Feeble

It's been several cycles since I watched a Presidential debate.  The first of 2024 found its way to my Daily Task List.  I know who will get my vote based on my vision, my sense of what America has stood for at its best, who elevates that and who jeopardizes that.  No preference issue for me at all.  We are all familiar with the options, a decent but doddering man against another more blustery type who did his best to convince us that he will execute the evil necessary to keep the world safe on our behalf.  One frail, the other dependent on misrepresentation reinforced with bluster.  One highly dependent on counsel of wise advisors, the other who takes pride in who he fired.  One looking for consensus, the other identifying vulnerabilities to exploit.  While I look at the two candidates, knowing I must select one, I find myself relating this very binary choice to what I either am like, or wish I were like.

Without getting into a discussion of whether my assets are Gifts from God or whether generated by my own efforts or by my own good fortune, they remain my personal strengths.  Evidence suggests I am smart, respectfully challenging, and inquisitive.  Those were gifts, or inheritances of some type.  I can see though bluster, challenge the dubious as it arises, figure out when I am being Rafshooned, as one of the debaters set as the basis of his presentation.  I self-assess as kind, or at least value kindness even when I fall short.  Deciding when an aim is important enough to engage in a modicum of cruelty has challenged thinkers for millennia.  Hamas seems to think achieving their agenda justifies what they do to bring it about.  So did many more benevolent leaders through history.  Sometimes somebody has to do the things others are unwilling to do.  I do not think separating families at America's Southern Border is one of these things.  Telling people who had pinned their hopes on resettling in America that there are other people ahead of them in line might be.  

One candidate proudly flaunted how many people he had fired for not being up to the task.  The other failed to challenge him on his flawed judgment making so many inept appointments.  We also have a Peter Principle where people get appointed and then promoted until they can no longer function at their assigned level.  Then they stay there.  As the current President essentially laid an egg, in Hollywood lingo, he may be America's most glaring example of what Prof. Peter tried to convey.  He did not seem up to the task, yet having somebody else more capable take over comes with an element of risk, not the least being that the one who follows will be less capable.

There aren't a lot of options.  Maybe revoke the Drivers License from one who shouldn't have it, whether by frailty of one candidate or recklessness of the other.

Faced with no very good options, I default to what has been my core.  Do things that make sense.  Be a trustworthy, honorable person. Seek kindness.  The two men on the screen last night are not equal on these.  There is some safety net to frailty for sure.  However, there exists no an anti-dote to authority with distorted reasoning or character.  I'll cast America's lot with feeble and its safety nets.

Inclusiveness

An invitation from the local Jewish National Fund branch arrived in the mail inviting me to attend a breakfast with the Governor and an author on international politics.  From the planning committee composition, a bunch of local attorneys got together, arranged the event and in effect build a trough for the interested public to insert their snouts if they wished but were not really invited to be part of the event's creation or logistic.  They became consumers when with a little sensitivity they could have been participants.


So we have a leadership that originates with themselves to create a menu for the rest.  I could say the same of my shul's Nominating Committee which once again recycled its officers who will once again each proceed to the podium and tell those in attendance how wonderful they all are while I think there is not a whole lot of subtlety to its being a form of Peter Principle.  The trough will be built, the programs announced, nearly all recycled from the past just as the people are, and a mixture of invitations or pleas to partake will go out.


And that is my summary of where institutional Judaism has allowed itself to be taken.

Suggestions to the President

Our congregation elects a new President every June, according to the By-Laws.  It actually doesn't.  There is a Nominating Committee Cabal that creates a slate of indefinitely recycled VP's, then since all are non-promotable by virtue of the Peter Principle, a search then goes underway to merge the two attributes of capable and willing.  The slate arrives in the mail of each member and a perfunctory election much like takes place in the Third World has the new group of honchos installed by acclamation.  Then each VP presents his or her achievements for the past year and keeps an extra copy to present next year.  The By-Laws technically mandate a congregational historian, but I don't think anyone really wants any history majors pouring over documents and drawing learned conclusions from them.

So like every place else, we have a few glories and an abundance of could be betters.  They have to come to terms with the Women Thing, AKSE's perpetual Achilles Heel.  The kiddush crew seems pretty well established and Sisterhood initiatives raise money and create an element of gender camaraderie.  But that's not the core mission of our synagogue.  On a broader perspective, making the various activities attractive enough for people not already there to show up, or at least minimize attrition of people who used to show up but no longer do, needs to be a very high priority.  As the great Chacham Woody Allen noted, "Showing up is 80% of life."  I show up a lot less than I once did.

So some real suggestions:

1. Get the committees in order and list them on the Web site along with contact information.
2. Invite people to do things.  
3. Have a really candid and private discussion with the Rabbi on what his vision for advancing the congregation is and make that publicly available either from the bimah or from the Web Site.
4. Solicit feedback from the defectors.
5. A few Golden Handshakes to VP's who do not have a meaningful agenda.
6. Take attendance.

Giant sigh.

We Need More Money

Dr. Simon Baruch, the renowned Confederate Army surgeon wanted his son to follow his professional path but Bernard took an early interest in the American capital markets, earning his first million while in his twenties.  His father asked him what he planned to do with that million dollars, for which the answer at the time was unclear.  Having a winning strategy was Bernard's end point with the amount as a method of keeping score.

That parallel approach to finances seems to have made its way into the psyche of the AKSE leadership.  About ten years ago, the congregation embarked on a Capital Campaign to raise $1 Million, coming fairly close to this somewhat arbitrary goal.  A congregational solicitor visited us at home accompanied by a fundraising professional to encourage us to pledge more than we ordinarily would for something like this.  I asked the fellow shul member what they planned to do with the money.  She seemed stunned by the question.  Some was to retire debt on the building but there would be quite a pot left over if the goal were reached, yet it was not clear why they needed so much more if there were no purpose for it to advance the congregation.  If the goal was to retire debt, we could pledge a lot less.  If the goal were to advance the congregation, there would need to be a plan in place for doing that.

The campaign sort of succeeded in raising money but the residual never really went to the congregation.  It served as a paper interest free loan for more operating expenses, to where it languishes on the books to the present.  The congregation has a secure building with secure economic value but not much else beyond that for all the effort that this project entailed.

As the congregation moves to its waning years, another project to raise funds for the sake of raising funds has emerged, a Dinner Dance, an evening of merriment done by many non-profits from museums to social service agencies to religious institutions, selling well heeled people a good time while allowing business a chance to sell stuff to them by purchasing space in an advertising book.  When the Diabetes Association does this they intend to take better care of people with diabetes.  When AKSE does this, the mission of the project seems less clear.

To perhaps make more sense of this I will take a fabulous lecture by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks recently presented at Yeshiva University and transpose his principles of personal happiness to organizational success.

http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/804344/Rabbi_Lord_Jonathan_Sacks/True_Path_to_Inner_Happiness

He organized seven things people can do to make their lives more fulfilling, which organizations probably think they do, though maybe erroneously.  Let's see how the congregation did, or how I think they are doing and perhaps might do better.

1. dream:  I will assume this means aspiring to something rather than foretelling the future, more like Yaakov's dreams than Joseph's.  There was a time when the congregation did work toward something unique in the community, whether that be educating the kids, maintaining Kashrut, having secure minyanim.  If the congregation were to close next year, what would the community miss as a result.  Lord Sacks assessed the optimal vision as one where what you like to do merges with what needs to be done.  Raising money enables what needs to be done, but it is not a surrogate for vision or an accomplishment independent of the vision.  If I were to take a yellow pad and try to write down what AKSE's niche currently is and what it might be instead, I would have difficulty doing that.  But being a Nobody, that is not my task.  There are Somebody's in place, a Rabbi, a President, and Executive Committee who could come up with a logo of Embracing/Engaging/Enriching which is conceptually fine but it lacks the dream of what might be put in place that makes that logo an operating reality.
2. assess:  There is certainly a local, national and international Jewish landscape to which AKSE contributes.  Our members are the largest local purchasers of Israel Bonds despite being the smallest size.  We have embraced CUFI, which has its pluses and minuses.  But we also live in an environment in which the role of women is very different than it was in the 1960's and where the authority of the Rabbi is more limited.  People can and do walk away.  Most college or medical students remember the first time they walked out of a lecture in the middle.  Whether this happened for a good reason like the pager went off or an editorial response to the content of the class, most people had reservations about walking out until about the third opportunity, when it was no longer seen as something to avoid doing.  Moreover, there are things that are either AKSE exclusives or could be, whether afternoon minyan, members who are literate in Hebrew or the annual Cafe Tamar.  I think that officers and Rabbis who should be well versed in what other places are doing successfully have not made that assessment, even though cyberspace has made this much easier than it once was.
3. venture:  And then there was BINGO.  It failed in its mission of fundraising but it succeeded in gathering forty individuals to make the project happen.  And there is mixed Megillah reading and there is Pizza & Parsha.  Amid these ventures are also some dead horses that have lives of their own.  While it is OK to innovate and fail, I would question the wisdom of plodding on once the failure has been established.  And then there are the ventures that should happen but don't.  What do the membership people do, what do the ritual people do?  Why does Women's Tefillah Group function like a Junior Congregation indefinitely or more importantly why does the Rabbi permit this?  There can be no growth without these ventures, keeping the final segment of the logo Enriching either vacant or at best an illusion.
4. work:  People do work, they are dependable. They don't always do the work in a way that is productive but for the most part it is diligent.  Amid the yeoman's efforts that people put forth, there is also a reticence to undertake projects, most notably the governance.  I do not know for sure if the Executive Committee adopted its Peter Principle due to the Nominating Committee failing its role of talent scout or because real talent that was solicited declined the offer.  To be fair, I've also become more selective about what I will undertake there.
5. offer:  AKSE has a face that the world can see.  People support the hungry and on Christmas morning people volunteer at the Mary Campbell Center.  But social justice belongs to the reform congregation as a core tenet.  Missions to disaster areas get organized someplace else.  Even money for disaster relief never makes the AKSE agenda.  It's a very inwardly looking amalgam of people, yet there is a sincere desire to appeal more broadly.  Chabad as part of its mission understands that the door to success opens outward, as the shelichim reach out to Yiddishe Neshamas who have no formal affiliation.  They are the affiliation of default.  There probably is no barrier to people at AKSE organizing small groups to benefit others and better broadcast AKSE as a place that infuses the best of Judaism wherever it might be welcome.
6. recover:  I suppose the chronic depletion of members constitutes adversity but not nearly so explicitly as losing one's Hazzan suddenly right before the Holy Days or hiring a Rabbi who really isn't a Rabbi.  And they will weather the vacancy in the Presidency.  But are those things what you might regard as resilience, the incentive to change fundamental policies to be stronger?  They are temporarily setbacks viewed as temporary but the depletion of participation is a long term trend that has no finite pivotal point which changes direction.  I sense instead an acceptance of progression to the congregations final years, an unwillingness to set out on a bold new course that might give a different result.  
7. thank:  At the close of shabbos the person making the announcements has begun to include a work of thanks for showing up.  Ostensibly the synagogue exists as a resource so the thanks really should be the other way around, a thanks to the synagogue for enabling the enjoyment of shabbos.  There used to be more people so I suppose a word of gratitude to those who have resisted attrition becomes appropriate.  Whatever happens in the congregation happens because people make it so.  Things like the Women's Tefillah Group or the Implementation Committee or socialization of new members efforts all failed to reach their goal because people did not promote interest beyond the original concepts.  We do pretty well thanking people for what they do, not as well at thanking people for what they tried to do.  And while there is much to be said about having a measure of contentment for what is, there also needs to be a measure of discontent for what was but is no more and for what might be but either nobody realizes it or nobody steps up to the place to make the possible a reality.

So Rabbi Lord Sacks teaches about people and he teaches about groups of people.  Money becomes the tool for doing the things that move you forward.   If you are not planning to move forward with it, to make use of it to expand the horizons, you may as well just take your delight in the portion you already have.

Displaced Rabbis

 One of my fondest friends sent me this Dvar Torah in advance of shabbos.  It had an author but despite my skill navigating cyberspace, I've not been able to find a source that allows direct response so I'll bite on the otherwise unfulfilled desire to comment by making remarks of a more serious nature than my usual irreverent blog laytzanos would create.  My congregation recently conducted a special meeting with one of the agenda items being the renewal of our Rabbi's contract.  The majority voted for renewal, though not unanimously and with no outpouring of enthusiasm by those who used that forum to make a personal statement.  And now the text of the salient paragraphs of an insightful but at times limited Dvar Torah.   The comments in green are mine.

WHO MADE YOU A LEADER OVER US? f(SHEMOT

by Rabbi Jack Riemer 

One thing I must say before I begin my sermon this morning.

It is that my sermon today is not about this synagogue or about this rabbi. 

It is more likely about my synagogue and my rabbi 

 I am talking about the state of the American synagogue in general, and about the state of the American rabbinate in general, 

<snip>

I want to talk to you today about two newspaper articles that crossed my desk by coincidence on the very same day. I was so struck by the difference between these two news stories that I put them together into one file, and I saved them to talk to you about today.

The first was an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, a couple of days before Thanksgiving. It was written by Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, who is one of the brightest rabbis within Orthodoxy today. Everyone who reads what he writes is impressed, and everyone who knows him predicts that he will be one of the major thinkers of his generation.  

He came to our shul as a men's club featured guest, leaving the kind of impression that would lead to prominence some fifteen years later

Rabbi Soloveitchik was recently appointed the rabbi of the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in New York. That in itself is interesting, because the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue is Sephardic, and Rabbi Soloveitchik is a 
descendent of one of the noble dynasties of Lithuanian Jewry---but that is another matter.

<snip>

 Rabbi Soloveitchik said something that surprised me, and that I think will probably surprise you too. He said: "On Sunday, November 24th mine will be the honor of being formally installed as THE TENTH RABBI of Shearith Israel since the American Revolution. And therefore, when I held my illustrious predecessor's words in my hand, I felt that the barriers between the past and the present disappearing, and I felt what it means to be a link in a chain stretching backward, and hopefully stretching forward, across the centuries."

Did you hear what I just said? That from Gershom Mendes Seixas to Meir Soloveitchik, that from the year 1768 when Rabbi Seixas became the first rabbi of this synagogue to the year 2013 when Rabbi Soloveitchik became the current rabbi of this synagogue, during a period of almost two hundred and fifty years, Congregation Shearith Israel has had a grand total of ten rabbis!

undoubtedly they never had to contend with the RA Placement Service

Isn't that an incredible statement? Can you think of any other synagogue in America that can say that? Can you think of any other synagogue in America that has had a total of only ten rabbis in two hundred and fifty years? I don't think so.

Now let me tell you about the second news story that I read on the same day. I subscribe to a number of synagogue bulletins all around the country, and, by coincidence, on the same day when I read the story of Rabbi Soloveitchik's installation, I read a news story about another rabbi's installation. I won't tell you the name of the congregation---and if you guess which one it is, I will deny it---but I read a news story about a certain congregation in the Midwestern part of the United States which, on the very same day as the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in New York, also installed its new rabbi.

What was the main difference between these two events?

The main difference was this: This new rabbi is the seventh rabbi that this congregation has installed in the last seventeen years! 

They most likely did have to deal with the RA Placement Service

Some of these rabbis were better: some of these rabbis were worse, but if you divide seven into seventeen years, you can see that none of them stayed very long. Most of them were 'sentaways''; some of them were 'wentaways', but none of them lasted very long. Seven into seventeen----you do the math, and you will see how long the average rabbi stayed in this congregation.

And so my question today is very simply this: How come the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue has had only ten rabbis in two hundred and fifty years and this congregation has had seven rabbis in only seventeen years?

Because the venerable Shearith Israel has maintained its independence, has accumulated ample resources and takes people whose stars are on the rise as their Rabbis at an age when they can stay for a long tenure.  The generally imposed Rabbinical search process manipulated from a central place often has union rules that exclude a congregation from acquiring who they really want and misrepresents candidates to congregations resulting in turnover, or at least that has been my distinct impression from being on one of the Conservative search committees some years back and then trying to undo a major mistake on our congregation's part.

I raise this question today for several reasons:

One is that this congregation in the Midwestern part of the United States is not an exception. If it were, I would not take your time to talk about it. I think its record is probably much closer to the national average than the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue's is. And that is why I want to explore with you, if I can, why this is so.

It is certainly common.  Yet in my community, the Orthodox Rabbi served over forty years, the Conservative Rabbi not quite forty, interrupted by the War, the senior Reform Rabbi about thirty, and the recently retired Reform Rabbi thirty-two.  My former Rabbi retired from this second career at fifteen years.  It is only the Conservatives that have had relentless turnover since a macher swoop of three individuals got together and used their resources to make a deal that the relatively young rabbi could not refuse in exchange for voluntary departure "to avoid divided congregational opinion on his renewal" as the machers stated.  And then they have the RA Merry-Go-Round.

I raise this question with you for a second reason. Surely all of us agree that a synagogue which has a revolving door for its spiritual leaders is not a healthy place. Surely all of us agree that a rabbi becomes more effective the longer he or she stays. 

Or the Peter Principle emerges. 

When he or she can officiate at the bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies of children that he or she has named, when he or she can officiate at the weddings of children at whose bar or bat mitsvahs he or she has been, when he or she can share in the sacred occasions in the lives of people for a whole generation, that rabbi obviously becomes more beloved and more effective than if the congregation has had a dozen different rabbis over the years.

And so my question is: Why this turnover in so many of our congregations? What causes it? And what, if anything, can be done to control it?

If you've ever been leveraged by one of these people or watched a synagogue's membership hemorrhage, both a reality for me, you would understand the question of why.

There are several possible answers that come to my mind.

One is that the Sephardic part of the Jewish people is more traditional, and more respectful of authority, than Ashkenazic Jews are. That may explain why they keep their rabbis longer than we do.

I do not know if the data supports this. The yichus of the Rabbi Soleveitchik's synagogue may be Sephardic but its members are very much mainstream Manhattan Jews with an ideological and practicing cross section.  I also do not know if they have kingmakers who can impose their will and blunt opposition.

Another possible answer is that our lives and our neighborhoods and our institutions have become very unstable in our time. There was a time when you joined your parents' synagogue, and sat next to them when you came to services, and you felt a sense of kinship with all the people in the room whom you knew from childhood on. But nowadays, it is not like that anymore. It really has not been like that for about fifty years. 

 On the other hand, our teachers and doctors and dentists maintain a loyal following for decades.  So do our Chabad shelechim.

 Neighborhoods don't last for a generation. Synagogue buildings don't last as long as the mortgage does. People no longer live in the same state, or in the same state of mind, as their parents or their children. There was a time when young people flew the nest. They went off to college and never came back to the city where they grew up. But now, for the first time in human history, parents fly the nest too. Parents retire to the Sunbelt, and leave their children behind. And so, even if a synagogue lasts a generation, and even if a rabbi lasts a generation in the same synagogue, it is not really the same synagogue anymore, except in name.

That, of course, is not accurate either.  Judaism survives in large part because it has been geographically portable for the last 2000 years.  Synagogues have always been in flux, subject to demographic shifts.  Some, such as mine, endure a hundred years.  But the edifices on the Lower East Side, once filled to capacity every shabbat, are now museums to be replaced for a while by children who relocated to places near and far, which are now being vacated.  It does not really matter whether the population depletion occurs because the previous generation dies out or because the previous generation relocates.  In either case, they are not where they were.

This may be the reason for the turnover in the rabbinate that we are seeing nowadays.

Not  at all where my vote goes on this.  I think it is more of a form of scapegoating to identify a focus for either leadership generated institutional attrition or a legitimate public response to adverse personal experience.

And there is a third, possible answer to this question of the instability and the turnover that we are seeing in our community nowadays. I hope that I am wrong in what I am going to say----I really do----but one of the reasons for the turnover in the rabbinate that we are seeing in so many synagogues nowadays may be because the Sixties have not yet ended. The Sixties were the time when a great revolution took place in America---a revolution that brought much good, but that also caused much harm. The slogan of that revolution was "Never trust anyone over thirty", and the claim of that revolution was that the young knew as much--and were entitled to as much power---as their elders.

I think this is non-sense.  My generation, which is probably Rabbi Riemer's as well, set measures of performance for our leaders and schected many of the sacred cows.  We have voted out three Presidents who the electorate judged not to be up to the task and brought a forth to the edge of impeachment for misconduct.  We have marginalized racism, though not entirely eliminated it, with the help of some very revered Rabbis.  We have afforded ourselves the benefit of voting with our feet from synagogue or Federation experience that falls below standard.  Yet we accept an odious RA Placement monopoly where their Executive Director came down to our Board Meeting to threaten to close us for our High Holy Days if we continued to try to extricate ourselves from an regrettable choice of Rabbis and abrupt congregational dissatisfaction.  That sacred cow is still pooping on the floors where the Search Committees meet.

That revolution took place in every corner of American life. The authority of teachers in the schools, the authority of the government, the authority of every institution in the country, were challenged---sometimes for good, and sometimes for bad. And this challenge to authority, which took place in every part of American life, took place in American Jewish life as well. Young Jews demanded a say in how services were run, in how charitable dollars were distributed, and in every other aspect of Jewish life. Many of these demands were proper, and healthy, and justified and overdue. But one of the results of that era was the breakdown in rabbinic authority.

Part of this problem was self-inflicted by the people in authority, from Presidents and other public officials, to Conservative Rabbis who put up pastel oaktag posters inviting people to their presentations on intermarriage, vowing to excommunicate deviants whose children intermarried and deem them inferior in some way.

Which brings me to the question that is found in our sedra. Moses, the prince of Egypt, goes out and sees the suffering of the Israelites. He sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating an Israelite slave, and he is moved by what he sees. And so he risks his life and his position, and comes to the rescue of the Israelite. The next day, he goes out again, and this time, he sees two Israelites fighting with each other. He intervenes again, and tries to break up the fight. And one of the Israelites turns on him, and says: 
"Mi samcha?" "Mi samcha l'ish sar vishofet aleynu?" Who made you a ruler over us?

And Moses is broken hearted by that question. Here he has risked everything he has to help these people, and they turn on him and say: Who made you a ruler over us?

Moshe's emotional response is never really recorded.  Which now opens up the other question of congregational manipulation of Torah to meet Rabbinical agenda.

At that point, Moses leaves Egypt and goes off to the land of Midian. Most people think that he leaves because he is afraid that Pharaoh will find out what he has done, and will arrest him. But I read that line to mean that Moses left Egypt and went off to Midian out of shock, and out of disappointment that his people, the people whom he had tried to help, the people that he risked so much to rescue, asked him: "Who do you think you are? And what do you think gives you the right to be our leader?"

A real leader expects a certain amount of opposition and is up to the task.  He does not put his tail between his legs and slither off.  The traditional interpretation is probably the more accurate one.  As true leader, Moshe dealt with opposition, both from Pharaoh and after Exodus from kvetching constituents who wanted more than they had.

At the very beginning of the story of Moses, our leader, we find that Moses nearly gives up on being a leader because of the rude and crude question that he is asked. The whole story of the Exodus from Egypt nearly ended before it began because of that question: "Who made you a ruler over us?"

That is the question that every rabbi and every Jewish leader faces all too often in our time: "Mi samcha?" By what authority do you claim to be in charge? Why is your opinion worth any more than mine?

It depends what the opinion is.

I don't mean to exaggerate. We Jews have never had a pope. We Jews have seldom had a Sanhedrin or a central authority. I know that. And we Jews know that no leader can impose his authority upon his followers unless they accept it. You cannot be a leader if you get too far ahead of your troops. I know that. But we Jews have had until modern times a respect for learning and a respect for leadership that are no longer present in many places.

I would again challenge the accuracy  of this.  There is a great desire for leaders of public affairs, religion, science and commerce who are up to the task.  It takes more than a title or a course of study to really be up to the task.  Furthermore, perhaps as a holdover to the 1960's, people resent unfair manipulation and for the last fifty years have tried to make their dissatisfaction with this known, though with mixed results.  Big donors to political campaigns know that public expression can be manipulated up to a point, though not entirely without limit.

If everything is a matter of opinion, and if every opinion is of equal stature, then we are in big trouble, for ours is a faith that is based on knowledge, and if every opinion is of equal stature, regardless of the knowledge that backs it up, how can we avoid chaos?

Do you know the story of the teacher who brings a rabbit into her kindergarten class, and asks the children if it is a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit? One of the children says: "I don't know, but let's vote on it".

Some things are not vote-able. Whether it is a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit is decided by knowledge, not by voting. And so it is with Judaism. Some things are not a matter of opinion. Some things are either right or wrong. And some things can only be voted on by those who know. And if that principle is not accepted, what we have is anarchy.

We certainly accept this.  To write prescriptions one has to show evidence of training and pass exams.  Who may charge money for legal advice is regulated along with who may sell real estate or securities.  Our teachers need diplomas.  I do not think anyone really challenges the Rabbi's authority to rule over his or her domain any more than we challenge an office holder to fulfill the tasks that the voters want.  But we reserve the right to walk away, much as we can change doctors or schools or Senators.  Too many Rabbis I have encountered function as control freaks, often imparting the illusion of knowledge and depending more on their title or authority than the need to convey to their constituents that their professional judgments are not arbitrary ones.  Alas, too often they are.

So let me wish the new rabbi of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue well as he begins his ministry there. May he find much fulfillment there, and may he find many students there who welcome the opportunity and the privilege of studying with him, and of working with him. <snip>

And let me wish the new rabbi of this congregation in the Midwest that I have been talking about well too, when he begins his ministry there. <snip>

Epilogue:  In some ways the Rabbis may have taken on the reverse role of Congress.  Polls consistently show that Americans hold Congress as an institution with disdain but are sufficiently satisfied with their own representatives to keep turnover low.  The Rabbinate, on the other hand, remains a respected institution but there is often a sense of deficient performance or experience with the incumbent to justify popular demand for replacement.  And so we have problems with tenure, made worse by external manipulation of the selection process by the Rabbi's own professional organization, at least for the Conservative movement.

The writer, as a Rabbi himself, and I presume either of Conservative or Reform origin, has a set of lenses that he seems to peer through, as we all do.  He's probably never had this cohort of Rabbis be less than collegial with him because of his position, just as physicians tend to be more cordial to me as one of them than we are to patients, at least from their perspective, though for the most part professionals mean well when functioning in their professional capacity.

Just like doctors can sometimes be abrupt with patients, less knowledgeable on some things than they should be  and on occasion use their authority to victimize them, so the case with Rabbis.  I can honestly assess that I have been victimized twice though never to the extent that we read about in the media these days with tales of molestation and defense of the misconduct by Rabbinical colleagues in the Orthodox community.  Yet those two occasions remain indelible.  But misuse of authority, punishable by revocation of that authority, takes a more subtle path, both historically and now.  The instances of abrupt treatment or more commonly arbitrary treatment without entitlement to justification has happened to me enough times that it would exceed my supply of digits to count the incidents, many quite petty in fact, though I can probably identify all the responsible individual Rabbis by a finger count.  Some guys are just control freaks who judge themselves accountable to no one.  In Jewish history we read of saintly guys in the 19th and 20th century who coerced butchers to compliance with their agenda by threatening economic ruin by declaring meat that otherwise satisfies Halachic Kashrut standards unkosher.  Yes, there is a need to promote Kehillah with communal good but honesty remains a core Jewish principle, at least from American lenses where people can walk away if they wish.  They could and did walk away in Europe too.  Immigrants to America, Bolsheviks and Hasidim often derived as a response to misused authority either by the local rabbis or in the case of Hasidim, by the Gedolim B'dor.

So as the D'var Torah bemoans the loss of authority, if not the loss of credibility, perhaps the rebuke should not be to the congregants who resisted or concluded that Aseh L'Cha Rav really meant somebody else.  Rav Pogo met the enemy and he is us.  If they really want the authority that they feel is rightly theirs restored, the RA and other professional organizations of that type can start by expanding the recourse that legitimately disgruntled participants from the Rabbinical side and from the congregant side might have, other than forcibly extricating themselves from circumstances that fail to enhance the Jewish experience.

Blank Canvas

Our new secular year has commenced.  Predictions and good intentions at the outset have a way of being faulty before long.  With good fortune having come my way, there seems to be relatively little that I need that I currently lack.  More energy and motivation, perhaps, but no material items.  A better future legacy than I've amassed thus far, perhaps.  Professionally I've gotten into the groove, given up my futile inclination to make Electronic Medial Record keeping compatible with optimal medical care, contenting myself to toss a few harpoons at the management that salutes this mandate and the non-participants in medical care who harbor a delusion that it will accomplish something other than what will really accomplish.  But there are things of personal gratification that can be accomplished.  After some pondering of what I value and what the realistic opportunities seem to be, I afforded myself twelve things to pursue.

1. Beer

While I lived in walking distance to America's largest brewery and took advantage of the proximity by walking there periodically for the Anheuser-Busch tour and tasting room, this was beer ordinaire.  As resident in Boston with a fondness for an occasional treat at Legal Seafood, a mug of suds would usually accompany supper, with the bar offerings for this expanding my culinary horizons.  Eventually a craft industry developed while importers made available choices that had been available elsewhere for centuries.  And it's not a particularly expensive adventure as creature pleasures go.  There is no reason why I cannot sample one that I've not had before twice monthly, once in a bottle at my own table and once at one of the growing number of places nearby that have extensive offerings that I could not possible sample in their entirety.

2. Professional

I work in an inner city taking care of primarily diabetes.  My folks do pretty well but there are a lot of statistics to suggest that their outcome under the best of circumstances lags behind where it might have been if their ethnicity and economic standing were different. I am in the perfect place to study this and my own professional Endocrine Society has an initiative to make resources available.  Unfortunately, the Endo Society is dominated by academics who are more interested in why they cannot get minority research subjects into clinical trials than they are in why they fail to derive maximum advantage from what exists for their care now.  It's worth a try to get some funds and absorb a resident into this type of project for which our patient population may be a prototype for a very large medical opportunity.

3.  Family

I do not neglect my family but they seem to work around the odd moments more than having pre-arranged time to do things together.  The priorities on my to-do list seem to need some revision.

4. My Blog

This past half-year, it was my intent to make my blog a forum for Jewish laytzanos with some medical cynicism thrown in.  In the process, I explored the world of Jewish blogging.  To my pleasant surprise, mine seems to have a niche with a largely untapped audience of potential participants.  The genres come in a number of forms.  The most consistently funny and appropriately cynical comes from www.frumsatire.com.  Heshy writes a lot more frequently than I do and his wit attracts comments.  His draw, though, is a limited Orthodox perspective that lobs its share of darts at misconduct and hypocrisy.  The other genres come from a mixture of Rabbis who want to teach something or Conservative cheerleaders of various types who cannot understand why they are experiencing an affiliation crisis.  What seems to be missing is my perspective of people who are loyal to ideology but look at the leadership as a mixture of operators and buffoons not up to the task of matching the Jewish excellence that people seek with the actual experience of participation.  The Pew Research study suggests that the people affected by this type of disillusion and desire for something more engaging might be huge and currently unfulfilled.  I have to figure out some better way to attract readers and engage in electronic sharing of ideas.

5.  Loyal Democrat

Among Will Rogers' many political quips, "I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat."  For most of my voting life, I've looked at the political branch points much as I've functioned as a physician.  There is a problem to solve or decision to make, look at the options and pick the one that seems most likely to succeed within the bounds of Derech Eretz.  Umpire, Judge, Doctor, Scientist.  It is what it is.  Sure there are elements of competence and elements of morality that influence choices but until the past ten years, public positions that fall into the category of evil in America have been increasingly marginalized.  But wicked as a concept seems to be having enough of a resurgence to justify some effort at resisting it or at least pointing out what it is.  From the days of Amos and Isaiah, it has been unseemly to accept people of title who victimize vulnerable people in the name of expediency or social order.  That any support exists at all for denial of science to get votes or policies that deny people their due participation by placing stumbling blocks moves me to become more of a partisan in the other direction.  While my region has become solidly Democratic by affiliation, with even the elected Republicans for the most part staying a step ahead of venal, that is not true other places.  I have to offer my help in some way this half-year.

6. Writing

Among the things that intrigued me this past year was the Pew Research study on Jewish trends in America.  I might be the poster child for this and my declining shul might be the organizational prototype.  I am loyal to ideology, less respectful of the organization that brings these principles to public expression.  Since the release of the report, I've read a lot of hand-wringing from the depleted organizations but not a lot of accounts from the very people like myself who voted with their feet.  It is an experience that needs to be expressed in the right forum

I have also become something of a neo-Hellenist these past few years.  Denominationalism has declined.  There is an inherent beauty on Friday nights at the local Reform congregation.  A recent Orthodox wedding I attended reminded me that this can also be an enduring connection to Jewish life.  Exposure to quality knows very little ideological distinction as the Jewish Hellenists, the Jewish Iberians and those who rejected classical Orthodoxy in the 18th century in favor of Hasidism which advanced the value of each individual taught us from time to time.  Another idea not publicly expressed often enough.

And I've not contributed to the medical literature in a long time.  Need to remind everyone that life as a doctor has its glories and its frustrations.

7. Weight

A recent visit to Happy Harry's gave me access to a digital scale for only $9.99 so I bought one.  My weight recorded at 167 lb.  In the last two years I've had to move to the next size shirt and replace some pants.  My tailored clothing hardly gets worn but it still seems to get me by.  I'm more tired than I think I ought to be.  My feeding habits differ considerably from the advice I give to the chubby folks who visit my exam room.  I need to get serious with my health.  This takes a lot of forms, but for the most part, things that get measured get accomplished.  While I could keep score on medicine use, lab results, or clothing size, weight seems to be the most consistent measure.  It is also a byproduct of the efforts that promote other facets of health.  So for Day 1, I ate breakfast, went for a walk, shopped for a waffle maker that I did not find at a suitable price but at least it will help me shift some calories to earlier in the day.  Target weight by July 4th: 155 lb.

8. Shul

AKSE and its leadership have not endeared themselves to me this past year.  To keep my interest in Jewish things afloat and at a superior level, I accepted the logo of Engaging/Embracing/Enriching for the presidential delusion that it is and either took a sabbatical for six months or went on strike, depending on perspective.  But I read, commented on people's blogs, wrote to authors of things I read, resumed a weekly Parsha review.  Basically, replaced the things the shul should have been doing with other forums that advance me better.

We had a mandatory congregational special meeting a few weeks ago to vote on the Rabbi's contract extension and deal with the reality of nobody wanting to be left holding the Congregation's bag as President when the music stops not too far into the future.  While it had been my impression that I was the last critic still there, with the final remaining handful of loyalists who want to preserve the memory of better days until the lights go out for the  final time.  From the comments from the floor, largely by members of long standing, the dissatisfaction with a marginal experience that is not realistically marketable to the larger community seems broader than expected.  After the meeting I responded electronically to the three people who made the most substantial comments, responses of very little optimism.  While reversing damage may take some doing, it is possible but needs some fundamental revision of how people think, undoing the Peter Principle that dominates the Executive Committee, and having the congregants insist that the place function like a university instead of a Hebrew school even if it means making the Rabbi a figurehead or mascot.  I will try to identify and fulfill two needed projects that really are engaging.

9. Dad

My father died intestate in 2009.  He had a small amount of assets, too little to make a material impact on me or my brother, though probably would be welcome by my sinister.  I was the only child who remained connected to him for his final two decades, so I never felt much urge to pursue this.  I really should close the chapter, distributing the funds as the laws of Florida require.  I will get an attorney to take this over or it will never get done.

10. My Refuge

The mortgage has been paid off for decades.  If I wanted to get a Christmas Tree, which I obviously don't, I would have no realistic place to put it as there do not seem to be vacant corners anywhere.  I do have a few spaces that I could call my own.  There are two desks, a large one in what was supposed to be a study room but has become a repository for whatever.  And a smaller desk in a corner of the living room that really is mine.  And there is my bedroom, or at least my half of it.  At the moment I would call it half a queen size bed where I sleep, read, use my tablets, and groom in the adjacent bathroom.  There are other things that I would like to do there other than store stuff.  Making this half-room really mine occupies an important goal for the coming six months.

11. Guests

While I very much need private space, a lot of the decisions I made for my house in the thirty years I've lived here were predicated on creating a welcoming public space.  Our open houses have been two celebrations of childbirth and shiva for three parents and one gathering for my fellowship comrades, plus some birthday parties.  We have good living room furniture, good dining space, a fully equipped Kosher kitchen with my own culinary skills enhanced gradually over time.  But no guests to share this with us.  Since goals need to be specific to allow measurement, I set a quota of four guests in the ensuing six months.  That means I have to make the public areas more presentable first but I do not anticipate much difficulty with this.  Finding guests and occasions may pose more of a challenge, but four does not seem that many.


12. Day Trips

Several years back I allotted one day per month to visit a place I've not been previously.  My efforts took me to the Jersey shore on and off season, the Yuengling Brewery, Gettysburg and regional wineries, Maryland's eastern shore, the Poconos, and elsewhere.  I acquired a special liking for tours of odd mansions turned museums.  In addition to the interest that the sites create, this also becomes Me Time.  Getting to these places takes some planning, affording me a couple of private hours in transit in my car, with the ability to stop en route pretty much at whim.  I could count on this time set aside for myself.  Since I have no plans to expand my shabbos morning attendance at AKSE beyond the current twice monthly, I should be able to insert one of these day trips each month to boost my spirit as it has done in the past.

Twelve projects this time.  All with specific end points, none requiring significant hired assistance.  All creating a sense of accomplishment that can be a little elusive at times.

Presidential Vacancy

Among the findings of the Pew Research report on American Judaism, there was a clear message that people regarded ideology more highly than the organizations that promote ideology.  Judaism has elements of religion and culture and ethnicity, all distributed in different proportions among the individuals who self-identify as Jewish.  As annoying as the institutions are, the civilization would collapse without them so there is a vested interest in keeping them afloat.  Everyone agrees that the decline occurred on some leader's watch and therefore more leadership is needed.  Not better leadership.  As the motto of the House of God attested, We're Not the Best but the Most.

When AKSE amended its bylaws a few years ago to eliminate term limits for all officers except President, I voted with the minority, predicting correctly they would take the path of least resistance and apply the Peter Principle to the executive function.  It's finally come home to roost with the Executive Committee functio0ning as a recycling center for willing people with functions of the officers taking the form of accounting of members or filling up schedules instead of the higher cognitive challenges of planning, creating better relations with congregants, making the sanctuary sparkle or more simply, making entry into the building for whatever purpose a form of K'doshah.  It's not happened.  Eventually the Bylaws mandated Presidential turnover takes effect and nobody from the executive board is really promotable.  While nearly all have been there five years, all have one year's experience repeated five times when they should have amassed five years experience.  And no takers at any level of talent or vision.

So if the Presidency remains vacant and the various VP's plod along in their usual way, will anyone be able to tell?  There are objective measures such as membership, attendance at events, maybe volume of programming if not its quality.  There are real intangibles, most importantly community reputation, which defies measurement but frames the attractiveness of the congregation as people shift from one place to another, or if the Pew study is accurate, pursue their own form of Jewish entropy.

While the Rabbi really cannot be burdened as CEO, and really is an entity separate from membership, he can be expected to promote Rabbi Schwarz' Megatrends suggestion that congregations need to create Chachma, Tzedek, Kehillah and K'doshah independent of how well or ineptly the governance supports those things, or even realizes what constitutes those things.  From a congregational standpoint, I've found the governance approach to congregational appeals for generosity from the constituents as more of solicitation that we owe AKSE more than AKSE has cemented relationships that merit special consideration.  And until that view changes at the leadership level, meaning a cadre of people with a different mode of thought doing the promotion, it will be very hard to reverse the rather predictable decline no matter who holds the title of President.