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.

Substandard Encounters

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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Electronics Off

For Yom Kippur, I kept the electronics off, as I usually do.  No cell phone.  No laptop.  Not even big screen TV where by now I watch mostly YouTube with a small diversion for selected football, college and Eagles.  YK came out Wednesday to Thursday nights this year.  I had made a commitment to myself to leave the social media off through Sukkot, beginning a few days before.  Due to a glitch I had to return to FB momentarily, only to learn of the passing of friend's mother, a former neighbor and good friend of my mother, who had lived to advanced years.  I made a comment, sent a donation, then turned it off.  Rarely, postings from FB have significance.  They come randomly enough to make me reconsider my absolute hiatus.  Shofar blown, quick snack at synagogue to break the fast, then a more substantial feeding at home.  I opted not to check the electronics other than TV until the next morning.  After more consideration, FB, Reddit, and Twitter to stay fallow.

The following morning, I caught up on email.  Zero messages that needed attention.  Some notices from entities that I subscribe to, a single non-urgent message directed at me personally.  A lot of deletes from places trying to sell me something.  A few from places wanting donations.  Those organizations all had merit.  Some will get a share of my mandatory IRA withdrawal when I do it next month.  A few that should have been forwarded to phishing or spam, but not knowing for sure, they just got deleted.

Not looking at my email for Shabbos and yontif should resume as usual practice, as it once was.  By the afternoon past Yom Kippur, FB was already sending me notices of why I ought to sign back on.  All of it A Friend Posted.  Nada notification of a response to something I posted.  I understand that their financial fortunes depend on subscribers or other forms of suckers reading their personal feeds.  Almost none have the importance of a death notice.  People who really need to reach me have email.  Some think they have texting, though not true.  My text feeds are cluttered with Friends of Obama needing another $50.  Bringing their party, my party in a much more selected form, to even more profound ignominy does not benefit from my financial support.  I have doctors' offices texting me even though I asked on their intake forms not to be notified that way.  The only legitimate purpose for texting me seems to be to my confirm identity when dealing with one of my financial or government institutions, those where I have initiated the contact.

A number of prominent people have given themselves a weekly Sabbath from their smartphones.  Catherine Price wrote about this in her book on controlling omnivailability.  The late Charlie Kirk, for all the divergence of world view that I have with him, though I had not heard of him prior to his assassination, understood the value of a weekly cell phone break.  He chose the Jewish Sabbath.  I don't know why.  I do know why I would choose my Shabbos to set the electronics aside.  And our Festivals last two days.  When they span Thursday-Friday or Sunday-Monday, those electronics-free days extend to three days.  I've done this before.  FOMO never a social media concern.  When I turn email back on, I can expect enticements from FB in my messages.  Three day suspension is not long enough.  Better to commit to weeks.  At least on Reddit r/judaism I am helpful to people and on r/Jewish Cooking I learn things.  FB still has friends that I value sharing some element of their lives.  Twitter in its current form only has destructive value.

Now Jewish year 5786.  I do not do resolutions, either Jewish or secular calendar transitions.  Never more cheerful or tolerant, despite my best intent.  Some things I can do, including control of the electronics.  As yom tovim cluster, keeping the cell phone and email dormant seems part of the observance, along with shabbos.  Social media needs a broader assessment of control, probably in the form of rationing.  Leaving these platforms without access to respect the Jewish Holy Days seems easy.  Fitting them in appropriate places in a setting of limited but not zero merit takes a little more thought.

My YK experience, though, affirms the benefits of defined shut-downs.

Holiday Dinners

The Fall Calendar.  Kitchen time for me.  My synagogue decided to sponsor a dinner the evening before Rosh Hashanah.  It's a good thing for them to do.  They get people to come and stay for an evening service whose attendance has dwindled.  My experience with congregational meals usually has me heading home regretting that I subscribed. Many reasons, most traceable to a Dominant Influencer culture that grates on me.  Also exclusion from the kitchen, one of my favorite places to be as a Food Committee gave way to Sisterhood, with its Dominant Influencer. Something I revel in at home, designing the menus, inviting dinner guests, executing the creation of an elegant meal using home kitchen resources.  My favorite place to be, even before I get to the dining table.  Going to a synagogue dinner registers as a form of deprivation.

Three key meals, multiple secondary ones as the Holy Days play out.  RH, Shabbos Sukkot, and since traveling to an event with my new grandson, I can assemble a Shabbos dinner from their nearby Aldi for the Shabbos before YK.

I've made the menu grid for RH and Sukkot.  As I did this, the RH structure with my family traditions popped out at me from the grid.  I make a round challah, two if Shabbos.  I've known how to make a round spiral for many years, but this past year I learned how to make a four-strand interior braid with the overall shape remaining round.  We have apples and honey.  The Sisterhood, those ladies who exclude me from the congregational kitchen irrespective of my skill and interests, sell honey as a fundraiser.  Expensive, but better honey than the stuff that supports my honey cake.  That goes with apples.  I've gotten away from gefilte fish.  We still try to get to services on time.  Too many dinner courses make that difficult.  Instead, I make a chicken soup with discounted chicken parts that can be harvested for other uses.  Add carrots, an onion, maybe a turnip, a stalk or two of celery and commercial kosher chicken broth, some peppercorns, maybe a bay leaf.  Pastina or orzo for serving.  My wife makes a special rice kugel, more sweet than savory.  I usually make chicken as the main course. Some forms cook easily, others with more elegance.  You can never go wrong with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, that blank canvas of an entree that can be seasoned, seared, and baked, poached with herbs, made in an Insta-Pot, or prepared in a variety of sauces.  Carrots are the preferred vegetable, having to do with a play on words in their Yiddish form.  I've made glazed carrots, but sometimes plain boiled has advantages.  Dessert is always Honey Cake.  It has a basic recipe with endless variants.  Since we need to head to services, I do not serve alcohol other than a swallow of Concord Grape Wine with kiddush.  Seltzer or herb tea does the job.

Sukkot meals get eaten in our sukkah as much as weather permits.  We try to have guests shabbos, usually people who do not have their own sukkahs.  We also usually get invited somewhere during the holiday, but I reserve Shabbos for serving as host.  Here the menu gets more creative.  Two braided Challot, one for the guest to take home.  I've learned to make loaf gefilte fish. It is poached in seasoned water while still frozen, then cooled and served as slices with horseradish.  Soup appears in the menu, often Middle Eastern harira, sometimes chicken. Salad of some type, always with a dressing that I made myself.  The main course has fewer restrictions. Chicken Cacciatore goes well.  So does a half-turkey breast or a whole roasted chicken.  Maybe Bastilla, an elegant chicken pie assembled with a phyllo crust.  Roast meat gets a kugel of some type.  Vegetable on sale.  Dessert is usually a pareve cake.  Apple, nut torte, baklava.  And wine.  Serving in a cramped sukkah with small square table requires its own planning.

While many American Jews center their religious life around the Holy Days, sometimes the only opportunity to leverage reluctant worshipers to fork over hefty annual dues that keep their congregations functional the rest of the year, the luster for me had long since worn off.  In college, I reconnected with friends I'd not seen that summer.  Services usually needed some juggling with school work.  Each year had a twist or two.  Adult suburbia has became excessively programmed. Large crowds.  People of entitlement, either to the same aliyah they've had forever, choirs that mean more to the singers than the listeners, gatekeepers at the door, an influx before Yizkor with a mass exit on completion, an increasingly politicized Bond Appeal.  A programmed Event.  I come as a spectator for the most part.  It is those hours of sifting through online menus, reading possibilities from my cookbooks, extending guest invitations, building a home sukkah from a kit, and challenging my skill in the kitchen that makes the season special.  It's worth my best effort.

Holy Day Planning

Leap year on the Hebrew calendar.  It time shifts things.  Virtually no double portions for Shabbos Torah readings.  The various Festivals appear late on the American calendar.  Hanukkah starts with XMas.  The High Holy Days do not arrive until October.  They still need some attention.  As in recent years, I was asked to read Torah on Yom Kippur.  It requires minimal attention.  The person doing the assignments has an incentive to recycle who did what they did last year, or the previous ten years for some, much to the detriment of the congregation.  There's a certain sameness to the experience at my synagogue, though some newness at the alternate minyan we attend first day Rosh Hashanah.  I prefer some novelty, some notion of that people thought about how to make an experience better.  While in my capacity as Board Member, the Ushermeister asked my participation, and I offered him places to assign me, he hasn't.

There are parts of the HH experience that do not depend on the synagogue, some of which I control, others I don't.  As a courtesy to my sister-in-law, we visit her after first day of Rosh Hashanah.  Our children sometimes visit, a high priority accommodation.  And we can expect a Sukkah dinner invitation.

My personal traditions continue their expressions.  I've written to a college friend each HH for more than fifty years.  I connect annually to two others.  RH Dinner has its ambivalence.  It is usually special but not ornate, though if my children are joining us, I will need to expand the menu, or at least the quantities.  I like to make my own spiral challah with raisins.  There is always an apple with honey.  Usually a first course, if only gefilte fish from a jar.  As empty-nesters, chicken breasts for two, as host, maybe a whole roast chicken or a brisket.  Carrots are the traditional RH vegetable.  Wife makes rice kugel each year.  And my honey or apple cake.  Getting to erev RH services sometimes needs some planning.  Some years we don't make it.  

Wife leads services First Day at the Minyan where that is permitted.  Then an afternoon with my sister-in-law, now last surviving sib.  This year accommodate the kids as they set their own schedules for long distance travel and worktime juggling.  And Tashlich.

Sukkot is more my preferred Holy Day.  We ordered our Lulav and Etrog.  Sukkah construction right after YK, weather permitting.  One evening as somebody else's guest, another for my guests.

Simchat Torah evening I designate with Chabad.  They conduct a program for their kids, with their assistant serving as a modern Art Linkletter getting them to say the darndest things.

In all, the designated days span the better part of a month.  Mixture of fixed activities and traditions.  Some challenging, other parts chores to get through.

Fall Reset

Return to school has come and gone without me.  As I toured Tennessee in late August, Virginia Tech, U of TN, and Vanderbilt had already moved in for the fall semester, leaving me unable to find a parking space near the bookstore at two of them.  When I returned home, Labor Day weekend got set aside with a higher priority, surviving highly symptomatic Covid-19.  I missed the in-person first week of OLLI.  Practicalities for my Designated Driver forced my follow-up EGD from the fall to the winter.  My vegetable garden did not have significant yield.  The Holy Days come late on the secular calendar.  It's been a tough transition.

While delayed a couple of weeks, I'm sufficiently recovered to engage in autumn activities.  This being a Presidential year, I voted in the local primaries, will learn more about the candidates, national and local, on my screens this week, and affirm that my preferences are sound.   I am ready for my mid-September Torah reading, then begin polishing the YK reading.  I have to greet electronically three old friends.  My kids plan to visit for RH.  I will need to assemble challenging dinners for RH and the Sukkah.  OLLI invited me to give a presentation which will need priority focus.  Exercise collapsed with travel and illness.  That needs restoration with judicious pacing.  

The final quarter of the calendar year brings a reconing of my semi-annual initiatives, some going well, others disappointing but salvagable. 

And throw in some recreation, fishing, maybe golf, drawing, photos.  Football has not engaged me as the NFL and colleges resume, but I should consider a live game.  And perhaps a day in NYC.

While our calendar year begins in January, our activity transition remains in proximity of Labor Day.

Next High Holy Days

The Holy Days are my demarcation point, or more accurate part of a larger demarcation point, the transition from summer to fall.  It's a change from a few months with few appointments to the remainder of the calendar year with many.  OLLI, Yom Tovim, doctors appointments, football games I want to watch, all needing me to be in a place at a set time.  This year all begin within proximity of my grand experience in Europe, OLLI and football while away, Holy Days and Doctors on return.

I'm not terribly enthused about what awaits.  I opted to sit out AKSE's High Holiday Honors program for the second consecutive year.  There have been incidents in which I cannot frame the encounters other than having been treated poorly by people of influence.  I never thought I would report one of these encounters to their President in the way I would fill out an incident report for the ADL or my medical center, but I did.  But I also took the view that I will not use hurtful speech in response.  I will withhold money, which is my response for opting out of their High Holy Day honors, with this year's invitation a lot more expensive activity than an Ark Opening.  I am the YK Torah reader again and should be in optimal form.

Ordinarily I focus more on food and on guests.  Daughter coming for YK, though after shabbos dinner.  Very simple prefast dinner.  For YK I like to make my own round challah.  OLLI classes in the morning make this unrealistic but I can make a honey cake.  There are elaborate recipes that challenge me, but with more restricted time, a simple one this year.  Wife does the rice kugel as her annual contribution to our festive table.  I make carrots, though Mesorah Heritage Foundation sent me a card with blessings for other traditions like beets and cabbage.  Carrots are easy.  I found an economical porgy, so this year a whole fish with its head on and eyes inviting us to eat it.  And a simple chicken.  Also found a Tabachnick's chicken soup with noodles that can be warmed in boiling water.  And shabbos style baked chicken breast and purchased round challah.  So it will be a full festive meal, though less my effort than other years.

I've not yet unpacked my main suitcase after two full days home.  Do this while honey cake bakes.  And usually for RH I put some effort into appearance.  Suit first day.  Sports coat second day.  Nice shoes, polished.  White kippot.  Beard trimmed, hair groomed, nails filed.  But still tacky smartwatch not really suitable for shabbos.  Maybe I'll wear one with a dial instead.

The Holy Days, while officially ten, really extend most of the month of Tishrei.  We have a command to be happy on Sukkot, and I try.  The time for guests to come and this year to be somebody else's guest.  Effort into constructing and decorating the Sukkah.  Some pageantry of the Lulav.  The season typically ends on a more satisfying note than it begins.  

And by then I've learned things at OLLI and know how my team's seasons are likely to play out.

Shuled Out

Lots of people have busy seasons.  CPAs each April.  Students at finals.  Rabbis during the Holy Days, probably starting in the summer when they write their series of messages for a crowd that materializes far beyond anything else they will encounter for the next year to the days of having to show up on time and stay to the end.  As more Judaism's consumer than contributor, about once a week for shabbos is about my speed, and even there, dinner each week engages me but showing up for worship often does not.  Pesach at home challenges me, going to shul five of the eight days eventually reaches its limits.  And that three week stretch from Rosh Hashanah to Simchat Torah has to give before the end.  It did.  Stayed home for Simchat Torah and Shabbos Shuvah this year.  Just too much shul, mostly as spectator.  Shul saturated, or shuled out.  And masked out.  Add a large measure of unhappiness to the baseline congregational experience that has accumulated and the limits come into focus.  Without the break, shuled out risks becoming Jewed out.  

High Holiday Honors

Each year the chairman of my congregation's High Holiday Committee, which really isn't a committee anymore like so many other things there, send out participatory invitations for the men, which contain a financial solicitation.  This year for the first time, it included check boxes for amount, all in excess of what I want to give.  Indeed, considering the decline in attendance by a few men each year accumulating over many years, they probably should be paying me to help out.  I've been dissatisfied, declining my annual invitation to serve as Yom Kippur Torah reader.  In exchanged they requested that I bind the Scroll at the end of the reading and write a three digit check for the honor.  I really don't want to be more than a spectator, and certainly not a donor.  Yet the person who doles out these tasks, labelled Honors, has never been among the officers who have so callously bypassed me and dismissed me, probably the underpinning of my resentment.  He means well, likely gets more complaints than thanks, and there are a lot of Ark Openings to be filled and only men qualify.  I wonder how many respond by asking for placement on his Do Not Call List.  That's my inclination too.  They understand withholding a donation more than any verbal expressions of congregational negative transference reactions.   My check won't bounce, but I really don't want to create entitlement for what has really been a problematic relationship.

High Holy Days In View

There are orthodox neighborhoods in which minyanim assemble at the earliest time permitted by halacha, imparting the blast of the Shofar to the neighbors who have no reason to be awake at that hour.  A requirement of the morning services of Elul to usher in the Holy Days as the month ticks down.  Locally, at the Conservative and Reform congregations, those three days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur dominate the annual calendar.  Admission to their services provides leverage to collect annual synagogue dues which pay the salaries and keep the utilities going through the next year.  Crowds attend, far in excess of what will populate those buildings any other time of the year, excepting perhaps the funeral of a VIP.  People at the end of summer vacation hit the beach outlets for a discount in appearing stylish when they will mingle with the others who display their prosperity.  But in exchange, they also seem to display their best manners.

In my student days, the Holy Days brought reconnection with friends not seen that summer.  They come too early in the academic calendar to be concerned about exams.  So the conversation goes to what courses are you taking and how did your summer go?  Football openers usually take place in proximity to these Festivals.  In the northern climates, summer clothing goes into storage, long pants, closed shoes with socks, and shirts with long sleeves appear, though the logo sweatshirts will need to wait another month.

Atonement?  For some.  Reset and renewal? For most.  Herding people back into community after some summer scatter?  Usually. 

Other than my teen and college years when I reassembled with friends, those Holy Days registered as less an annual high point than synagogue hype tried to promote.  I learned of shabbos pre-teen.  That focuses my mental Jewish calendar, also a demarcation point but more frequent.  Fewer throngs but synagogue populated more by people who really want to be there.  How did you enjoy yourself this summer gives way to what did you work on that brought you satisfaction, or sometimes might I offer some empathy to your frustration.  There are annual cycles determined by astronomy but also weekly cycles determined by people that have no natural set points. 

In this mindset, the Holy Days are sure to disappoint.  Perhaps even when the highlight of the year, they are designed to disappoint.  Perhaps that's why nearly everyone at the places that showcase them keep a low profile external to their congregation until it's time to ante up for dues next year.  That annual large gathering with pageant makes for kehillah, or sometimes the illusion of kehillah.  Shofar inspires.  Fasting generates commitment or resolve.  People really do return to their studies or to their professions with renewed diligence.  But it seems the weekly cycles of shabbos sustain this more effectively than the synagogue spectacles of the Holy Days which only appear annually.  

I'm still a shabbos person.

Reconsidering Shabbos

Since Covid-19 closed the synagogues, shabbos has been very different for me, some elements favorable, some increasingly destructive.  This has been magnified by the Holy Days.  First, I stopped driving and never used the computer or cell phone except for medical care obligations when I was working.   I did watch TV and listen to the radio, still do.  When I was working I used to go out for breakfast Saturday morning, a residual pleasure that started when I needed some alone time to study for upcoming Board Exams but remained as a respite destination for the remainder of my working years.  I stopped doing this at retirement, redirecting my mornings at the Hollywood Grill to an obligatory breakfast required for platelet donation.  When shul on shabbos morning disappeared, I didn't miss it.  I could stay home, see what's on TV, scrounge some breakfast or at least make keurig coffee.  No FB or email intruded.  I would read some, snack some.  Longer stretches, including some Thursday-Friday-Shabbos yom tovim became more of a sensory deprivation experience, leaving taste of eating as the connection to reality.  I got pretty bored, not realizing how dependent Covid-19 made me on the screen.  I still maintained scheduled exercise those days, a variant of pikuach nefesh, with an electric timer, but amid overall designated sloth, I found the chore of schlepping onto the treadmill more of an intrusion than destination or break from boredom.  And worst, I spent much of the day horizontal, some in a lounge chair in My Space, but too much on the living room sofa, or worst of all, in bed.  A reasonable 45 minute nap at mid-day became two hours, disrupting sleep for the next two days. 

Rosh Hashanah afforded me services both days, requiring 45 minutes of attentive driving each way. Even so, the absence of screens gave way to the horizontal posture again.  Yom Kippur services were more tentative due to possible rain, but they went on as scheduled.  Good thing, because I'd have gone stir crazy not eating for 26 hours at home.  Taste may be the last portion of sensation that survives these screen-free stretches.

Just as a matter of my own health, this will not do.  I am going to have to go somewhere each shabbos or yontiff.  The screen has always been suspended, but until Covid, it comprised far less of my usual day than it does now, greatly magnifying that sense of deprivation.  Going to shul occupied the morning.  Even if I didn't go, I would drive somewhere, maybe attend the West Chester University football game in the afternoon, and on occasion make a day of it by driving to Baltimore for Beth Tfiloh in the morning and some Baltimore area attraction afterwards.  What I am doing now is probably a form of false piety, not driving largely because I have noplace to go than a genuine desire to enhance shabbos.  For my own protection, this really cannot go on.  I will just have to decide what forms of exit from my house remain compatible with shabbos and yontiff.

High Holy Day Mode

This September has its events, though Covid-19 makes them different.  I've done summer travel, this time to St. Louis for my son's wedding, far from leisure respite summer travel, though I did make it to the Delaware Beaches twice.  OLLI started online, excellent first sessions each class.  However, OLLI has been a lot more than classes for me.  There is college and pro football on TV.  Cutouts of fans in the stands is kinda phony.  About once or twice a year, I like being in the stands.

Our constant may be the Holy Days.  Selichot by Zoom probably is not that different than Selichot live, as the spectator element overwhelms the participatory experience.  It may be more difficult for the college crowd which uses the midnight assembly early in the school year to renew acquaintances for the coming academic year.  Rosh Hashanah, though, is a participatory experience.  Shul may be a spectator sport not a lot different than football for many, but there are meals and greetings.  Cyberspace has been an improvement over the Postal Service for conveying good wishes over distance.  But there is no surrogate for kissing the Torah with tzitzis during its procession, or for those who only come to shul on the Holy Days, those few handshakes that will not reappear for another year if granted another year.  My congregation has established what I think is a poor surrogate for the pageant of shul on Rosh Hashanah, though to be fair they had to sift through what they though the community would find most meaningful and the halacha most essential.  My offshoot assembly will try to make things more of a personal experience, weather permitting and with safety limitations.  It's not as good as the real thing of sitting adjacent to somebody you've never met before, negotiating the crowd to get to the kiddush table at the end, or watching somebody else's kids run around, but there is much to be said for following along live in the machzor as the prescribed ritual unfolds.

Some parts of the Holy Day experience may be strengthened by the relative confinement.  I seem to be more devoted to making a special dinner, especially if the live services proceed and I can take some to my sister-in-law.  I've pondered and explored various menus, willing to be a little more adventuresome.  I find myself less focused on clothing or appearance, though I plan to wear my finest things with attentive grooming, at least on Rosh Hashanah.  No point paying for a manicure if you won't be shaking hands, though.

What I've not done, and probably should, is any study for the upcoming season.  There are all sorts of insights from yutorah.org and many other online sources that I've just not been motivated to pursue.  There will only be one brief dvar Torah at Rosh Hashanah each day.  Our Rabbi's I can watch or listen to at my convenience though I have not been a great devotee of his public presentations.  This year I should have more of an incentive to explore the Holy Day season but haven't.  Maybe check out some options on this.

Each Torah mandated Holy Day will arrive on time and conclude as specified.  The Covid-19 reality seems to make those days more personalized and less programmed.

Least Common Denominator

Covid-19's disruptions include cancellation of religious services.  In addition to shabbos, we missed Pesach, Shavuot, and Tisha B'Av in direct communal worship.  Some denominations allow streaming but it's really an invitation to participants to engage in a computer on days when computers are turned off.  The Conservative Rabbis would rule that it is possible to put the computer on before candle lighting and turn it off after havdalah, which it is, but a lot of halachic determination by Sages in the Talmud depend in great part on what those Sages would expect their constituencies to really do.  They will turn their computers on and off at their convenience.  The Rabbis have the Honor, the Congregants have the System. The Orthodox Rabbis seem to reason more like Sages.

Since our congregational rabbi has ruled against streaming, we've had some Hebrew school Junior Congregation adaptations with Kabbalat Shabbat, Yizkor and Hallel pre-recorded along with a sermon.  Not that it affects a lot of people.  The High Holy Days are a whole other matter.  American congregations center their years and their annual financial positions around those days.  It makes a lot of sense either to pre-record the service in its entirety or to have a minyan, however a Congregation defines it, of participants assemble with social distancing precautions, do the service live while streaming it to the homes of their worshippers.

That's not an option we have. Our shul has assembled a High Holiday Committee, which like other congregational committees I was not invited to.  I must say, what's come out leaves me unenthused. I was asked to repeat my annual Yom Kippur Torah reading, and went to the site attired in a suit and sneakers to record it.  When I asked the current and past Presidents to take a scroll out for me to read it, they immediately rebuffed the request.  I was to read it from the Machzor and announce the pages as I go.  Why would anyone want to watch this?  I did not ask them if they would also have a Bond Appeal and a Congregational Appeal for people to watch.  It wouldn't surprise me.  The HH of Rabbinical Junior College it seems.

There are some better options for Modern Orthodox synagogues that have to modify their assemblies to protect the health of their participants.  The Forward had an article outlining some of them.  https://forward.com/news/452226/no-streaming-no-singing-heres-how-high-holidays-will-work-in-modern/  Some look adaptable.  But our committees do not do a lot of exploration, discussion of options, or creative initiatives.  Which is probably why I've been blackballed from them.

New School Year

While medical calendars tend to begin and end in July, my mind has never abandoned the academic calendar which runs from September to June.  Even in medicine, residents learn the basics over the summer and function thereafter.  Pro and college football work out their glitches over the summer but do not keep score for bowl games until the fall.  High Holy Days arrive at this renewal time.  Having just completed some travel around metropolitan St. Louis, the schools in Missouri and adjacent Illinois opened in mid-August.  We saw one of the high schools in a fairly remote winery area with a full parking lot.

Locally our public schools begin two days after Labor Day, as does my Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) fall session.  My first curriculum notification for the class on Philosphy and Technology has arrived.  Other sessions on the history of vaccinations, a discussion group on controversial topics with each participant taking a turn, a course on wine, and I try to introduce a new skill each time, this attempt at Mah Jong.

I have a new workspace too.  It took seven months to recapture but My Space should serve me well for classwork and writing.  Not only return to school, but even in retirement, there is an element of return to work.  I'm sort of eager to take advantage of this fall's opportunities.

Disengagement

This year marks the Chai anniversary of a seminal, oft cited sociological treatise, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone.  I've never read it but plan to when I complete the novel that I had earmarked for the second half of 2018.  Basically, he traces the decline of participation in organized social activities over about a generation prior to its publication.  As I retire, I find myself removed from my last pageant, the daily professional adventures of endocrinology.  I pay dues to a few things, the national and Philadelphia Endocrine Societies, Adas Kodesch Shel Emeth synagogue and its men's club.  I no longer pay dues to the American College of Physicians, the Medical Society of Delaware, the American Medical Association, nor have I been a financial participant with the Jewish Federation of Delaware for over 20 years.  I register Democrat, vote Democrat more often than not, but have never been a more than a nominal donor.  I am a proud alumnus of two fine universities.  Any donation to the larger one would not move their fortunes at all and would not be sufficient in amount to get my name engraved on a flush handle anywhere on campus.  My fondness for my medical school knows no bounds and they do get some money with no hesitation, but I do not really belong to any of its organizations.

Since Woody Allen accurately recognized that 80% of life is showing up, I do not show up all that much.  There is the annual Endocrine Society Meeting, too expensive now without the hospital subsidy.  The local Endocrine Society Meeting which occurs monthly will continue, though I have not really made a lot of new friends there.  I go to shul on shabbos but I never get the sense that my intellect and energy have much value to the leadership so activities of years past have atrophied.  As soon as I retired, I volunteered for a Democratic campaign.  One candidate took interest but not much became of it.  I signed up on their web site as a willing participant but I think their executive director would prefer Beautiful People with money or yes men who will not have the candor to tell them when they might be undermining their own potential electoral support.  In summary, I look like a prototypical Bowling Alone  individual model.

Despite not having been a meaningful Federation donor since 1994, though supportive of some of their constituent agencies generous with funding of Jewish projects elsewhere that would likely have gone to them were the experience better, for some reason I found myself back on the mailing list of Federation's monthly, used to be biweekly, publication.  It is kept on a display rack at shul, where I have browsed titles, clenching my teeth perhaps when I come across something that praises one of my travails of decades past, but never read any of the articles.  I recognize some authors, sometimes written by people of laudable presence, sometimes by people I found venal, but mostly not known to me, with expected turnover of participants expected over my twenty odd years of avoidance or maybe more active shunning, while I become a part of a larger trend of Jewish participatory entropy.

Two articles appeared in print recently, one from a globally distributed publication The Forward and the other a locally distributed Jewish Voice, the periodical of the Jewish Federation near my home.  They look at the Holy Days and at Judaism's trends in America very differently.

https://forward.com/opinion/407183/so-called-jews-of-no-religion-are-the-impetus-for-a-jewish-revolution/   "So Called Jews of No Religion are the Impetus for a Jewish Revolution"

Has the significance of the High Holy Days changed for you across the years?http://www.omagdigital.com/publication/?i=521893&p=&pn=#{%22issue_id%22:521893,%22page%22:36}

Has the significance of the Holy Days changed?  For the Rabbis responding to the question in The Jewish Voice, they are the anchors of tradition, at least in their homes, where families gather.  It's a form of keva, familiar people not seen in a while, familiar recipes on the table, familiar tunes that get brought out once yearly.  There are some elements of that for me, though very different from what it once was.  My attachment to the Yomim Noraim probably ended in college.  In high school teens were isolated by my synagogue to sit for a reduced fee in the mezzanine of a local movie theater that was rented for the occasion.  The people with me I knew from school, yet for those days we were separate from school.  While afforded unimportant status, we had the best seats and always air conditioned.  In college, the Holy Days were always a mixture of new people, the freshmen, and old friends not seen since the year before. There was community, even if limited to showing up there while the rest of the students threw frisbees in the quad.  We wore ties, something that would not happen again for a lot of us until next Rosh Hashana.  There were no longer familiar foods,  We separated from our families to be with other students.  I could sit anywhere in the auditorium I wanted, or at least on my side of the mechitza.  We had students conduct the service.  It was ours.  Graduations came and that was all gone, never to be recaptured.  Returning to a suburban synagogue, something just shy of a cathedral, with lots of people there who would never be seen again, not at work, in class, or in synagogue until next year prodded my cynical yetzer, neither tov nor ra but probably accurate.  I stopped focusing on the Holy Days as central, looked at those services as maybe a civilization reversal from the core of Judaism which is how you live on all the other days.  The respect for institution took a hit and it never recovered.

From the perspective of the Forward, in the article written by their editor in chief, I may have been a generation ahead of my time.  Attachment to the institutions and even to the practices did not sustain itself.  We can argue whether I helped bring it down as part of my generation or simply watched others do the things that made participation in the institutions unattractive, but there really are Jews, very valuable ones, who have departed not only the institutions but the beliefs that those institutions were designed to promote.  They have no compelling reason to recapture the recipes their grandparents made or to fly back to their hometowns, something their great-grandparents could not have done even if they wanted to.  While assembly of family for the Holy Days re-establishes this as sacred time for some, in the greater reality of Jewish history and American Jewish history in particular, there is a bit of myth to this.  People changed towns frequently, which is why the various desciples of the Ba-al Shem Tov are all known by their name and by the place they established their community.  In America, the reassembling of families only goes back about three generations though may be a central attribute for that middle generation, which is mine.

Rather, Bowling Alone, the hesitance to affiliate, affects Judaism as much as it affects political participation, attendance at PTA meetings, or enrollment in bowling leagues.  While the Holy Days offer a focus, a set time or keva to declare Jewishness if only for a few days, they do not really reverse what seem to be mega-trends, and alas, probably for cause.

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.

YK Torah Reader

Have not been a Holy Days participant in some time.  Over the years I've chanted both days of Rosh Hashana's Torah portions and the Yom Kippur portion and have done Haftarah once but gave it up when the billed me $400 for the maftir aliyah that went with it.  In more recent years I've attended a transdenominational offering for Rosh Hashana, a very pleasant experience each time where I've been there, serving as a makeshift gabbai once, returning to my own shul for Yom Kippur.  But I've been more of a spectator.  Sometimes the time there irritates me, sometimes the Cantor and other participants impress me with their skills and dedication.  Generally these have not been the Rabbi's finest hours but unlike the Conservative Shul, the experience of the Holy Days never portends the degree of member satisfaction the rest of the year.  Board discussions on the congregational feedback take place, and some real modifications take place but mostly cosmetic or choreographic adjustments more than revision of content or structure.  Shabbos still rules at AKSE.  We have the good fortune to be an all-year-round congregation where the Holy Days are just one more event in the calendar.  We're not a place where the machers emerge from the woodwork to give each other an annual hug or where people hit the beach outlets the month before to get something with a Gucci label to display at their yearly shul appearance.

We do have our shrinkage, some demographic, some for cause, some driven by the diminishing value of dues as a consumer purchase.  With attrition goes a measure of talent, not desirable turnover of talent but more of a one way drive off the exit ramp with nobody else entering the entrance lane.  Our Men's Choir once had teenagers, now off to college and beyond.  The Cantor had to take over shacharit for lack of an understudy.  But people held the fort for Torah reading, until this year.  Not a very strong bench but not yet an empty bench.  So when it came time for a reshuffling of assignments the opening arrived, making me the most logical insertion.  I'm back.  Photocopy the portion next week and relearn it.

Early Rosh Hashana

While the Holy Days being on the first of Tishrei from year to year, I tend to think more in terms of my customary secular calendar which tells me which days I am supposed to work and which I can stay home.  Summer begins on Memorial Day, ends on Labor Day, irrespective of astronomical realities.  The Jewish holidays are therefore perceived as variable.  When they come in early September, they sneak up on you relatively unprepared.

In my commitment to myself to function as an observer, I approach the New Year with a measure of detachment.  There are five people I'd like to greet from afar, and probably will by Hoshana Rabba.  And I really do take some account of misdeeds that should not be repeated.  I have greatly enjoyed Rosh Hashana services at the Merion Tribute House, a synagogue offshoot while the fast of Yom Kippur gives me some measure of accomplishment.  Relented from my non-participant status and agreed to do Shabbat Shuva Haftarah which I've not done in a while.

These days have become something of quiet time for me.  Schedules are flexible for the most part, but not absent.  In another era, the early arrival of the Holy Days would have me scrambling to complete greeting cards but they have largely succumbed to easier electronic communication.  Fewer on the receiving end as well so less of a display to tack onto the walls of the sukkah.  While attendance at the Merion Tribute House has been well subscribed, Yom Kippur attendance at my home congregation has atrophied from year to year in proportion to the membership attrition.  It has its predictability and maybe some people are inspired in some way from the experience.  At other places Rosh Hashana displays the real character of the congregation with people trekking to the Rehoboth Beach Outlets for discounted designer finery and machers parading up to the Bimah for their Aliyot.  A place where everyone who's anyone comes to be seen.  For us it is more of a chore to get through, busy season for the clergy and a few volunteers, but it does not stand disproportionately to other events of the year.  Sukkot quickly takes over followed by shabbos each week.  Our Board has a discussion of the Holy Days were received each year but like macrophages, they have no memory and the same experience will get carried over to subsequent years.  So will my relatively ingrained misdeeds.