyed being there, partaking of the differences between expected Orthodox services and the minor liturgical variations which their tradition uses.  About half, or perhaps somewhat more, had at one time been members of AKSE, most of whom I had not seen in a while but pretty near 100% came over to greet me.  They gave me the honor of Hagbah, done a little differently in their tradition but explained to me.  I then had to sit with the Torah through the Haftarah and prayers preliminary to it's return, something that got a little heavy, but maybe an incentive to me to get back in better condition.  The Rabbi's son did Musaf, lovely voice, and to be a newlywed soon.  Aliyah Sound Bites, three of them, done by the Assistant Rabbi, longer than AKSE's, of perhaps slightly more erudite content, and wonderful dvar Torah by Rabbi Vogel, the Rebbe's shaliach in Delaware.  Simple kiddush, with a little schapps offered to me by the Rabbi.  I selected the partially home made one, Polish potato vodka which he infused with etrog.  Definitely different, enough citrus to notice.  Updated overdue acquaintances, then moved on for the rest of the day.  It felt like shabbos morning.

Kehillah

Ran into a synagogue acquaintance at Shop-Rite this weekend, wanted to pose a question to him but we ran in different directions in our quests for nutrition and bargains so  it did not materialize.  I thought about telephoning my question to him later in the week, looked up his phone number and still might, but decided to save it until I see him on shabbos morning at Chabad, which will probably occur soon.  This fellow does one critically important project for AKSE, almost entirely on his own, the relatively thankless job of arranging our High Holy Day proceedings, contacting large numbers of men to honor with Ark openings and making sure the Rabbi has an accurate list to announce from the Bimah.  He does this exceptionally well and with an attention to detail that eludes most of the AKSE participants.  During the year he will take his turn as haftarah chanter, maybe two or three times, and show up a handful of shabbatot beyond that, but for the most part he can be found at Chabad near his home on shabbos morning.  At the moment I can only speculate why.  Similar reaction to the experience of sitting in our sanctuary on Saturday morning?  Being more absorbed into the Chabad community?  Having meaningful things to do at Chabad that occur more than once a year?  Just have to ask him.

In anticipation of his soon to be released series of essays on Continuing Education for Rabbis, Rabbi Hayim Herring has presented a series of You Tube interviews on the subject.  One explores the difference between broadcast and social media.  For a broadcast, you partake of what you are given but you are on your own to accept, reject or pursue what is given to you.  Social media is more interactive, more personalized, as is blogging.  My disappointing shabbos morning experience can be traced back about three years through my blog.  In one respect it is what it is, a presentation to me of shabbos, take it or leave it.  That's not very hard to deal with.  I find it much more irritating to try to express what I encounter, its negative consequences which diminish community, only to have multiple layers of baalebatim never even acknowledge the comments.  That is no more community than a bunch of fans watching the home team as an aggregate of individuals at a stadium, at least until they express themselves by booing as a group.  Yes, shabbos morning at AKSE is less than it once was, it is less than it once was for cause, and those doing something else instead, myself among them, could be a kehillah in its own right if we had a way to interact other than disappearing into the woodwork as individuals.

There is also the illusion of community.  Shabbos dinner and kiddush do not make a kehillah unless discourse occurs there.  Being responsible for each other, being sensitive to each other, enabling talent to emerge without suppression, that creates community.  By that definition, which I think is accurate, the grand American community may be in decline in parallel with AKSE's shabbos morning.

So what are my kehillot at the moment?  Primarily work and Sermo.  I'm a contributor to both.  People tolerate my mind, people at both do not hold a grudge when that mind becomes an irritant.  Nobody at work has invited me to dinner or any other social activity outside of work.  I've only met a handful of the grand collection of fellow physicians on Sermo.  Yet both are forms of pageantry that welcome whoever comes by, irrespective of what they think.  Nobody gets marginalized at either.  There are some basic rules of Derech Eretz, but not a lot of them, and nobody can say they are ignored because of what they think.  That's a functional kehillah, one that I do not think the leadership of my congregation is really prepared to pursue.  The Rabbi probably might if he understood it better.  But for now, it seems the right circumstances to join my congregational amigo at Chabad for a while.

We'll Go There for the Holy Days

Once a year my wife and I have our entry into Transdenominationalism.  For the past twenty-five years a dedicated cadre of observant Conservative Jews, still members of their USCJ congregations, depart from what can be an irritating experience, conducting something akin to what I aspire to, almost a College Hillel for the Alumni of the College Hillels at Rosh Hashana.  No Rabbis.  No new clothing from the fancy outlets.  No reserved pew seating.  Nobody checking tickets.  They have an honor system to pay $18 to cover the cost of building and chair rental, along with a small kiddush.  Nobody asking for pledges.  No interruption of the service to honor the congregation's machers and raise money at the same time.  Aliyot and petichot and gabbaim assigned that morning with no expectation of a donation for the honor.  No chazzan or Symphonic Choir, though each volunteer baal t'filah has been outstanding.  Sermons also superior in content and analysis from what I have come to expect of our congregational Rabbis.  No kvetches about faulty air conditioning or having to park the car too far away.  And we got done with the service in its entirety at least a half hour before our home congregation did.  It's the shabbos experience transposed to the Holy Days when the realities of congregational experience often corrupt what the congregation should be aspiring to.  If only they knew about it and did not mind either the drive or the gender equality, AKSE would not be competitive on the days the Board depends upon most for people to have a favorable experience.

Much can be said about shopping down.  When I need a new cars or house or suit, I look first at the ones I cannot afford, noting their special features that are most important, some of which are preserved in the offerings more readily available to me.  Synagogue membership has become a big ticket item, one rather expendable if the only thing derived is a three day, four service appearance that can be had for $18 a person per year.  Unfortunately for some, that outstanding experience invites other outstanding experience, which means ponying up for the membership which at its best includes some means of molding the congregation.  People can observe the Holy Days for free at any Chabad but they cannot influence what Chabad has become.  Congregational members can impact on who the Rabbi is, what the Rabbi does, the social activities that go on through the year, the educational offerings, maybe even the finances.  Inability to do that, particularly in those Beth Sodom's that have kingmakers or macher swoops greatly devalues the cost of membership, as many a congregational leader now grapples with membership retention as the ultimate goal with membership participation as the element that cements retention.

So as RH transitions to YK, I return to AKSE as a Torah reading participant, a curious listener to hear what the Rabbi has to say about the Pew Research Report, his announced pre-Yizkor topic and perhaps even a minor league schmoozer at the buffet that follows shofar blowing.