JCC Open House

An invitation arrived around New Year's.  It was addressed to my daughter, who now lives on the other coast.  Since it was a card, front and back, from a public rather than personal source, I read it and found it of potential interest.  It solicited her membership in the Jewish Community Center of her childhood town, noting the date of an Open House to tour the facility.  It would be unrealistic for her to pursue this, though not me.  I had been a member for decades.  Now as a senior empty nester, one who could benefit from their health enhancement facilities, I took the card to my upstairs desk.  Everyplace has a website, including the JCC.  In the promotional initiative, they would waive their various upfront fees assigned to new members.  The monthly fee would be $99 for a senior couple, $67 dollars for myself alone.  Since the YMCA is around the corner from there and has comparable health facilities, I compared pricing. Virtually the same.  And the JCC has Jewish content, though membership in the local Y includes access to any Y, regional or national.  I reserved the date for their Open House, a three hour span from 10AM to 1PM.  That time arrived.  I bundled up for the cold snap, drove to the building, found a suitable parking space in a lot that I thought crowded for a Sunday mid-morning, and headed into the building.

Jewish buildings now require some vigilance on who may enter.  I opened the front door to find their lobby rather busy.  To my right, an affable African American lady at the registration table greeted me promptly and took the information she needed about me on her tablet.  I thought I might have a history, but apparently not.  A few docents were conducting personal guided tours, so one of them found me.

My membership had lapsed with intent many years before.  I remember the circumstances but not the year, only that my children were pretty much starting on their own.  My synagogue began a Capital Campaign.  A solicitor, really two people, a congregant who chaired the effort and a contracted fundraising professional, came to my living room.  They asked for an amount that I had but would rather spend differently.  It was a pledge of $3000 payable over three years.  My wife and I wanted to this to be economically neutral, as our children had not fully completed school.  Membership in the JCC cost about that much, and we had more attachment to the synagogue than to the J, so we diverted the money.  Our pledge got paid on schedule.  We never restored our JCC affiliation.

The experience when I was there was a very mixed one.  They hosted plenty of worthy Jewish events from an Israel Expo shortly after we arrived to town that utilized the entire surface area of the building.  We attended their Adult Ed sessions for many years, a project championed by a senior member of my congregation.  It contained a series of courses conducted by some real experts.  I learned much of what I know of Jewish demographics from the U of D professor who taught this.  But as his ability to assemble this waned, the project collapsed. Each Hanukkah they sponsored their Hanukkah Hoopla, filling the gym's floor space with vendors renting tables, some to sell high end Judaica, others coming as Jewish agencies promoting the value their organizations bring to out Jewish community.  Having an exceptional child who was difficult to mainstream, I often found myself holding the bag as the JCC staff found dealing with him beyond their professional skills, something that generated a fair amount of ill will on my part.  And there were the health and aquatic facilities which I used, sometimes with regularity, often with lapses.  When I had an ankle fracture not long after my forty year parts warranty expired, whose recovery took time, the availability of the JCC resources was useful.  But by the time my membership lapsed, I had become a sporadic user.  The projects that attracted me most had atrophied.  I no longer needed the child services.  Not that I thought my congregation would use its endowment well as the alternative.  It didn't.  But once paid off, I had an extra $1000 or so each year not allocated to anything I didn't particularly value.  Indeed, a small increment in my checking account not really even noticed.

In the intervening years, there are specific events that brought me to the JCC Building, ranging from political pre-election candidate forums to mincha services for my congregation or an occasional public entertainment event or guest speaker of international prominence.  While on site, I just headed where the thing I wanted to attend or sometimes needed to attend was being held.  I never ventured beyond the assigned room or adjacent hallway, other than maybe to sit in the lobby while waiting for the event to commence.  This time I came to see what my monthly fee would purchase.

First, the building is considerably larger than when I left. My guide took me through a hall I had never entered previously on the far eastern wing of the building.  The Fitness Center now occupies a space where the men's locker room had been, greatly expanded by amount of equipment and space devoted to it.  Any imaginable means of increasing endurance and strength could be accessed.  Not only did it appear large, the impression of space was further enhanced by a floor to ceiling mirror on the far wall which reflected the entire room into the visual impression of a duplicate room with identical equipment.  They had energy drinks for purchase.  I did not see the current lockers. She did offer to show me the pool, but I know what pool looks like.  The more important question for a purchaser would be the accessibility of the pool as a finite entity that has to accommodate classes, swim teams, senior water aerobics, dedicated lap swim time, all in competition for random recreational use.  They did supply the aquatics schedule.

While my health as a senior matters, with exercise part of it, I have a home treadmill, though one with much less utility than theirs.  Would I use strength building? Minimally at most.  Would I engage the professional skills of a trainer?  To the extend my monthly fee included that. Would the driving time required to get there and back, approximately the duration of an entire treadmill session, deter me from using the facilities?  I think so.

But what attracted me during my membership years was not the health club, which I used, but the Jewish content which was considerable and the friendships which essentially did not materialize. So as my personal tour guide took me around, my questions focused on what makes the Jewish Community Center, ours and others, Jewish.  Modifications of access for shabbos and yom tovim?  She could tell me the building was closed, gym open.  Interestingly our JCC could not survive solely on its Jewish membership dues.  People come to use the gym and pool primarily.  They also enroll for child care services, from day care to after school care to summer camp.  These have a vestige of Jewishness.  They ask that home made lunches be free of pork and food prepared in their kitchen is kosher.  But they cannot realistically suspend child care on yom tovim.  They have lunch sessions with Jewish themed talks.  They are directed at seniors.  I know the principal instructor.  Unlikely to have any content not already covered in a Hebrew school of the 1960s, long since atrophied by the Hebrew school my kids attended in the 1990s.  Struck me as minimalist, though I don't really know.

And like many secular Jewish agencies, they tend to stratify people.  Children under age 5 neeed to be together, pre-Bar Mitzvah grade school needs to be together, Seniors need to be together. With suitable programming for each, with crossover regarded as intrusion on protected turf.  I assume they learned this from the USCJ Congregations that promote this, or perhaps from childhood weekends at Grossingers and the like where they functioned this way.  Homogeneity created fewer problems than diversity, be the stratification by age, wealth, level of observance, or political views.  As polarized as America has become and as badly as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been managed, as echo chambers have become the places we default to unless forced elsewhere, the really valuable parts of the world as I see it seem to do the opposite.  In my workplaces, my common mission is shared by all sorts of people.  On a cruise where people are assigned to tables either randomly or semi-randomly and where you could be sharing an excursion adventure with anyone, being with people who are not like me is integral to enjoyment.  My electronic friend, Rabbi Hayim Herring wrote a book Connecting Generations: Bridging the Boomer, Gen X, and Millennial Divide (Rowman and Littlefield 2019).  He argued that organizations do themselves and their users a disservice when they put people into generational boxes.  The workplaces and vacation operators have learned this.  The agencies of Judaism haven't, except for maybe the Orthodox synagogues.  Of all my experiences at the Open House, it is my impression that I belong here and not there caused me the most unease.

Since this was an Open House being attended by a variety of people who might be interested in the JCC for many different reasons, the event also had vendors with display tables lining the walls.  Some were Federation subagencies like the JCC.  Others sold tutoring services, the PJ Library which provides Jewish books to Jewish preschoolers and early readers, various services of interest to Seniors, The Friends School for kids who need a level of prestigious entitlement beyond which the local day school struggles to compete.  

They had bagels and coffee on a table next to a big depleted box with paper lining indicating it had been supplied by WaWa.  I didn't eat anything.

The people were pleasant.  The facilities clean.  And the gym top notch.  I don't think Jewish was at a level that would greatly enhance me from my current level.  I already attend an excellent Osher Institute affiliated with my state's flagship university.  There I do not mind a space restricted to other retirees, as that is Osher's purpose.  It is not the JCCs purpose, or shouldn't be.  My JCC membership had lapsed decades before as it lost a head to head decision against my synagogue for equal levels of support.  I didn't miss the gym.  Getting wet periodically at a state beach or a hotel was sufficient.  By the time I left, the upper tier Jewish programs were already gone.  And experience with child care could have been better,  No strong friendships were made, though none sacrificed either.  Does rejoining restore or enhance?  Not how I reason it right now.  But while there, I spun the wheel for a free gift.  Mine came up a single day pass.  Now wedged in a little slot in my cell phone case, I could return and experience this at a time that is not a targeted recruitment event. I could experience how helpful their trainers are or whether those lectures on Judaism targeted to seniors reminds me more of college or Hebrew School.  But while I appreciated the upgrades to facilities, I returned with some baggage of prior experience.  And in a Jewish world of significant attrition in my post-Hebrew School lifetime, now two generations worth, I wonder how much our leaders really learned as the baton was passed from the adult creators of my youth who effectively cloned their proteges to run the operations with efficiency metrics now.

Synagogue Consumerism

This week I began a book that I had been looking forward to purchasing from the moment the editor indicated to me that he was assembling it.  Hayim Herring's Keeping Faith in Rabbis came out a few weeks ago.  For a nominal sum and a little hassle with Kindle, I downloaded it and began reading the various essays, most written by Rabbis themselves but a few written by synagogue participants, a few not entirely happy with the experience, though none really feeling shut out the way I assess my own experience.  Most have suggestions for making participation a more active process and most are baalebatim themselves.  One essay by a Rabbi Shapiro divided the cadre of rabbis and the cadre of Jews into two clear categories each.  Rabbis could either be clerks or prophets, the Jewish public could either be passionate about their organizations or passionate about rejecting those organizations.  Most people, of course, fall somewhere between the two poles but clear divisions make analysis easier.  I think he is right, at least from my AKSE experience, that people just want to processed through Judaism, fed what previous sages have written for the current Rabbi to digest and impart, and deflect people who are either challengers or outliers.  Congregants can be managed like the Army with a few soldiers going AWOL but most buying into what the generals want with little challenge to authority.  Those congregants really just want to be part of the Army and if not overtly mistreated will remain on board, maybe even help perpetuate mediocrity.

I think that's a pretty decent summary of how organizational Judaism has matured in America, from its origins as an identifiable minority of people banding together to fulfill a common purpose where a certain amount of creativity was both needed and valuable to more of a self-perpetuating collection of people still trying to find purpose long after the original challenge has been resolved.  Certainly the sacred texts and commentaries are still studied and added to just as they have always been.  Now, more than any prior time, the thoughts of the giants are readily accessible, many acknowledge the comments sent their way by untitled peasants like myself and write back.  Even the most egregious control freaks, the Rabbinical Assembly, know that they cannot continue to shield themselves from a public that contains highly educated people used to reading primary sources and analysis and have modified some of their protections that have disenchanted some of their most capable Conservative laity.  But I still go to shul on a shabbos morning listening to relative fluff in the form of repetitive interAliyah comments, two minute factoids that can be looked up on the internet during the week and fed to a few dozen attendees who did not pursue anything Jewish on the internet that week.  Another essay in the book assesses the form of presentation amid the content of presentation.  People really can be processed through by their professionals, be they doctors putting the cap on medical setbacks or Rabbis telling somebody of lesser knowledge some of his or her knowledge, though without really advancing the recipient in a meaningful way.  Unless you want to be spending your career having roobs reach threshold, there has to be some serious content with its challenges and vulnerabilities.  Until that arrives in a more consistent way than I have experienced, Orthodoxy will continue to exert its growing monopoly on the most capable Jewish amateurs.

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.

Ending My Sabbatical

This has not been as easy as it would seem.  It was my intent to immerse myself in the type of thriving Judaism that has passed my congregation by these past few years, then return ready to engage in activities that would import what I've acquired.  Since the onset of 2014 I've run the possibilities past a few people, including one of the past presidents this morning.  Despite his position of responsibility and continuous commitment to the congregation since turning over his office to others, he could not come up with a single project for the betterment of the synagogue that currently remains undone.  I could come up with five while I was chatting with him at the breakfast table and tell him where his successors dropped the ball.

I think I will make the offer to the Rabbi next week, though I can guess his response.  I do not think he has a coherent vision of what the shul should be like and how the human resources within the congregation can get it there.  I doubt if the departing President did either.  If the Rabbi advises me to do something trivial like populate the current activities more rather than upgrade them, certainly my expectation, I'll pose the offer to the VP's, none of whom strike me as visionary either.

In his monograph, Tomorrow's Synagogues Today, Hayim Herring described the role of contemporary congregational Rabbi as part visionary and part talent scout.  I could say the same of the President who emasculated the latter role by turning the Nominating Committee into his telephone squad to populate the board with the people he wanted on it.

And while I am probably their principal scholar with the most innovative, critical mind, that has a lot less value to them than adding your tush to the Sunday morning minyan, even though you do nothing more while there than add to attendance.  The untapped talent strikes me as stunning coming from a professional environment where one's knowledge and skill is usually the coin of the realm.  I do not think it has been in the non-Orthodox Jewish world for some time, with an outcome relatively predictable from that approach.

No Rabbis Present

This past shabbat we had a dip in attendance with many people attending a Shabbat spectacle across town.  We had no clergy in attendance, not Rabbi, not Hazzan.  Even our cadre of Bimah performers was a little schvok.  But a core of capable volunteers led the liturgy from beginning to end, even starting on time.  Another person gave a thoughtful sermon of the right length and memorable insight.  Some women prepared a glorious Kiddush for us afterwards, complete with the unusual delicacies of roll mop herring and cheesecake plus the usually present scotch and Canadian whiskeys.  It was definitely the more shabbos-like place to be.  Might clergy be a deterrent to attendance?  Maybe even the impediment to kavannah?

.Rabbi Herring who established a now dormant project not that many years ago to make worship in the synagogue a more engaging experience than many of us find it posted a blog entry recently examining the changing role of the Rabbi in the synagogue.
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http://hayimherring.com/resetting-the-rabbinate/

Emcee, host, facilitator, Chief Resident, sage, CEO perhaps.  Would it be better for him not to be there or for me not to be there on shabbos morning?  The experiment with me not being there has been conducted innumerable times, making it pretty safe to conclude that my presence does not particularly matter one way or another.  Unless somebody takes attendance, my presence or absence really has no impact.  In some ways the congregation is like the army, there is a cadre of people who are needed and appear when needed.  A few get an honorable discharge from the congregation after the last child's Bar Mitzvah, a few go AWOL, but once the proper head count has been achieved and the technical expertise of the bimah participants has been put in place, the companies, battalions, and divisions have little impact in the sanctuary though quite a lot of aggregate impact on the finances.  That is why synagogue buildings for the last fifty years have been architecturally designed with relatively small amounts of sacred space and a lot more square footage devoted to classrooms or other areas of non-worship assembly.  But the Rabbi provides a focus.  Yes, the proceedings will go on in his absence but only to the extent that baalebatim insist on it by applying their personal skills.

So last shabbat, we had some very good baalebatim supplemented by a general attendance that valued their experience in our sanctuary more than they valued the prospect of being amid anyone who's anyone at the synagogue across town.  I think many of the people who remain loyal to shabbos and to worshipping at their synagogue most weeks acquired that habit through their Hillel experiences in college or Jewish camping experience, both largely devoid of professional clergy, as are the increasingly popular transdenominational experiences.  They are the people who make shabbos happen, though not necessarily every week.  If you really want it every week, you need to hire a professional.