Appreciating Whiskey

Total Whine runs classes for customers and the curious to better appreciate the things they sell.  I had taken one on beer a few years ago.  Informative but pretentious.  My wife gave me a gift card for another, leaving me the choice of a class on wine or on whiskey.  Having gotten interested in the variations of the product from some sampling stops on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, I opted to continue my education on spirits.  Much less pretentious this time, indeed rated top-notch when they asked for my feedback a day or two later.

When I go to food and drink classes, the product or taste, or pairings interest me much less than the manufacture, distribution, history, their place in modern culture.  While the folks in Kentucky convinced me that there really are gustatory differences that differentiate the brands, firewater still serves as a useful generic class.  Of the nine samples offered, enough to require a designated driver, I could discern differences and even preferences.  I liked bourbon better than scotch, at least the automated part of my sensory system did, with the more rational part recognizing that I had two or three of each amid hundreds of competing tastes.  Were the samples different might the three scotches been of greater sensory pleasure?  Could I tell the difference between single malts, which they served, and blended, which is the more common and within budget?  Probably not.  Others might. I could distinguish the smokey tastes of peat from those distilled in the highland regions.  I might be amenable some day to visiting Scotland for their Scotch trail, as I did Kentucky.  But bourbon seemed sweeter.

I tasted some rye, some made from sour mash, some from a barley industry adopted to Japan.    Yes there is taste.  As I become more familiar, it is easier to compare one to another at a single tasting, though unlikely to remember if these same liquids were offered to me blindly a week later.

For the amateur like myself, it is really more the experience than the oral effects.  We have the glass.  I purchased one at a boutique on the Bourbon Trail that gives me purpose when I treat myself to spirits at home.  There is the ice in the glass, the measurement of amount.  At home, it's 50ml over ice.  At kiddush after services, a tradition dating back to the days at the JCC of Spring Valley when I was underage, the amount drops to 15ml in a disposable polystyrene cup served at room temperature.  This gets one sip with a little mucosal sting.  The iced liquid gets multiple small sips with some swishes.  At kiddush I banter with somebody right after the schnapps.  In My Space I savor the taste and coldness alone.

At the class, different liquids had different colors and scents.  That's the purpose of the tasting.  At kiddush it's to maintain a decades old minhag, at home it's to demarcate my late afternoon while I write, or at least think.  And there is the buzz, which needs the 50ml or the Total Whine's series of nine 15ml samples.  I think Manhattan was traded for that buzz.  And I would trade Kentucky

Certainly, the master distillers have the right combination of discernment and talent.  Marketers can figure out what will give their brand an advantage among novices, as there are likely too few sophisticated palates to shift market share.  The bottle adds to the experience.  More often than not, a purchase is made in a bottle more attractive than a simple cylinder.  That's part of the appeal, as is the label, and for Scotch, perhaps even the cardboard sleeve that covers the bottle.  

My own collection now alternates between a sweetish bourbon, barely off-sweet scotch in an elongated bottle with rectangular cross-section, and a rye in an interesting bottle that would have an elliptical cross-section.  It is unlikely that I would ever buy another bottle of any of them in appreciation of the favorable experience that they bring to my late afternoon.  It is not the taste that attracts me, or even the slight CNS jolt that follows.  Instead, it is the adventure of a different experience to the last one.  And for the amount that I consume, let alone seek out, I will never really have to choose a favorite brand, which would be an impediment to sampling the next unfamiliar brand.

Remembering an Old Friend

https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/2016/10/30/claudia-harrison-childrens-advocate-dies-cancer/93010314/

I do not know what made me think of Claudia yesterday or motivated me to pursue an update.  I'd had a few occasions to reach back this calendar year.  My Ramapo '69/'70 classes gathered last spring, my class '69, Claudia's '70.  I opted not to attend but tracked down a few old friends shortly thereafter whose presence at the reunion would have been more of an incentive to attend.  No, I did not have Claudia in my mental awareness let alone must see again list.  In August I gathered with some other former classmates not seen since graduation.  One was the daughter of my mother's close friend, each parent dying young of the same malignancy just few years apart.  I was never close to her daughter but it was great to see her again and learn how well the half century has treated her.

I wasn't all that close to Claudia either but our mothers were close friends and I admired her.  Maybe it's the daughters of the mothers' chums that restored the awareness but it was the admiration that induced me to seek her life's summary.  I remember her more from Hebrew School and related activities at the JCC of Spring Valley than from public school, a friendly energetic person who would run for office, make fast quips, and always seemed more cheerful than anyone else.  She had an older brother who appeared around the synagogue and it's youth activities, though less a presence than Claudia.  I graduated first, moved on to college, and come the next admissions cycle learned through our mothers that she was headed to Tufts.  And there the contact stopped.

While Claudia never made it to Medicare/Retirement age, she may not have looked forward to retiring.  Her obituary, at age 64, reinforced my impression that energetic, self-directed people remain that way indefinitely.  She was engaging to me at a time when few people were but the tributes reflect an innate drive to be the person who not only derives satisfaction in mingling but shares that with the recipient.  The obit gives a good summary of what I would have predicted for her, success in what she set out to do and attention to the most neglected.  I admired her back then with far less reason than I have to admire her today.

Respect

My hospital got its docs a new device called a Dragon Dictation System where I can speak into a microphone and mostly correct text appears.  It is modified for the reality of having learned spoken English in the Bronx.  It has two options for text, one general English and the default of an Endocrinology vocabulary as nearly all its use has been to dictate patient consultations.  I tried dictating a more general article once, ended up typing it myself, but this week took another shot at something I've been meaning to prepare into an article called "The Places I Like to Daven".  It's mostly past tense, but for all my Beth Sodom and Aliyah Sound Bite quips of my contemporary shabbat morning options, there were and to a lesser extent are places that serve as prime destinations on a shabbos morning.  Eventually as a youngster I got to like our shul's Junior Congregation, despised the teen experience, and would inconvenience myself to leave home early to get to that shul now 100+ miles away if possible when passing through the area.  WashU and Penn Hillel could expect my presence most shabbos mornings.  Beth El Quincy, z"l, for my final year of residency.  Beth Tfiloh in Baltimore once a quarter, again at a little personal inconvenience and needing some advance planning.

I tried to tease out common themes.  Like the Rabbi?  For sure at the adult synagogues but the Hillel experiences had no Rabbi.  Friendly congregants?  After multiple visits to Beth Tfiloh the total number of people who have come over to me sitting by myself and chatting with me is ONE, their assistant Rabbi who serves as Torah reader.   Personal participation?  I've been a very active Bimah participant by default at my current shul and the one before it, neither of which makes my must be there list while often serving as the destination of my many verbal harpoons.

After pondering the Why as I dictate the Where, the common thread seems to be the level of respect that I have for the composite experience and the people that I am with.  The JCC of Spring Valley, my Bar Mitzvah congregation, seemed bimodal.  It distilled to how I was treated.  Contemptuously by the teen director who played favorites, inconsistently by the Rabbi who presided over my  Bar Mitzvah, to be followed by a Rabbi of my later high school years who endeared himself, not only to me, but forty years later when high school classmates post photos of their wedding, his picture appears with a note of his kindness and sometimes his professional competence.  Services were done expertly.  Those in attendance were were more my mother's friends than mine, but as a an adult visitor who made time to stop there while in transit from the Delaware Valley to New England these people gained my respect for their ongoing dedication even as their congregation was aging and eventually failing.

Hillel I was more a part of.  People were happy to have me there whether they needed another tuchis for a minyan or not.  There were interactions about exams.  My first Kaddish obligation was fulfilled there.  It was the custom that mourners should not stand alone, a custom exported by me to subsequent places.  Not having a Rabbi, the Hillels brought out the best in what Jewishly committed students could do.  There were no fights over Mechitza, just a recognition that the Orthodox needed one and we would set our own druthers aside to enable their worship.  Somebody had to prepare Torah reading, even if an Organic Chemistry test loomed in the near future.  People rose to the occasions.  I'm very respectful of that to this day.

I only lived in Quincy for one year, my final year of residency.  The town at the time had a kosher butcher which folded a few months after we arrived.  My first experience at Beth El occurred for the Holy Days which might have been my last as the Rabbi rambled and the crowded sanctuary could have used better climate control.  But while I spent the summer at an arduous hospital assignment, my wife attended shul, assuring me that the spectacle of Rosh Hashana did not occur on shabbat.  As my medical assignments got a little more tame, I started going with her.  The experience was the closest I've ever had to a Hillel duplication in a Conservative synagogue.  Personable, knowledgeablle, interactive Rabbi.  Cantor davened and read Torah expertly without the flourishes of a Cantorial institute alumnus, having acquired his skill in Europe.  Not a lot of congregants but enough, ranging from Harvard professors to younger people who had just escaped the Iranian Revolution but still had family left behind.  The role of women was in transition then but both my wife and I got invitations to be among the haftarah readers.  Kiddush was mingling and chat time, something never duplicated for me since.  Then mostly home and rest afterwards.  If they had macher swoops I was unaware of them.  I know they had a benefactor, an owner of a small regional home improvement chain.  I never met him and never sensed I was being manipulated in any way.

So those are the basic models, diverse but with a common theme of being among people who I basically admire.  Sounds like something fairly easy to duplicate or at least aspire to, though strangely elusive.

No More Friday Nights

 

When I was observing Kaddish for my father about five years ago I started attending the local reform service on Friday nights with some regularity.  Much like my childhood USCJ congregation, they held services at 8PM, which conflicted with That Was the Week That Was z"l and later Wall Street Week z"l in an era where if you missed it there was not a second chance from rerun or VCR.  Even so, people came each week.  There was a traditional service and a little bit of pageant with a choir and an organ some of the evenings, a sermon and pleasant Oneg, often with a semi-formal discussion.  People of that era in that neighborhood at the fringes of suburban New York would commute by car all week, get home finally, have supper and unwind, either with their favorite shows or by welcoming shabbat in a well meaning frame of mind, if not exactly halachic.   Even so, shabbat morning was still  the centerpiece of the JCC of Spring Valley and most other USCJ affiliates where a very traditional experience would occur the following morning.

It seems over time, the Conservative Rabbi's acknowledged the secondary status of Friday evening and its competition with other respites from the long work week.  Many, including mine, did away with the late Friday night gathering, conducting a brief Kabbalat Shabbat at the seasonal time, sometimes with less than a minyan, with people ostensibly heading home to observe shabbat's entrance as family time though I suspect Washington Week and CNN really won out.  In my town, the Reform congregation was the last bastion of the 8PM shabbat welcome, ideal for Kaddish since it was the only place in town that could guarantee ten Jewish men for that service.

It turned out to be a pleasant place to be at the conclusion of my work week.  They had a liturgy that varies somewhat from week to week, musically excellent Hazzan and organist and the most insightful sermons in town which I still read when posted on the Web.  My year of Kaddish ended but a few times a year I would reserve an evening to be at the Reform congregation, even sometimes affording myself fish for shabbos dinner to enable more comprehensive sampling of the mostly milchig Oneg.

But this summer, the time moved from 8PM to 6:45PM.  While they can now have candle lighting from the Bimah prior to sundown instead of after shabbos has already commenced, the new time creates more of a burden for attendance.  A concluding time of about 8PM seems late for supper and those in attendance are less likely to schmooze at an Oneg if they have not yet had supper.  People who work nearby can probably eat and get there by the starting time.  From the appearance of those who come regularly, a large percentage are probably retired so may adapt to the earlier time easily, even prefer it, or maybe even lobby for it.  Yet that one uniqueness of that congregation, its later starting time for the people who benefit from it, may have disappeared from the community.

Jewish Young Adults in Attendance

Not that many youngsters attend shul or any other AKSE activity other than Hebrew School, and there aren't all that many of them either.  In my day we had a full Junior Congregation linked to Hebrew School along with evening childhood activities like weekly dance lessons.  Post Bar Mitzvah, there was a very tenuous Hebrew High School program, what would be called Confirmation Class nowadays but social activities for the teenagers continued in a big way, from USY which was really more of a basketball night and weekly bowling league which met at the synagogue after school for transport.  As a consequence of this we maintained acquaintances with each other to about our second year of college, when final dispersal took place only to reconnect some forty years later as Facebook Friends.  About half of my FB Friends had a link to the JCC of Spring Valley and some maintain synagogue ties now, though most have been part of the larger attrition from Conservative institutions.

So where might today's Jewish youth be?  I suspect they are blended in with everyone else, though probably still extractable with a social parallel to the lab sep funnel.  Last evening after shabbos I attended a concert which brought me to the U of Delaware campus.  Since I got there early and wanted to keep a commitment to myself of trying out two unfamiliar beers each month, I wandered along the town's Main Street checking out ice cream places and pubs that might have a craft brew that I could down in about a half hour before the concert.  There was a place nearby but no room at the bar and the gelato line moved too slowly so I departed.  Further down the street was a sports bar with all sorts of offerings though none truly new to me that would satisfy my project.  While the first place had some sophistication, and probably expense, to attract professors or others who already had steady incomes, this second place had students occupying nearly all of its floor space, most with a beer in hand, some alcohol already soaking their white matter, and no doubt some phony ID's in their wallets.  As I wandered in, some of the kids picked up on my trimmed gray beard, bolo tie and crotcheted kippah.  Many were actually rather solicitous of me or at least curious as to why I was in their neighborhood.  As I departed back to the street, others also picked up on the kippah, approached me to demonstrate how little they learned in Hebrew School but were rather friendly and most important they were present and identifiable amid a very large population of students and able to seek me out without my approaching them first.

The following day I needed to see some patients, a project less difficult than anticipated, so I used the extra time to detour my customary route home to stop at IKEA.  Sunday afternoon attracts a lot of shoppers of a very diverse range of ages and other elements of appearance.  Many young families present, numerous ethnicities with a variety of conversational languages going on around me as people looked at sample kitchens, shelving, and any other furniture item that can be configured into a flat box for transport home.  While I did not hear any Hebrew or see any kippot, the volume of young families seemed staggering.  If the people we hoped would enhance our diversity at AKSE were not to be found at shul, they were very likely to be wandering the floors of IKEA instead.

There is a certain entropy to Jewish life, at least locally.  Kids at the U of Delaware could see my kippah and greet me in the broken Hebrew that they retain as a residual from Hebrew School but at least they recognized it and have some polite attachment to it.  The people at IKEA are enhancing their home lives in some way by shopping there.  U of D gatherings were a public expression of community, IKEA a more private array of personal aspirations taking shape in a public forum.  If that's where these people are then the honcho's of the declining Jewish institutions will have to infiltrate their turf to capture their interest.  No amount of programming will bring these people to AKSE, not even with a keg of beer and no ID checker.  The people places like AKSE or Federation might like to entice will not be at the university for very long but they will be at places like IKEA creating their homes indefinitely.  They will need to choose from innumerable options but whatever they take home then has to be assembled to become usable.  We need to think a little more like them than like us if we really desire to have them include established organizations of Jewish interest among their destinations.

Strategic Planning

My shul has a real problem.  It resembles my Bar Mitzvah shul which crested at about the time of my Bar Mitzvah, then suffered membership attrition for the next forty years until it closed.  The shul where I attended services as a resident closed.  Both suffered demographic reversals probably beyond their control.  AKSE's struggles may have been more self-inflicted.  There really are not many places like the JCC Spring Valley that are thriving but there are places that used to be like the JCC of Spring Valley that adapted successfully to changing views of what the Jewish experience should be like that do not have to reassess their future today.  Or maybe more accurately they are continually reassessing their future as part of their leadership process, which may be why they do not go from crisis to crisis.

Our President invited comments on what the options for the future might be, posted a slide summary of the 42 comments he received, then invited the Board to comment on the presentation.  my assessment (blue)of the minutes (orange)

o Review of ideas submitted:  Categories: Building, CBS/AKSE; do nothing; egalitarian, financial, liturgy, other, youth.  

Discussion: Sell or downsize building; increase role of women, share space with CBS.  Need to look at how problem 

solution will solve problem; e.g., if membership decline is problem, will solution increase membership.  Problems with 

borrowing from restricted money, fundraising.  Rabbi willing to work something out with another synagogue. Not 

enough children; not growing.  Suggestions are interrelated; must discuss together. 

This is much too diverse.  First the problem needs to be defined better.  Not enough members?  Not enough money?  If we had money would we care about members?  Are the birds-in-the-hand sufficiently satisfied?  What do the members want in return for their support?  How well do we deliver on that?  Is synagogue affiliation really a consumer purchase?

If the problem is money, do we prefer to acquire more money or are we content to spend less or compelled to spend less?

Stephen Covey in his 7 HABITS recommended "Begin with the End in Mind" as the title of one of his earlier chapters.  That will determine when and how to play the gender card, seek other affiliations, develop programming and plan for the future.  Reading the range of comments, many of which can be traced back to when I arrived in 1997 and were addressed by a consultant some time ago, the direction needs to be teased out first.

Now for specifics:  Building is paid for.  Dormant Rabbi house has market value and we need the money..  There is much to be said about merging Beth Shalom with AKSE to a single congregation once the gender card is shredded.  Our talent adds to what they can do.  Their stability and institutional affiliation benefits some of our people.  Do Nothing has been the path for a while, though not exactly.  There were projections of what bringing a young personable Rabbi aboard would do.  Much of the projection did not materialize but at least it wasn't entirely a Do Nothing approach.  Much of the rest of it has been with reasonably predictable outcome.  I think it better to call "egalitarian" the gender card, since that is more accurate and is an issue at all non-egalitarian congregations where there is a disconnect between the secular opportunities for women and their role while under their synagogue's roof.  The blue line of what is acceptable halachically is always in motion, mostly expanding from what was before.  Rather than say egalitarian, I think it better to think of it as making the affiliation with AKSE, orthodoxy and its traditions more appealing to women than it is now.  Remember, orthodoxy with women involved is thriving nationally.  Liturgy needs to be addressed desperately.  My own attrition speaks for itself.  For all intents and purposes, there are no youth.  It is much better for AKSE to accept that, and integrate the children that we do have with other opportunities for them to socialize in the community.  The School remains one of those elephants in the room.  Sharing space with another congregation will not alter the lagging experience of AKSE affiliation.

Discussion about how would work out details and maintenance of identity if partnership with CBS; if work with CBS, 

chance for both institutions to develop a new identity.  Rabbi AKSE has discussed partnership with Rabbi CBS; next 

step is to go to board level.  Could remain as congregation, but not in this building; perhaps smaller building in N. 

Wilmington. Concern about conversion status if Adas Kodesch identity changes. Need longer period to discuss 

changes than proposed.  Main focus needs to be on our own congregants and what they want, to serve our own 

members’ needs; easier to retain members than to find new members; if we can engage current members, they 

become best ambassadors, which provides best chance for survival.  If we are going to talk about partnership with BS, 

should do relatively soon; difficult to combine missions of CBS & Adas Kodesch.   JCC suggested as a possible location 

if we decide to sell the building.  

AKSE has an identifiable mission?  Before you work out details you have to understand what you want.  If you want AKSE of the 1960's to be immutable, you already have that.  If you were engaging current members adequately as a matter of course, this discussion would not be coming up during the tenure of every single recent President.

Possible loss of membership if move left or right.   Discussion about egalitarian changes. E.g., if make some egalitarian 

changes that are Halachic, people will perceive us as fully egalitarian.  If rejoin OU, would require Mechitzah.  If joined 

CBS, most people would not notice the difference.  Adas Kodesch and Chesed Shel Emeth merged, and both changed; 

there is a way to do things if needed.  It appears that people like the type of service we have, although want full 

participation of women.  Should look at Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood which incorporates elements we have 

discussed.  Going in either direction would result in a loss of members; we should combine ideas, make major cuts in 

expenses, and keep existing traditional Jewish practices to ensure our survival and identity for longest period.  

Problem to ensure traditional practices when difficult to get a morning minyan.  We have to manage unappealing 

choices.

My grandfather's orthodox shul in the Highbridge section of the Bronx does not exist anymore.  Few shuls remain in Manhattan's Lower East Side.  My Bar Mitzvah congregation is gone.  The place I really liked in Quincy has closed.  Synagogues go through life cycles.  Amid that, new ones form and grow.  Charismatic Rabbis sometimes assume the pulpit bringing an energy and perspective that attracts people.  This seems to be independent of form of worship, more related to personal connections that people make at the educational level.  AKSE certainly has its challenges.  It is hard to say what the optimal solution would be, looking at the diversity of end points that people have expressed.

How would Rich the Sage go about this?  First, there cannot be Sacred Cows.  Everything is subject to schechita.  Second, there has to be an examination of ways in which AKSE is unique.  There are many.  There has to be a literature search, both internal to analyze why projections from the past were so wrong or even delusional and to distinguish approaches with potential from sure losers.  I think there has to be a planning committee.  It needs to have ex officio the Rabbi, President and Membership VP.  It needs to have three experts experienced with different trends in American Judaism and in doing literature search and analysis. Then it needs to have five members, either chose at random or selected by the Rabbi.  However whoever the Rabbi chooses should not be seated.  The spouse of that person should be seated.  There is just too much in-breeding and A-lists at AKSE which have been highly detrimental.  Only then does a direction get worked out, sent to the board for vote and then a parallel assembly of officials, experts and random congregants named to make it happen.  Will it happen?  No guarantee.

shtick

Next shabbat the Rabbi devoted his sermon time to a discussion of the Shabboton guest's suggestions for making the shabbat service experience more of a personal connection to the worshippers.  He offered a number of suggestions regarding new tunes or discussions or acting out portions of the service by turning the Bimah into a stage.  True, the AKSE services too often come across as perfunctory with little of interest.  Their purpose is ostensibly to fulfill a religious obligation for the men, which they do.  This may be why the attendance has been lopsidedly men for my entire tenure there.  There are shabbat morning experiences that I seek out from time to time or remember fondly as destinations on a Saturday morning. Creating desire out of obligation remains a challenge since you need one or the other to assure attendance.

Beth Tfiloh gets two visits a year.  My loyalty to Hillel on Shabbat morning endures and I would leave Wilmington earlier than I needed to on a weekend to be able to make it to Shabbat morning services at the JCC of Spring Valley and its subsequent incarnations.  If there might be a common link to the places I prefer to daven it may be fulfillment of the unexpected within the familiar as one element, impeccable execution as another, and an enhanced aura of common purpose among the attendees that AKSE has never been able to achieve.  I do not recall anything approaching shtick at any of them.  Moreover, I think in many ways the decline of the USCJ experience can trace its roots to either Rabbi-generated or officer-generated surrogates to replace a diminishing capacity to deliver the formal components of the traditional service experience with the proper level of expertise.  AKSE has an audience, as does Beth Tfiloh to a large extent.  Hillel and the JCC of Spring Valley had participants.

So how might one get the unexpected amid the expected?  As a casual visit to Baltimore or Spring Valley or anyplace else, this becomes fairly straightforward.  Tunes are endemic to a congregation but differ from what I am used to each week.  Rabbi Wohlberg of Beth Tfilah and Rabbi Palavin, the final Rabbi at the JCC, had a good deal of experience crafting their messages each week.  But were it not for the preparation of Hillel, I doubt I would be able to appreciate any congregational experience, let alone most congregational experiences. Universities have a way of gathering its participants from varied places and backgrounds.  Tunes differ.  At each assembly you can expect to greet people that you did not greet the week before, either because they were not there or you were immersed in a different crowd at kiddush.  The people there were part of the same community all week long, eating dinner together in the Kosher cafeteria, fretting over common exams, checking out the girls.   While there were no sermons, conversations among college students often have substance beyond the formality of a handshake with a goot shabbos appended.  It is harder to judge Beth Tfiloh or JCC where I am a visitor but the other people are not.  At the JCC there was often a curiosity about me by those there before as drop-ins were few and I had a past there to which those remaining could connect.  My presence automatically made me a center of attention.  Not so at Beth Tfiloh where Bar Mitzvah rituals with out of town guests were the norm and attendance always huge by AKSE or Hillel standards.  In many ways I function there as a spectator, doing my best to function as a participant as well as circumstances permit.   The women's section there was always well attended, one of the few ways to assess who shows up to fulfill obligation and who takes time from other possible shabbos activities to attain what can only be attained in shul.

So where might this fit with the AKSE experience?  Balancing obligation with attractiveness does not always go well.  First, I think it would be a mistake to go down the road of the Conservatives, assuming that the people in attendance are ignorant roobs who would have no Jewish connection or knowledge were it not for their Rabbi.  I never dumb down my presentations to residents or medical students to accommodate their limited capacity.  There purpose is to elevate people to standard, whether medical trainees or Jews in transition, rather than to diminish the standard to adapt to the people.  Gimmicks have a way of doing that unless flawlessly executed and appropriate to circumstance.  That is not to say special events have no place. The Senator's visit engaged the teens present like no experience they ever had at AKSE.  It is just that they need to be done very selectively and implemented in a way that nobody would assess as amateurish or tircha d'tzibbura.  Other guests given appropriate bimah time or guests at Shabbos dinners which have been well attended could fulfill this niche.  I think having women really do the parts of the service that the Rabbi deemed acceptable would be another, something that has remained dormant for some time.  At Beth Tfiloh, Rabbi Wohlberg has decided what women are permitted to do on his Bimah and in his sanctuary.  Every time I have been there, women do those things set aside for them.

The shabbat experience does not have to take place at AKSE in its sanctuary.  My most critical comments of the Rabbis and the lay ritual leadership has been that they do not insist that the Women's Tefiloh Group make a concerted effort to attain parity in performance with the main sanctuary to the extent that their permitted content allows.  You can claim respect for female congregants but never sell that as reality outside AKSE, or even within, if excellence is not the standard in any of its subgroups.  The shabbat dinners by their attendance and flexibility offer enormous opportunities for innovation that would be tircha if done in the sanctuary during services.

Should AKSE appoint a Cruise Director?  Is the role of Rabbi one of Cruise Director?  It is one thing to have a plethora of activities to offer people, quite another to goad them into taking advantage of what is there.  In many ways the congregation's stability depends to a large extent on its inertia.  Schedules need to get filled, and they do.  Officers are selected from the Recycling Pool.  Growth and development of the people does not seem a particularly self-driven process the way it would be at a Hillel Foundation.  One very simple way to shake up services and bring people along would be to establish a rule that no individual may recycle a Torah or Haftarah reading more than two consecutive years so that everyone would be forced to prepare something that is new to them.

While congregational discussion has been set aside for this with enough heads-up notice to make it thoughtful, these type of analysis tend to be seat of the pants expression of druthers rather than careful teasing out of expected outcomes of things that might get implemented.  There is a ritual committee, now relatively diversely populated without the ideological dominance and manipulation of years past.  Not that AKSE committees of any type excel at analytical thought but ultimately this seems the best forum for alteration to a shabbos morning experience that may need only minimal tweaking so that it may proceed while keeping the process transparent and the consequences accountable.

Pesach Prep

Pesach this year largely spans the weekend for Yom Tovim.  Sedarim are Friday and Saturday nights, the concluding days are Friday and Saturday.  Moreover, Good Friday precedes Seder to allow a more leisurely entry than most years.  I will still need to sneak in an afternoon of patient care somewhere during the three days. Friday before Seder may work best for me as I have my own Seder to arrange Saturday night but little to do in advance of the first Seder.

In my preference for Jewish Holidays, Pesach usually comes first.  I find it a form of separatism, some preparation that seems arduous in the process but satisfying as a form of accomplishment once the festival has begun.  It has been a time for a family to assemble in one place, at one time the gantza mishpacha on my mother's side going so far as to rent a space for cousins and second cousins to gather.  I've been to large Sedarim in college and some so limited in attendance to my wife and me.  I try to sneak in a little learning before the holiday and some during the holiday.  For an entire work week I do not have to go to the doctors lounge for coffee, yet I never feel deprived of not having any.

Services for the Yom Tovim have been a mixed bag.  As a Bachor, or first-born, I am expected to fast the day of the Seder but there is an exit strategy by attending minyan then finishing a section of Talmud.  On work days I usually just fast, but this year with the day off I will more likely attend the tziyum.  Among my fondest memories of this were the tziyumim at the JCC Spring Valley during my teen years where there was a real discussion of a real tractate followed by breakfast with authentic local bagels and a good deal of camaraderie among first-born friends and their first-born fathers.  That has not been duplicated in Wilmington though the occasion probably stands on its own.

Usually Daylight Savings Time has begun before Pesach arrives so the sedarim can be quite late, particularly the second which cannot begin until after the first day yom tov concludes.  Not having to go to work the next day helps but there are a lot of groggy looking folks in shul.

Dietary restrictions add to the sense of separation and for myself and generations before reflect a challenge in creating treats amid limited availability of raw materials.  there are classics like matzoh brei and cremslach and macaroons.  There are matzoh kugels that would be wonderful anytime but special this season.  And there are new recipes to try out.  Most years shabbos Pesach coincides with Good Friday which remains a semi-secular holiday for the local companies and medical enterprises and schools.  With a day off and Pesach usually under way, I try to have dinner guests that evening and make something special.  Even though this year is a little out of sync, I will try to do the same.

Pesach is food and people and pageantry and effort, all worth it.