Next Commentator

Simchat Torah marks at traditional branch point for me.  For many years I have studied the weekly Torah portion, usually on Thursday nights.  I pick a single weekly sage starting with Bereshit and continue with that person's comments each week through Haazinu, and when available v'Zot HaBracha.  I started with books, which allowed me to follow sages of the olden days, though while each Sedra had its insights, they were not necessarily all from the same year.  With the widely available electronic formats I elected my annual Rabbi, yes, always a Rabbi with full recognition that my wife's Torah Portion Humor has a significant following, from several sources, most typically the Orthodox Union's roster.  Until last year, I never repeated one, but I could not improve on Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Ohr Torah Stone, adding the known Rabbinical historian Berel Wein this year along with Rabbi Riskin.  What I wanted to do last year was engage a Conservative commentator.  There are some, though they are harder to access and virtually all their programs seem to have a tag team approach with different members of the small group rotating portions.  I really want to follow one individual, not willing to compromise on that.

Bereshit renews our annual cycle shortly.  I plan to continue Ohr Torah Stone and may expand it to Rabbi Riskin's partner, though I should try to identify either a Conservative option or a much younger Orthodox Rabbi than the generally senior scholars I have followed.  Or maybe a woman.  Will look around a bit more.

Sacred Space

Our Sanctuary does not get used all that much nowadays.  It's a spacious room, pleasantly and inspiringly appointed and reasonably well maintained with only a few revisions in the building's fifty year history.  Over decades, though, membership has depleted to about a third of what it once was and attendance on shabbos has atrophied to about half of what it was when I first joined in the late 1990's.  In the winter it does not pay to heat the space or to cool it comfortably in the summer.  The Rabbi prefers worship with his audience less spread out.  As a result, most of the time shabbos worship takes place in a smaller chapel, perhaps just a mite small for the attendance but chairs are set up behind the pews and a folding door that expands the space into the library behind it is opened.

Architecturally, AKSE's building has many of the features of synagogues designed in the 1960's when the Jewish population was expanding but regular attendance at worship had not kept pace.  Young families often joined the synagogue as an obligation to enable their kids to have a Bar Mitzvah.  Sanctuary space was a small fraction of the building, as shabbos was never a great priority for an increasingly secular membership,  while a social hall behind the sanctuary separated by a movable wall enabled seating of more people for Holy Days though the wall could be restored for any number of social events from galas to lectures.  Hebrew School space comprised the majority of the building as large numbers of tykes would come three days a week and have to be partitioned into about ten or so classrooms each time, two per grade if the congregation was fortunate.  And some space, not a lot, would be needed for the Rabbi to do the things that Rabbi's do, usually nicely appointed with a lot of book shelving, and a nook for the cantor to tutor bar mitzvah wannabes and a place for the school principal to discipline wayward Hebrew school kids who were sent to her office for various modes of misconduct.

Now we have only a vestigial Hebrew School, hardly any Bar Mitzvah students to tutor and no Cantor to tutor them, and a lot of three dimensional air that has to be modified in temperature at some monthly cost.  Yet our assigned Sacred Space gets utilized just as much as it always has.  Shabbos comes every week.  Yom Tovim arrive at the appointed time.  There is a minyan, or at least an attempt to secure one, twice a day.  Weddings take place.  Funerals take place.  Guest Scholars and public officials address our congregation from the Bimah from time to time.

While synagogue architecture of that era has a lot of common elements, each congregation has its own uniqueness, its own idiosyncrasies.  Ours has a second floor and it has a basement.  Expensive things happen in the basement and on the roof, affecting what goes in the middle.  Our congregational building also had to adapt to a merger before synagogue mergers were common.  One component was a classic orthodox congregation with gender separation at worship, the other mixed seating, permitted by the Orthodox Union at the time but the reason for evicting us from the organization shortly after my arrival.  To meet this reality, small men's and women's seating sections were designated in the main sanctuary and chapel and continue to this day, though hardly ever have men and not all that many women.  

Not everything that happens in what has been designated Sacred Space is really worship.  Two events this summer and one last year caught my attention.  First, we have our main sanctuary used for public lectures and for funerals.  They attract men and women other than our own members.  I find it a little disconcerting that men attend these events, entering our sanctuary without a suitable head covering.  The official policy has been to keep the kippah box at the main entrance.  At one time there was a sign with it that indicated men were expected to keep their head covered  whenever in the building, but that sign is long gone.  The funeral directors, who could easily remind the men when they assist them with parking, don't seem to have this in their script and it does not appear to be much of an attention to detail for either our Rabbi or VP Religious Affairs to reverse what appears to be a slouch.  At least put the kippah box at the entrance to the sanctuary and move it to the entrance to the chapel if that is where people will congregate.

In the chapel, the signs of men's and women's section remain, ignored every week by a couple who means well and likes to sit together up front.  The Rabbi could use this as his teaching moment to folks who are new to observant Judaism but hasn't.  And if nobody really cares fifty years into our building's history, if separate seating option is no longer desired by anyone, perhaps it is better to remove the signs for gender specific seating rather than have our legacy overtly flouted.

Unfortunately, a secular constituency including a secular executive committee with building VP's more attuned to the roof than the sanctity that should be taking place beneath it, lacks the sensitivity to think in those terms.  Promoting the synagogue has become more of a dues enhancement project than any form of exploration and analysis of the Judaism that those funds should be sustaining.

Disconnected

Somebody needed to say Kaddish and I have a male phenotype.  Seemed like a good match, particularly with a personal invitation asking me if I could attend, so I went to minyan for the transition of Yom Tov Pesach into chol hamoed.  Pesach can often leave me tired, between the preparation, lateness of Sedarim, and patient obligations during the daylight hours which can be considerable, though on yontiff I try to limit this activity to immediate patient care and maybe some scholarship that I might not otherwise accomplish, leaving the more marginal tasks of billing and charting for another time.  I had not eaten since the second Seder, other than some coffee with breakfast and a bissel more in a travel mug that I use for Pesach.  Mincha would take place at 7:30 which would leave a twenty minute break before Maariv and Havdalah.  Duriing that interlude, I wandered the hall which contained a copy of The Jewish Voice, the newsprint periodical of our Federation and its constituent agencies, which I read, or at least passed over the large print headlines, for the first time in several years.

Now, I've been on the Do Not Call list for nearly two decades, according to their own statistics leaving me among the 18% of those solicited who do not pledge a donation.  My tzedakah checks are many times greater than they were when I first walked away, but they are given directly to all sorts of agencies, about twelve a year with a note thanking the participants of each agency for their part of the Jewish mission of Tikkun Olam.  I am engaged in that, but very much put off by the Beautiful People who always seemed more interested in acquiring a share of my possessions than they were of generating a sense of purpose from my outlook on Judaism and the world.  It had a leadership of fundamentally decent people who failed part 2 of the University Honor Code.  Part 1: engage in proper conduct, pretty easy.  Part 2: Do not tolerate improper conduct, a little harder when you have to confront similarly protege Beautiful People engaging in misconduct and taking it upon themselves to sacrifice outliers in the name of Kehillah.  Not real hard to tell the phone solicitor to deactivate my phone number from her list, but in a polite way.  From the attrition that accrued, there were probably quite a lot of Me offshoots with similar adverse experience.

And for a while I was hostile, writing in my journal pages of actual experience.  But they never disconnected me from the mailing list to receive their newspaper every two weeks until a few years back when they decided to move to an online format.  The Voice would arrive before shabbos about twice a month.  I would read it selectively, mostly Obits and Nachas Nook where the other life cycle events would be announced.  Most of the time I new somebody named there.  But there was still a clear contempt for them who done me wrong or underperformed though their own herd mentality, though never publicly expressed.  Some things I would not read, generated mostly by my personal contempt for its author.  But each edition had the pages turned, shared with my wife, discussed minimally if at all, then placed in a bag for recycling.

For good reason, print gives way to words on screens, searchable formats which enable further exploration.  While I'm hardly a Luddite, having given up my slide rule and illegibly written paper medical charts with little protest, I'm still a sucker for the printed page.  My New England Journal comes every week in print and screen, but I read the print.  I wouldn't skip the Orthodox Union's Jewish Action and read the USCJ's CJ Voices, both in their print edition.  Most of the recipes I use to make special dinners still come from cookbooks.  But I'm engaged in medicine, cooking and Jewish ideas so I keep myself in the loop, which still means lying on the couch reading.  I'm not engaged in Federation, functioning quite well as an expatriate who has moved on to other variations of Kehillah and Mitzvot more in step with what I aspire to.

So here on a visible shelf in AKSE's hall, I encounter The Jewish Voice, not seen at all for a few years, which I open and glance at the large print.  No hostility or irritation this time.  Mostly indifference.  It had no emotional impact, not something that would induce me to resume participation nor anything that would resurrect adverse experience that I had long since escaped.  Articles of basically trivial people telling each other how wonderful they all are.  Synagogue advertising from congregations who had seen better days, soliciting those hungry for Kehillah to get out their checkbooks in anticipation of wonderful experiences that I did not really have when I was at those synagogues.  And Obits.  No emotional reaction one way or the other but a sense that what I was reading had a spin that misrepresented the reality that moved me along.  Indifference to what I was reading, which may bode less well than hostility.

Approaching Tisha B'Av

This year Tisha B'Av coincides with Shabbat.  That delays the fast and the mourning rituals until the sun sets on Saturday night into Sunday.  As I did last year, I plan a private observance with my MP3 player instead of a more formal attendance at synagogue where Eicha is chanted, Kinot are read and men delay their t'fillin until the following day.  While non-observant Judaism has been on the decline, recognition of Tisha B'Av as an integral part of heritage has gained increasing recognition.  Just as constructing sukkot in the back yard or studying on shavuot night have captured a wider audience, so has some recognition of destruction.  Sinat Chinam and Avodah Zarah which brought the dire situation about probably continue as they always did and as I wonder if these enhanced observances reflect more on ethnicity than religiosity there is something to be said for setting aside one's daily amusement to engage in a measure of Judaism.

Tisha B'Av as a communal event never captured my personal interest.  There is something contrived about sitting on benches or the floor, the sincerity of belief that we bring about misfortune through our own misconduct has not been there for centuries.  We are victimized because the external forces are evil, not because we dissed the Rabbi or voted for Goldwater or refused to accept patients on Medicaid.

So when the sun sets on Shabbos, private electronic introspection commences.  Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union offer podcasts of a quality that the local sanctuaries cannot duplicate.  I do not yet know what the subjects of the Rabbis will be but that is the destination for me again this year.

Orthodoxy on Hold

Notice of suspension of shabbos services at the Brandywine Hills Minyan arrived second-hand, as I had unsubscribed from their list-serve after a few initial notices that I found offensive.  The first notice indicated that on the advice of one of the Gedolim HaDor of Philadelphia shabbos services would be suspended to avoid adverse consequences to an unnamed individual.  The followup note indicated that services would resume monthly on the shabbos preceding Rosh Chodesh.  I suppose the Grand Rebbe of Philadelphia approved victimizing somebody in a more limited way, using a waning moon instead of a full moon, allowing three weeks for the victim to lick his wounds before the next assault, and inviting him to Kiddush lunch on the week of his ignominy.

For some time I have been an individual member of the Orthodox Union, reading their quarterly magazine, learning some weekly Torah in cyberspace from their Executive Director Emeritus, looking for the U in a circle on the products I purchase.  They have a problem that a mainstream orthodox community in Wilmington could help remedy.  Hard financial times have hit their community in the big metropolitan areas, including New York.  It has created a new class of poor, people who were used to having stable ample incomes but no longer do.  In the meantime, two of the central New York means of employment, the banks and the law firms have created important niches in Delaware with a certain amount of stability and prosperity.  The challenge would be to develop Jewish institutions here, which already exist in a Philadelphia commuting distance, so that these people displaced in New York can comfortably relocate their families here.  For millenia Jews have relocated to take advantage of economic opportunities, from the traders who found their way to central Asia and India to the oldest Jewish community in continuous existence in Rome to our current vibrant and prosperous populations in America's largest cities.  The economic opportunity inspired pioneers, the needed institutions followed.  That same process continues now.  The President and Executive Director of the OU have each written in their Jewish Action Magazine and spoken in public platforms how they have traveled across America to small communities that maintain a loyal commitment to Orthodox mainstream practice amid its local challenges, though not engaging in one-upmanship with what they find around them.

But instead of real orthodoxy, we had a therapeutic trial of the trappings of orthodoxy without its essence.  A self-appointed Bulshitzer Rebbe who not only had the hat with the biggest brim, but the biggest head to fit inside, as its champion.  Its banner was never how we can enable people but how we can rid ourselves of the inferiors at AKSE whose rabbi made decisions we did not like.  Anyone who has ever been immersed in real orthodox Judaism would pick this out as selective nursing of grudges more than creation of the something sufficiently inviting to become a destination in its own right.  Derech Eretz Kadmah L'Torah.

Maybe there will be a place for OU style Judaism beyond the Chabad Shaliach who has advanced Judaism in my area in the proper way.  there is certainly a public benefit to be derived, whether through modification of what exists now at AKSE, Shop-Rite, Federation and Einstein or creation of a more separate form of loyal opposition that maintains a level of Derech Eretz far ahead of what came across from the current communications.  I think the OU has a stake in supporting the real thing and will when begun in the proper spirit.

Evening of Learning

Tisha B'Av 2011/5771.  It was an ordeal to get home in time for the fast, having gotten some patients who needed the healing hands before I could head home.  Rather than cut it tight, I stopped off at a buffet with a reasonable amount of vegetarian not far from Mercy Philadelphia Hospital which would assure me some nutrition in advance of the fast.  I ate quickly, arriving home in time to get to either AKSE, Chabad or Beth Shalom, where my wife was chanting Eicha Chapter 2, barely in time to go to any of them.  I decided to stay home and observe Tisha B'Av evening with the insights of the cyberspace Rabbis instead of rushing to hear Eicha.  Since we are not permitted to greet people that evening, nobody would feel slighted by my staying home

Yeshiva University has an extraordinary program of recording lectures from all sorts of venues, then making them available for download at http://www.yutorah.org/.  They had an entire Tisha B'Av program so I started with an presentation of about a half hour's length by Rabbi Kenneth Brander on Lessons of the Destruction of the Second Temple which was destroyed due to Sinat Chinam and never rebuilt.  Then an intro to Eicha by Rabbi Einhorn who does the synagogue development program for the Orthodox Union.  Then one more less memorable and I fell asleep.  The following night the fast had not yet concluded so I listed to another iPod presentation. 

None of these are interactive, which should be the prototype of rabbinical education, yet there was an elegance to each of the presentations that rarely comes my way live.  We are fortunate to live in a time where the ideas of learned people are so readily accessible and if you want the learning and don't particularly desire the university degree or other credential, they are available at nominal cost.

AKSE Academy Review

It went well, or at least was well received by those in attendance.  I think the logistics went more smoothly than last year, the subjects maybe a little less engaging, and we were one class short.  Those are the p'shat, the straightforward observations.  Rabbi Einhorn, in his WINGS blog, the OU synagogue development feature, took a more expansive view of events.  http://www.ou.org/index.php/blogs/rabbi_shlomo_einhorn/p-e-l_your_way_to_success/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RabbiShlomoEinhornsBlog+%28Rabbi+Shlomo+Einhorn%27s+Blog%29

He divides events into three components: purpose, execution, and legacy or what I think would be better termed future opportunities that the event creates.  The execution went reasonably well though with many rough spots along the way.  As the person responsible for the core of the event, the classes themselves, I may have set too many restrictions on who may present.  Timing and publicity could have been smoother and more expert.  These components of process are also adaptable to the future.

As the originator of the event, I need to take a more critical look at its purpose and how well the purpose was fulfilled.  Originally the Education Committee wanted to replace the shabbat guest which created a fair amount of discord, financial risk and less than enthusiastic feedback with something easier to do that did not require a lot of investment.  If the speaker can give three talks in three sessions over a shabbat, I can arrange eight talks in two sessions over an evening.  We may not have national renown but AKSE's own people at least have internal name recognition.  A more subtle though elusive motivation lurks beneath this.  The Ghost of AKSE past infuses itself into much of the mindset, making decisions almost habitual.  From the 125th Anniversary preparations to the recycling of the same old predictable composition of the Nominating and Cantor evaluation committees, there is a tenacious effort to conserve what once went better to the neglect of new opportunities ahead and real adaptation to what exists now.  I viewed AKSE Academy as the transition point.  There would be discussions of contemporary challenges of Judaism given by people who had real expertise.  Last year I tapped into the familiar, this year my invitations went to a tier of individuals who were not local fixtures.  That talent which may not seem obvious comprises the uniqueness that AKSE brings to the local community.  In a local Jewish world where excellence and effort beyond threshold often seems elusive and undervalued, AKSE Academy stands out for two hours a year plus prep time.

Where I think we fell farthest from Rabbi Einhorn's recommendations was in linkage of this event to other events for the synagogue which also should carry the theme of excellence amid a more pervasive pedestrian Jewish experience.  This may be a very difficult thing to do anywhere and perhaps even expose AKSE's Achilles Heel where committees are more autonomous than they should be with little intersection of ways in which one group can enhance another or expertise in one area such as food or publicity becomes a transferable component that serves the larger operation.  That is where leadership and perspective separate from management of tasks at hand.  AKSE does pretty well at the execution end, not as well at generating creativity or moving its different components into different configurations by different people.

OU Convention

A Day of Learning, just as advertised.  Having made a weekend of it, I arrived refreshed from a night at a nearby Howard Johnson's, stopping at an Exxon station to fill my tank so I would not have to stop on the way home.  At the registration desk I was a little surprised when they asked which Plotzker I was, but by chance I met the other two at lunch.  I picked up my registration badge, checked my coat, went to another table to get my Convention tote bag with its mixture of advertising and schedule, then hurried to get to the first session, one on synagogue development before it started.  By day's end I had also attended classes on Hazanut, another on synagogue development, one on autonomy, one on conversion laws and a plenary session on Mesorah.  In between I grazed and looked at the OU exhibits as well as partaking of a brief but sumptuous lunch.

There were few knitted kippot but few overt Hasidim.  People wore black suits even on Sunday, but they wore ties as well.  Women attended but men far outnumbered them.  Since everything was Kosher, I did not have to scrutinize menus but could just take from any edible display.

To my surprise, I could not identify a subliminal agenda.  There was no sense of being under attack from external forces, no exhortations of the rabbis to rally the lay troops, no hand-wringing to decry adverse demographic or sociologic changes.  The closest I came to that were the Hazanim pushing for the preservation of their declining art.   There was no tone of discontent among the participants nor any sense of threat to what had already been achieved.  Instead there seemed a muted celebration for what had already been achieved and an optimism that the trend would continue.

My two synagogue development sessions took different directions.  The morning session had a professional consultant as its facilitator.  She spoke of Board and Officer responsibilities, primarily governance with all its successful and failing variations.  Congregations need to have a purpose with programming designed to fit that purpose.  I think AKSE really does not, or at least has not articulated it clearly.  The afternoon session dealt with making the experience of being in the synagogue more attractive.  Why are people there?  What happens when it is not shabbat?  Do they come out of desire or out of obligation?  AKSE keeps itself very vulnerable from this frame of reference.  Interestingly the session was conducted by a congregational Rabbi who does consulting for OU congregations.

Definitely a very thoughtful day which achieved its purpose of pleasure mixed with insight to take back home.

Topping Out

About thirty years ago there was a bestseller written by John C. Molloy entitled Dress for Success in which he explored the world of business attire.  He argued for people at the lesser rungs of commerce to dress more like their senior executives.  Of course, their spendable income was much less so they could not make frequent trips to Brooks Brothers, let alone Saville Row.  In its place, he recommended going to the top stores to look at the finest business clothing, identify what made it different from the stuff most of us buy, then go back to our stores to look for the products that have those basic unique features. 

So this weekend, I treated myself to forays into where the three main branches of Judaism excel, to see what I can bring back to my ordinary experience.  After a wicked week at work, one in which I would have liked nothing better than to plop myself down after Shabbat dinner with a look at Washington Week followed by a visit to my mattress, I instead shlepped with Irene to Beth Emeth.  I never regret the effort to get there.  This Shabbat was special.  It being Shabbat Shira, they traditionally have a special event with Kriyat HaYam by the Hazan.  It happened also to be the week of the passing of Debbie Friedman, the most influential member of the Reform Movement whose music has added to spirituality of every synagogue I have attended since the 1970's when, as a rising star in the world of Jewish Music, she performed at the WashU Hillel.  There were a couple hundred people in attendance, with all three synagogues represented, listening to a somewhat makeshift hybrid choir singing her melodies, trying to get the congregants to sing along much as Debbie would do at her performances, and incorporating the melodies into the kabbalat shabbat liturgy.

My destination for the weekend was the Orthodox Union Convention's Day of Learning, but since I needed some real recreation, I opted to make a weekend of it, seeking out the upper tier of Conservative Judaism. With some exploration on the web and some guidance from Rabbi Satlow, one of the real talents of Conservative Judaism, I opted for shabbat morning at Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck NJ, having heard that JTS Faculty and United Synagogue senior honcho's live in the community.  They are having a Shabbat of learning that makes my AKSE Academy look minuscule.  By Kiddush, my concept of the viability of Conservative Judaism had been completely transformed.  It was like a Ramah experience made multigenerational and transplanted from a rural retreat to mainstream sanctuary.  About 200 people attended.  They must have a fair number of transients since only a few recognized me as a visitor, including the Gabbai who offered me Shishi, though I preferred to remain  an observer rather than participant.  Nearly all the men had knitted kippot like mine.  None had a satin Bar Mitzvah souvenir and almost none took a black general synagogue issue one from the box.  Most of the people who brought their own talesim, men and women, wore full orthodox style woolen garments, few had their own silk tallis though a lot of people like me wore the ones from the synagogue.  The sanctuary had been prepared for shabbat, one of my pet peeves with AKSE.  Each place had an Etz Chaim Chumash on the left and a Sim Shalom Siddur on the right.  The congregation does not have a Hazan.  Their web site hinted that they do not need one, as capable congregants were committed to not only showing up to make the minyanim but to make the services happen.  This shabbat the Rabbi did the Pseuke D'Zimra.  A young guy chanted shacharit, incorporating a few of the late Debbie Friedman's melodies into the Kedusha as a memorial, Torah reading was divided three ways, all done very well particularly the last two done by a young woman with lovely voice and impeccable skill.  The very long haftarah was chanted by a rabbi who was not the congregational rabbi.  He did it capably but struggled with some of the less familiar words in the song.  Musaf was done by a middle age man, approximately one of my contemporaries, with a pleasant tenor voice who also incorporated a few Debbie Friedman melodies.  Their liturgy was a complete one with a few variations from AKSE.  Birchat Cholim came after the sixth aliyah.  Their rabbi received a list in advance, read it and invited people to come up.  Few did.  I think it was a mistake for AKSE to change its policy from this. About three women were honored with aliyot as well as peticha, suggesting true egalitarianism rather than squaw work often seen in other Conservative settings and certainly at AKSE.   A prayer for Tzahal and captives was then done in Hebrew by the rabbi.  The prayer for Israel was done in Hebrew at its usual place followed by a prayer for the United States read in English by the Rabbi with an insert for the Armed Forces.  The sermon was delivered after the scrolls returned to the Ark, given by the Gabbai who apparently was also a prominent attorney.  He spoke about different ways to assess census to understand the Exodus and victory over the Canaanites.  At the end, two girls concluded the service.  They did not do Anim Zemirot but instead did the passage that separates Ein Kelokainu from Aleinu followed by Kaddish D'Rabbanan.  They also did the Sabbath Psalm earlier in the service as their Siddur places it.

Then a visit to a friend recovering in a nursing home in Spring Valley, then some relaxation at the Howard Johnson's in Ramsey, then completion of the weekend at the final day of the OU convention.

We have a board meeting at AKSE this coming week.  The President included a semi-annual summary among the agenda items.  What made Beth Emeth and Beth Sholom Teaneck attractive places to attend may have been the excellence with which they executed what they intended in a way that enhances the experience of being there.  AKSE has more pretense, aspiring to what it is not, guaranteeing that the experience of being there will never measure of to its hype.  There are people there who will demean Beth Sholom Teaneck as inferior based on its USCJ affiliation yet ignore the talent of its members that make the experience of shabbat morning in the sanctuary sparkle while shabbat morning at AKSE parades far less capable participants from the Rabbi to the congregational volunteers offering a couple of hours of mediocrity.