End of Scout House

If I were asked to design the optimal shul on a yellow pad, what would I create?  Something very close to where I have attended Rosh Hashanah the past several years.  The sponsors announced the end of its thirty year run.

I do not know its origins that far back.  Most of the participants hold membership at a sizable Conservative synagogue, the one where my wedding took place many decades ago.  That era brought the  Jewish catalog and its corollary, the Havurah Movement.  Conservative congregations have undergone many different types of transitions.  Women have acquired worship parity in most places.  Intermarriage has brought to their membership large numbers of people who have their church as their childhood imprint.  Education and literacy have become bimodal.  Some families seek the trappings of Judaism, others delve into its many facets, achieving knowledge of culture and history.  They spurn after school Hebrew schools for their children in favor of all-day, all-Jewish environments.  Many gain skill with challenging parts of liturgy, from leading services to reading the scriptural portions as they get recited publicly.  Rabbi's are caught in the middle.  They need to have casual worshippers not feel burdened, let alone intimidated, but want to offer their most dedicated followers the abiltiy to partake of tradition.  

The Jewish Catalog, now more than fifty years past its initial publication, described this divide, along with ways to address it.  One approach adopted by many large synagogues, usually championed by a member or two rather than the Rabbi, was to separate portions of the congregation who found the abridgments to the sanctuary experience an irritant, and let them worship elsewhere in the building the way they preferred.  The synagogue of my wedding had such a contingent.  Once a month, a subgroup would separate themselves, conduct a full liturgy and Torah reading and supplemental materials, give their own sermon, basically make themselves self-contained without hired clergy.

This reached its extreme on the Holy Days.  Many congregations have let this season become a caricature of what happens in the sanctuary the rest of the year.  People who pay full dues but only come on these few days expect a pageant.  Big donors come to the Torah either rehearsing the blessings in advance or reading a transliteration.  Women appear in the finest that summer clearance at the Outlets offer.  English readings, to make sure the Christians and others of limited Hebrew facility don't get overwhelmed.  A Rabbinical sermon, usually of quality and pertinence, but without excessive references to scriptural and Talmudic underpinnings.  Lots of people there, except kids who the Trustees vote to herd someplace else in the building to maintain solemn decorum.  Those who come those days leave impressed with the work that went into it.  Those who worship with the congregation every Saturday morning register that experience as Judaism Lite.

What the subset prefer is the Orthodox service without the inconvenient Orthodox restrictions.  Liturgy in its entirety chanted by individuals with expertise in doing this.  A sermon with sentence structure and content worthy of a college graduate but also peppered with a foundation of sacred source.  Kids running around with preschoolers being coached by parents to kiss the Torah during its processional. No rabbis, at least not hired for the purpose.  A service dependent on the abilities of those who prefer to attend there over the more formal, and often cathedral-like experience of their central sanctuaries on the Holy Days.  And with gender parity of participation.  Many women have acquired impressive skills.  With families, sometimes multigenerational, seated with each other.  No physical barriers separating men and women.  And an ample parking lot, as spaces can be at a premium when large suburban synagogues conduct their Holy Days services.

A group from a vibrant congregation with observant members dedicated to Conservative rules acted upon their preferences.  Thirty years previously, they created a committee to make their preferred worship environment happen.  They rented a building, a regional mansion repurposed as a meeting venue.  The organizers handled the many logistics.  Security of location, invitations, assigning fees to worshippers to meet expenses, chairs, securing an Ark, borrowing two Torah scrolls and setting each to the portion that will be read from it.  Most difficult task, a recurring one, to find people with needed skills to lead the various portions of liturgy, which can be daunting for the Holy Days. Indeed, Judaism has a side hustle market for Cantors and others with this skill to get paid in the thousands for doing this in congregations, hotels, cruise ships, and other places that do not employ a full time Cantor or music director.  Here, they needed skilled volunteers.  Many worked months to master the Musaf Service, the morning's most challenging portion.  Shofar Blowers needed to create all three sounds without side noises.  Torah reading's musical sound differs on those days, so people prepared to perform with the Holy Days tune had to be recruited.  Sermons were easier to invite, as the group creating this had its share of professors, rabbis who did not have their own pulpit, and others both knowledgeable about Jewish sources and experienced at public presentation.

While the project had its core participants from one synagogue wanting an experience differnt than what their home congregation offered, this stand-alone Holy Days was made available to anyone willing to pay the nominal fee.  That brought a slippery slope of people who did not want to pay full annual dues to an established shul but still wanted a Holy Days experience for much less.  Probably some took this option but most attendance came from the synagogue members who initiated the project.

My wife and I, along with adult children when in town, began attending for Rosh Hashanah quite a number of years ago.  We probably traveled the furthest to get there.  This could be an invitation to take pot shots at my own congregation's activities, but I'll refrain, except for two annoyances.  Our congregation follows the traditional liturgy, engaging a professional cantor, either by payroll or per diem contract.  We do not permit the participation of women, other than to maybe introduce a prayer.  We have a volunteer male choir, which performs well but becomes one more audience focus. My home synagogue has another tradition.  The President chooses a person, or sometimes a group, to honor each day of Rosh Hashanah.  These individuals are announced in advance, for which many of us make a donation to the synagogue's General Fund in their honor.  I've only once found any named individual enough of a personal irritant to not write a $36 check, but my wife overrode me on that.  What I dislike is the pomp that makes two long services even longer as people give testimonials to the honoree and the honoree gives words of appreciation of his own.  While congregations need their own traditions, and honoring men and women who have given added effort to the synagogue's well-being need recognition, to say nothing of the shul needing a few extra bucks, I will drive a bit to a traditional service like the Scout House to avoid this.

Even though we were not members of the dominant contributing congregation, the people at the Scout House always treated us inclusively.  My wife became one of their prayer leaders. I got an Aliyah with some frequency, an honor that would bring me a bill for a few hundred dollars if I wanted one at my own shul.  They figured out that I had reasonable facility with the Hebrew and the choreography of the service. The organizers occasionally tapped me as Second Gabbai for the Torah reading.  And the Musaf Leaders and Shofar blowers were predictably awesome.  A regular participant has a disabled daughter, or more correctly, a disabled young adult worships among us.  Using an electronic device, she also acquired here task each service.  The people there have that blend of smart and kind, something that has largely disappeared from much of our public discourse.  The value of  being smart and kind together enhances as it becomes less frequent.

The long run of this service is about to conclude.  The reasons are several and cumulative.  I think the inflection point would be the original Conservative shul hiring a new young Rabbi, a rising superstar, who everyone at that shul admires.  He is sensitive to the religious variations within his congregation.  People who used to come to the Scout House have been opting for their home shuls instead.  A few key individuals have left.  One died a few years ago.  The organizing couple responsible for much of what came to be, downsized as empty nesters a few years ago.  They sold their McMansion within walking distance of the Scout House in favor of an upscale downtown condo.  

The neighborhood around the Scout House, while always expensive, has gotten out of reach for most people early in their professional careers.  These were our Musaf leaders and shofar blowers.  Congregations around the area will pay for their skills, a boost to young families trying to pay mortgages.  Obtaining the required talent, other than sermon speakers, had gotten too precarious.

So for many reasons, the leaders who sustained the experience opted not to organize it for this year.  I will miss much of it.  The drive, while long, has never been difficult.  I like hearing these very talented women, most of them young, leading services expertly. The people who deliver sermons are uniformly adept at it.  The equal of any congregational Rabbi.  Over time, I've come to know the people.  A fellow doctor who I knew from his online presence, I got to greet in person each year.  A widowed friend found a widowed mate.  They've appeared the last few years.  People I knew from the past who have moved away share enough of my attachment to designate the Scout House as their Holy Day destination.  My sister-in-law lives nearby.  She gets a visit from us after the First Day.

It's an experience my home shul cannot duplicate.  Yet my home shul has always performed above threshold.  The irritants, while there, are not deal breakers.  No reason not to import some of the Scout House legacy.  It would form most of what I would put on my yellow pad, imagining the optimal shul.

Other Congregations

 

Busy week of places of worship, alternatives to mine.

1. My shul, Saturday Morning, worship
2. Episcopal Church, urban area that has seen better days, Saturday evening, concert
3. My former synagogue, part of city where few Jews live, Sunday afternoon, guest lecturer
4. Traditional Congregation in posh area of distant city, historical legacy, Saturday morning, worship
5. Presbyterian Church, distant city, middle-class suburban, Saturday afternoon, reception

All different, mostly different purposes.  Some familiar to me, others part of my more distant travels.  Some eagerly awaited attendance, others more grudging, purpose-driven attendance.  Using my familiar synagogue as the anchor, the other four sites, with my experiences there, expose what might be possible.  And some of our practices, particular to us, have their own superiorities not always appreciated until placed next to an active alternative.

Given a yellow pad with erasable pencil and assigned to create a synagogue teeming with my druthers, not subject to vetoes of clergy or Dominant Influencers, or even majority votes, my final product would have some features of mine, perhaps less focused on a legacy once more glorious than current circumstances. Each of the other four brings something to that yellow pad.

The Episcopal church has an active music program.  They hire a full-time music director.  Many Christian churches depend on music to engage people, to create a spirit.  It sometimes comes at a price when those in attendance sway to the music but never acquire significant literacy with either of their Testaments.  Still, the music there has elegance that we cannot hope to duplicate, or even want to duplicate.  Generous donors enabled restoration of my state's largest pipe organ.  They named it in memory of the sweetest pediatrician, a church member who became a dominant presence in our local medical world when women of that professional stature were scarce.  Organ specialists from Warrensburg MO, halfway across America, came to guide the organ's assembly and its majestic sound.  The music director auditions participants to ensure that musical skill exceeds a threshold.  The concert that I attended attracted musicians from the community as well as the church.  Difficult music in more than one language.  A detailed program with some advertising, solicitation of donors, and expert bios of key performers.  An amateur musical historian outlined each piece and its composer.

This church sits at the edge of a neglected part of town, a few blocks walk from a dangerous neighborhood.  Like my synagogue, it is a merger of churches from times past.  Its building is worn, parking adequate for the occasion, though people still need to find space on nearby streets.  They hosted a reception after the concert.  I had made 48 oatmeal chocolate chip cookies as a contribution, while others provided a mixture of sweet and savory handhelds.  The congregation has a recognizable political element, as the Palestinian flag that greeted committed Zionist me when I checked in caught my immediate attention.  At each concert, the chorale provides a feedback sheet to assess who attends demographically, motivations to attend, and other comments.  My own remark about expanding beyond European/American choral music was taken seriously, with this concert including a popular Israeli song.  It toned down that flag, but I still questioned its propriety in my comments.

What might I import?  We have a volunteer choir, restricted to males.  At one time, we supported a mixed choir that performed as entertainment once a year, never as liturgy, but very much part of my shul's signature events.  We do not take feedback seriously, a reality of a culture with a few Dominant Influencers who I think really believe any practices not their own are inferior.  For religious dietary restrictions, we cannot have random people bringing potluck food.  We sort of have a political stance centered around Zionism and support of a modern nation state with unchallenged Jewish sovereignty.  Within that framework, though, we have much diversity.  We also have former members who have made Aliyah to Israel We also have children of current and former members living there and subject to the Israel Defense Forces universal draft. While none have been reported a casualties, we are aware of the realities.  Some members are rather cavalier supporting an aggressive offense as the most effective defense.  Others are more acculturated to making win-win deals, limited primarily by a suitable partner.  Some members are MAGA and ZOA, more are registered Democrats who wince a bit at anti-Semitism from the left.  Many of our members have degrees from those elite campuses where the taboo on anti-Semitism has been lifted.  But as a congregation, we are neither Red nor Blue.  In Jewish tradition, we fall more toward analysis of the possibilities.  But the Israeli flag remains in a secure position at the front of our sanctuary and at all off-site events that we sponsor.

Often the harshest comments fall on the organizations that one has defected for cause.  Places that nominally share your heritage, sense of tribe, your manner of thinking, yet have a leadership on site and enthroned centrally that betray core personal aspirations.  The shul where I attended the lecture reflects that mixture of admiration for some things, but enough repulsion to others to relocate my synagogue affiliation after seventeen years there, with some visible positions along the way.  While Rabbis have come and gone, most personable, the macher-dominated influencers of old have been cloned as proteges.  I go there for worship maybe once a year, less now that they put bouncers at their front door to gatekeep those not registered with their office in advance.  After my congregation sold its building, they housed us there.  Their chapel was fine for worship, the people I encountered most weeks were cordial.  They have more money than we do, helped out by a few members of serious wealth.  And if we needed a tenth man, they never hesitated to provide one.  While not mistreated, we were clearly tenants.  It took no time for our officers and Rabbi to realize that we preferred finding our own place over renewing our lease.

Yet as I walked around the interior, I could see that they had useful undertakings. When people walk into their entryway, where our Kiddush would be held, they could see alphabetized boxes of name tags with lanyards.  They felt it important that their people, whether regular or sporadic, prominent or obscure, have people address them by name.  At the entry door stands a big flat screen displaying the Shabbos program and upcoming events.  At one time, our congregations were of comparable size.  Over decades, each has contracted, ours far more than theirs.  They have a spectrum of ages, including children and families in their prime years.  As a result, they have organized subdivisions with social activities as well as learning initiatives. Multigenerational without really being intergenerational. They lack members with the level of observance and liturgical skills that we have, but they are an educated collection of people who understand Jewish history and culture, as well as people who engage with the community's less fortunate on a much larger scale than our members do.  Yet the sting of the mistreatment of people very dear to me has remained in the background, nominally forgiven but indelible in its own way.

I go there for events.  This time a big one.  While we think of Orthodox congregations like mine as defenders of formality, the Conservatives have their institutional norms and tiered agencies as well.  New Rabbis for the past thirty years or so undergo an Installation.  This occurs over a weekend, with a committee of important people designing a program.  Elements of solemnity, elements announcing importance not only of the new Rabbi but of dignitaries from elected officials to people of public recognition in the national Jewish scene.  Their committee invited one of America's premier contemporary Jewish scholars.  I listen to his podcasts or TV interviews with some frequency.  While I'd be willing to pay to hear his presentation, this time the committee offered the chance for free.  It turns out, when the new Rabbi, the son of an interfaith marriage, made his first advance to a career as a Jewish professional, the guest speaker, also a man of obscurity but immense potential, guided the not yet Rabbi for a summer.  Over time, both succeeded grandly.  His mentor came to the synagogue for a Sunday afternoon.  

Only two people from my synagogue attended.  The attendance from the host congregation seemed an older cross-section of their composite.  The Installation Committee made sure sweets and drinks in abundance sat on tables at the perimeter of their auditorium while people sat at tables facing the stage.  I greeted the people I know, but as I usually do at gatherings of this type, opted for a table with people I did not know.  The presentation did not disappoint.  A man of great insight.  Following brief remarks, the guest and the new Rabbi engaged in a Q&A with each other.  Time for questions was not allotted, but I could not let this opportunity go by without asking the scholar about something I had heard from him on one of his podcasts.  Only three people of an attendance of about a hundred approached him.  He answered my query in the expected thoughtful way.  I got some layer cake, ate it quickly, drank nothing, and then headed home.  A fully satisfying afternoon.

By week's end, I flew to another part of America for a family event.  I once lived there fifty years back.  My son lived there much more recently, married a young woman whose family lived there, thus the location of this event.  While there as a student, Hillel was my Jewish anchor.  The students had a loose connection to an Orthodox synagogue nearby, which I visited a few times with other students.  The Hillel Rabbi became a friend, particularly after he accepted another directorship not far from me.  I invited him to my congregation as guest speaker shortly before his tragic passing in a freak accident.  I never attended any other mainstream synagogue other than Friday night service at a Reform congregation near my hotel when I returned to the city for a conference.  

One synagogue of interest, maybe the only one of interest, passed me by.  I never worshipped there as a student, yet knew of its pioneering presence.  On return visits, a few over the decades, I never had both a Saturday morning off and a car to get there.  This congregation still exists in a form very similar to my home shul.  In the mid-1960s, many of the social restrictions placed on American Jews by the Christian majority's upprer crust had broken down.  We often had premier educations, making us attractive to employers and the professions.  Restrictive covenants on houses either disappeared or became legally unenforceable.  Many Jews acquired prosperity and professional stature starting a few decades before, but becoming more commonplace.  Jews in that city lived in a particular enclave not far from the dominant university.  As businesses expanded westward, followed by luxury housing, a Jewish professional community established itself.  While all but a few could have commuted to the established congregations, at that time clustered near the university, enough wanted their own location, one that would hybrid Orthodox and observant Conservative traditions.  They opted for independence from an umbrella organization.  

The congregation thrived over the years.  More of the Jewish population moved westward, as did some of the established affiliated synagogues.  The new congregation invested in its own campus.  While Jewish demographics changed, so did accepted practices among those suburbanites.  Jewish neighborhood enclaves became harder to define.  Most importantly, the role of women in worship and congregational governance became the norm for most congregations with secular membership.  This congregation did not follow that trend.  While offering worshipers the option of gender separate or mixed seating, as my Hillel of that city did, and my home congregation did until very recently, the role of participation of women during formal services remained limited.  Over time, women were offered a few honors like reading the few English passages that congregations use in their liturgy, but leading worship remained a male obligation and a male fulfillment.

This visit, the event that brought me to town, would begin at 1PM, located just minutes from the congregation I always wanted to visit but never did.  The waning of anti-Semitism as a public taboo has changed synagogues dramatically.  All American synagogues now have limited entrance with a professional security guard, usually with pistol in holster, at the only designated entrance, which is locked.  I anticipated this.  Before my visit, I sent an email to the office, introducing myself and my reason for wanting to attend.  They accepted this, notified the gatekeeper that I would be coming, and had my name on a small scrap of paper in the police officer's possession when I arrived.  The rabbi and his wife quickly recognized the only person sitting among them unfamiliar to them.

Staying the course on worship format comes at a price.  Women the years I lived in that city did not have a role in conducting services.  Moreover, their presence in medical school, STEM, law school, and MBA programs was a pittance of what women subsequently achieved.  If accepted in education and professions, not having parity in synagogue generated  resentment.  Women largely gravitated to congregations that would function in parallel with the gender parity they experienced in their professional lives, with places like mine and the shul I visited contracting in membership and attendance.  

My Waze route from the hotel to synagogue directed me through a very tony part of the area.  Developments with McMansions spoked from the main road, a few with gates.  The congregation had created a stunning campus.  Upper and lower parking areas.  Parsonage for the Rabbi, who I suspect could not afford a McMansion of that type within walking distance of the sanctuary.  I parked my rental, then took my time walking a significant upslope to the main entrance.  The officer recognized me as a designated visitor, greeted me, as did the maintenance lady on duty that morning.  They had a weekly bulletin, far less informative than the one the volunteers of my congregation create each week.  I looked at the donation plaques in the lobby.  That tells a lot about the membership.  Some donations have inscriptions less than three years old, including some honoring a Bar Mitzvah.  I do not know if they have a Hebrew School, but wall hangings suggested they might.  

Two congregants in the lobby introduced themselves.  They directed me to Siddur and Chumash on shelves in the lobby.  They use primarily the Koren Siddur and Artscroll Chumash, but had other options and included page numbers from three different books for the week's Torah reading.  At the entrance to the sanctuary, I asked if men and women sat together or separately.  He indicated both options.  I took a seat in the center, one of the mixed areas, though a significant number of men and women, including the Rabbi and Rebbetzin, placed themselves in the gender specific section.

My arrival coincided with my typical entry at my congregation, late in Shacharit, a few minutes before the Torah Service.  A gentleman approached me, asking if I were a Kohen.  I am not.  The service took a choreography very similar to my home congregation.  Three men divided the Torah reading, one being the Rabbi.  They had the same portions led by women that we do, some English readings blessing the Military and Government.  It is customary to offer an Aliyah to visitors, so I received one.  The Rabbi gave his sermon of about twenty minutes, a few references to the weekly Torah Portion, more time devoted to his perspective on the disappearing taboos on anti-Semitism on our campuses and elsewhere in America.  Some parts of our service were shifted to other times, making the closing prayers a little shorter.  They had an interesting addition, asking people who would be traveling in the coming week, which included me, to identify where they would be going.  I planned my return home.  Another fellow had a business trip to China.

After the service, refreshments are customary.  It gave me a chance to trade notes, to get the comparisons clearer in my mind without expressing them.  Their rabbi knew my former rabbi and had served as a reference to candidates for his replacement.  I do not know the financial trajectory of this synagogue.  They have an exquisite campus, unlikely to be funded by annual dues.  Their current membership approximated ours.  I did not ascertain their peak membership or when it occurred, but mixed seating/ male exclusivity, which had been a Conservative Jewish norm at their founding, as were certain hybrid congregations, had fallen into public disfavor.  The members who remained seemed older, maybe a few years younger than ours, and attended weekly worship in larger percentages than the more secular membership of United Synagogue and Union of Reform Judaism congregations.  They have many more dues payers, but sanctuary attendance comparable to the place I visited and my home synagogue.  Since I had the event that brought me to the area approaching, I wished people a Goot Shabbos, thanked them for their hospitality, and then headed back to my hotel to retrieve my wife.

That event, located just a few miles from my hotel and the synagogue, brought me to a Presbyterian Church named after one of its saints.  It stood in a neighborhood of much more modest residences than the synagogue.  It had an impressive building, reasonably spacious grounds, but not the campus feel of the shul where I had just observed Shabbos.  A handsome building dominating a small hill.  Their entry foyer highlighted a few activities, the type that discloses what the congregation values.  They sponsor outreach to the less fortunate, whether by economic circumstances,  isolated by age or infirmity, or members of marginalized groups.  References to youth programming appeared.  We entered a multipurpose space where our event would occur.  It had multiple round tables occupying the bulk of the floor surface, yet with enough perimeter to allow some cushioned seating and adequate greeting of others sharing this event.  Their sanctuary was locked on this Saturday afternoon.  Its entrance had tinted windows which allowed a view inside.  A stage of ample size offered a lecturn for the pastor, floor space for choir or musical presentations integral to much Christian worship, fixed wooden pews encircling that stage, and traditional motifs of Christianity, if not Presbyterianism, on the back wall of the stage.  The sanctuary would seat hundreds.  

The building served multiple purposes.  I wandered into their kitchen, probably a secondary focus of what their congregation does.  Large space, modern commercial appliances and work benches.  To get there, I had to pass other rooms, likely educational or meeting spaces.  I did not encounter their administrative of pastors' offices.  It seemed a multigenerational congregation.  How well it functioned as an intergenerational worship institution I do not know.  There are things a visitor can ascertain from the surroundings, other vital elements of a worship community known only to the regular participants.  

In this age of modern websites, something virtually all American congregations have created, it is possible to learn more about each congregation beyond the impressions of personal visits.  Many present their monthly or quarterly bulletins on their site, with a list of events and activities.  The ability to assemble these without fail, weekly for my synagogue, monthly or quarterly for others, and to have members who load what the writers and editors create onto their public electronic forums is a notable achievement.  It goes on as daily work, much like the clergyman's weekly sermon or religious school curriculum.  Under the radar to outsiders, even many insiders.  My journey across five congregations in a single week brought a blend of what makes each unique, but also what creates common ground and what remains hidden to the intermittent observer.  Some seem more insular, others more insistent that their sanctuary doors swing outward, figuratively if not literally.  Some value left-brain didactic learning, others more focused on right-brain aesthetics.  They differ a bit in the spaces allotted to gathering, whether size of sanctuaries or public spaces.  In order for any to function, they each require small dedicated groups to allow dedication to priorities and critical masses to execute and participate.

As I visit four others plus my own, my mind gravitates to the familiar.  My synagogue does a few things very well.  The places I visited each have their own strengths, some of which we could tap into to enhance the things we offer.  There is also an inertia, most visible among the most familiar, as in mine.  An Elsewhere performing better is not always envisioned as something to seriously consider.  The unfamiliar, even when an upgrade, threatens something or some people's dominant influence.  I saw elements of imagination, particularly from the distinguished Jewish visiting scholar.  I encountered tenacity in preserving core practices, perhaps lamenting decline, but accepting it as the cost of traditions that cannot be diminished.  There are places for scholars of national stature, elegant worship campuses, sophisticated music, and external outreach to reinforce a mission of kindness.  These all exist in the places I visited, but not all in each place.  Design my ideal synagogue with a pencil on a yellow pad?  As much as I might want to include pieces of what I experienced, that's not the best option.  Adam Smith of Wealth of Nations had a better idea.  Accept the diversity.  Contribute what your place of worship does best, then share those things with everyone else for mutual benefit.  That best captures my week at different congregations.

Who Can Help?

In 1999 a pharmaceutical company invited me to a conference in sunny Miami Beach at a hotel that I could not afford to stay at to help them assess a product that I prescribed with some frequency but had come under regulatory scrutiny.  They gave me an honorarium in addition to hospitality and transportation.  I assigned the money to an acquaintance who runs a charitable organization.  He responded with a note of thanks but included something he had written for publication in the near future.  With Passover approaching, he composed Danny's Four Questions.

1. What do I like to do?
2. What am I good at?
3. Who can help?
4. Why not?

I revisited this 25 years later when I attended a reception for a charitable institution.  The host was a synagogue in my county where I had not been in at least a decade.  The drive, just after prime commuting time, went well.  Since that time, their Rabbi who I knew had retired and passed on, a few successors came and went, including one that generated some discord.  This year they settled on a very worthy man who I knew well, a Rabbi of admirable accomplishment and ability.  I had been meaning to attend a service there, but this charitable event arose first.

Their synagogue sits in a sparsely built area, apparently zoned for places of worship, as I rode past some churches nearby.  After parking my car and walking up steps into an impressive entryway, I took my event ID badge, hung my winter coat, and wandered around in this large public space.  Like many suburban synagogues, they have a sanctuary.  I estimated 200 pewed seats, eight rows with sixteen cushioned seats per row.  At my last visit, I remember a raftered ceiling, which has since been revised.  A movable partition connects the sanctuary with its fixed seating to an open multifunctional space.  No doubt, on high holidays or bar mitzvahs or VIP funerals, some movable seating will get set in that area.  For this evening, a dairy buffet table had been placed in the center, beverages in a far corner, and round tables with about eight chairs each surrounding the central food placement.

My interest, though, had me wandering their oversized foyer.  A Holocaust Torah set to Mincha Yom Kippur's reading appeared in a glass case adjacent to the sanctuary entrance.  At the short wall connecting the doors to the worship area on the right and the all-purpose area to the left, the congregation had placed a table with neat stacks of papers filling most of its surface.  People could get this year's Jewish calendar with the congregation's name printed on the bottom.  What attracted my attention, though, were two invitations, both very different from how my synagogue solicits engagement from its members.  One stack towards the left of the table's surface contained vignettes of  five families their outreach committee thought the congregants might be able to help during the winter holidays.  I assume they are Christian, but there are needy members of synagogues too.  For each household, the members were listed individually with suggested gifts the Temple might fulfill.  Clothing sizes provided for each individual, ages and clothing size for each child.  All mothers seemed to wear plus size clothing, which sells for a premium.  One was apparently pregnant.  They needed basic clothing, but maybe a candle or other pleasantry thrown in.  The children also needed clothing, but the gift lists included a few recreational items.  Christmas and Hanukkah largely coincided this calendar year.

When I make a donation for my mother's Yahrtzeit each winter, I divide my remembrance three ways. One third goes to the remnant of what was my childhood congregation.  While that shul has closed, the current version had the courtesy to import the names on the memorial plaques, including my mother's, to create smaller uniform brass memorials in their rather posh new sanctuary.  Another third goes to a memorial fund named after one of my mother's friends, which supplies Kosher meals to the observant needy of my childhood county.  And the final third, supplied by check with a note of appreciation, goes to a project run by one of my high school friends who belongs to that congregation.  She collects toiletries for the homeless on behalf of the congregation.  No doubt people donate shampoos from hotels or maybe trial size cosmetics.  I provide my friend money to pursue her project in the best way.

My congregation does not excel in ministry to the poor, though we do not ignore it.  Three days a year we supply food to a soup kitchen and employ our congregants in its supply and preparation.  I'm sure the people who eat there appreciate the security of a daily lunch.  But it's less personal than holiday gifts customized to individuals, adapted to their unique needs.

The other paper, a single sheet printed front and back, lay in a short stack front and center on the table's surface. It contained a form.  People come to the congregation with skills obtained from other parts of their lives.  People enter the synagogue anticipating new connections with people they do not already know who can engage them, including creation of new talents or enhancement from novice to proficient.

The Congregation divided their personal engagement or contribute abilities form into six categories that their President, Board, Committee Chairs, and Rabbi might tap.  If only they had a database of who had what skill, now easily retrievable in our digital age.  They would like to know about:

1. Business Skills
2. Creative Arts & Technical Skills
3. Religious Proficiency
4. Educational Experience
5. Social Engagement Ability
6. Anything Else 

They have people among them who have managed small businesses or done public relations.  People might be members of the IBEW, work as decorators, or act in regional theater.  Every synagogue needs people to lead services and sometimes give a sermon.  Hebrew Schools need not only teachers but sometimes aides. Babysitters enable parents to attend events that they might otherwise have to skip.  Congregations need people proficient in the kitchen and to interface with organizations external to the synagogue.  These people float around, though not always visibly.  Identifying and engaging them apparently has high value to that synagogue.

Within the form, people are asked to estimate their proficiency.  As Danny's Four Questions hint, what you like to do is not always the same as what you are good at.  The Temple makes that distinction.  People can be Expert, Proficient, or Novices.  They can also be Enthusiastic irrespective of real ability.  Sometimes gung ho fills the need, but some projects are better performed deferring the Walter Mitty's to people of training and experience.

One of the joys of wandering through entryways, whether the synagogues, JCCs, schools, or libraries, the organizations set out on their tables what seems most important to them.  My message as a visitor that evening is that this place takes Engaging more seriously than my synagogue, despite having Engaging on its letterhead banner.  Our method is a few key individuals filling their inner circles by people they know about and won't give pushback.  It is unlikely that any Committee Chair in recent years ever solicited talent from somebody they heard about but did not know, though maybe they have an informal grapevine.  It's a method that gets you by but never advances untapped potential.  You just have to be acceptable to a Dominant Influencer or two.  It is probably more expedient than inviting talent or maintaining a database to call upon people who already possess skill or want to advance what they already have.  And it has become our core culture, one that creates stability at a price.

 

This congregation's showcasing what they do internally to draw in the less engaged or find the people who lurk unrecognized made a very favorable impression.  So did their listing of five families and the individuals within each household, intending to enhance them in some way for the Winter Holidays. I exited this synagogue, where I had not been in decades, knowing that their new Rabbi, who I have known for decades, will continue to make them what they aspire to become.  Engaging and Embracing.

My Food Is Your Food

Well, maybe not.  One of our regional heroes is an obscure Franciscan monk in the modern lineage of St. Francis of Assisi.  The current Pope adopted his name, though like all Popes he lives in splendor.  Our regional Brother does not.  He wears a hooded brown gown.  He lives simply.  But for more than forty years he has created, headed, and expanded an agency that centralizes our reach to the city's poor.  His agency provides a small amount of child care and default housing, but its central mission has been to offer meals.  For 2022, they served more than 100,000 meals.  I had the pleasure of meeting this friar many years ago when a departing medical executive opted to have his farewell reception at the agency's dining hall.  My children's Bnai Mitzvah generated sumptuous leftovers, which I transported there the following Monday.  For the Brother to accomplish this, he needs generous partners.  No group has adopted mandatory sharing of our prosperity than our Jewish community.  As community groups are solicited to take their turns providing meals, my synagogue has three sessions scheduled in the late fall every year for decades.

While this initiative should generate overflowing support from dozens of members, it doesn't seem to.  Instead, it reinforces our congregational culture, consisting of a series of fiefdoms or cliques run by and content with its few dedicated participants.  If we have good, we need not seek more than good, that view illustrates.  We can get the food cooked and served with the people we have.  They announce from the sanctuary and newsletters a few sabbaths in advance that they could use some baked goods.  I make a contribution, Kosher and in my oven, for two of the sessions, but have never been invited to join the other ladies in the home kitchen of the chairman.  

Maybe the Brother would not want me there any more than the event chair or perhaps even our Rabbi and Rebbetzin would.  There are cultural divides, perhaps even theological ones.  When I host an event at my home, kitchen experience displayed to the max most times, my kitchen output is always plentiful and elegant.  Take as much as you want.  Since we have two Challahs for Shabbos, the guest takes one home. Understandably, the friar feels this approach detrimental.  His dining center is a place of default, not celebration.  The goal for him is part rescue of an immediate situation but also a look to a future where his current consumers can become prosperous donors, able to create, enjoy, and share their own abundance.  My food is your food, eat what you like that prevails in my dining room, does not always serve people dependent on others in the best way.  The friar limits portions.  He looks at his project as a means of temporary subsistence.  While friendships and camaraderie among regular patrons likely develop, he stops short of full satiety, fearing dependence at the expense of personal growth.

While my synagogue and I each place a high value on Kosher, that same stringency is not required for the non-Jewish residents of our city who depend on the dining center for their daily, or even periodic, lunch.  And we are told that congregational members contributing food to feed these people do not need to maintain Kosher in any way.  Much of the food is prepared in the chairwoman's kitchen.  I never inquired about its kashrut.  The food is acceptable to the recipients who need it.  Yet when I contribute, the food meets the standards of my Kosher kitchen.  Should I be willing to serve a hungry person food that I would not eat myself?  Probably not as food.  Were I to give a financial contribution, there would be no restrictions on what the recipient might opt to purchase.  As a practical matter, the mission of the assigned sessions is to provide nutrition on the terms of the recipient.  It would probably not be good congregational policy to restrict baked goods donations to those made in Kosher ovens, or even with Kosher ingredients.  My food is your food, with strings attached.  Your food is not necessarily my food.  Sometimes I am the caterer, maybe a server.  Not the diner.

Our tradition has a tale of some Smart Alec asking the sage Hillel why Hashem permitted poverty when an omnipotent God could have provided adequately for everyone.  Hillel responded that God did that so people could rise to the occasion by sharing part of their larger portion.  So that is what we do as a synagogue and I do as a peripheral volunteer for that project.  Judaism seems to prefer middles.  I bake something Kosher, varying the output.  It is always created at my peak ability.  Always something that would be a little pricey for people at economic fringes to purchase from a bakery.  Always something that I've had before, both from my kitchen and high end commercially, that I especially regarded as a treat. So I share some food, restrained by the Brother's judgment on keeping his project one of nutritional default.  But in absentia and with anonymity, I also share a piece of me.  Imagination of what to offer.  Experience as a limited foodie.  The Brother cannot restrict that.

Congregational Survey

Filling it out took more than Survey Monkey's estimated times.  A synagogue where my wife maintains a significant attachment and where I accompany her infrequently opted for a self-assessment as their new Rabbi, a potential superstar of Conservative Judaism, gets his bearings.  This has been a very successful congregation, having only its third senior Rabbi since I was married in their sanctuary by the first of them.  Whenever I go there I see a lot of people around.  Whenever I witness a Purim spiel, the presentation far exceeds what my own congregation could produce, or even aspire to produce.  I think If I were designing my ideal synagogue from a Dilbert cubicle with a yellow pad and Bic crystal pen, I would come up with something along the lines of what they have.  Tradition maintained, gender equality for real, a spectrum of special events, regular study worthy of college graduates attending, knowledgeable congregants taking their turns on the bimah and in the seminar rooms, a kitchen, functioning committees, and a leadership that instinctively reviews their membership list to invite those most capable of helping to join in.

Undoubtedly, if they did all these things as well as what their officers set as their goals, they would not need the survey.  But what I was asked to assess reveals what they aspire to, whether or not fulfilled.  They want a diverse congregation, one that has people glad they came to their event or service.  They have generated a very large menu:  services for all religiously specified times, chances for people to partake of them in the form of individual honors or participation, a plethora of educational forums, opportunities to socialize with each other across demographic categories or within a multiplex of identifiable personas from LGBT to empty nesters.  Their congregation carries their banner outside their deeded property in the form of promoting Jewish initiatives of easily recognizable categories with partner agencies.  They need the facilities they have generated, communications within the organization and beyond, enough financial stability to invest in new initiatives, and a team of people to create a congregational vision that they can implement.

This place has certain advantages over my shul.  Size, wealth, property, diversity.  But they also have a mindset advantage.  They consider what excellence entails and what might be possible.  As we degenerated to a handful of Influencers, some of whom I'd not put on my Admirable A-List, they understand the benefits of their cast of thousands.  They want to have people partake of their programming but they seem to also invite more talent to create that programming.

One of the bestsellers of my formative years, a book that I read for the purpose of assembling a suitable early career wardrobe, was John Molloy's Dress for Success.  While I learned about colors, patterns, and fit, he had other guidance that was transportable to other settings.  When I could not afford top-notch, how do I get the best that my realistic resources could attain?  He suggested looking at the best then, "shopping down."  For a house, go to open houses of mansions and see which parts of their offerings are best to duplicate.  For decor, I visit historic mansions, see what people do with their space when money is no object, then assess what might be possible for me.  When I need my next car, look at the luxury vehicles, then purchase my sedan with the features that are best for me.

I could approach my congregation the same way.  It's a place of waning appeal, much like the many parallel Christian congregations that once had a hundred worshipers a week, now only twenty, and older ones at that.  It's a megatrend.  Yet as the survey of the successful congregation striving to be even more successful indicates, there are still some why not's of what might be possible.  What might it take to have better outreach into the larger community, to invite people who never thought they would be passively invited onto committees, to have committees or other activities with names but no people start having people, to become the go-to congregation with experts in Anti-Semitism or Israel advocacy?  We may have to schect some Sacred Cows to do this, retire a few Influencers who won't look outward or at least create more accountability.  Probably very little reason we cannot have carpools to bring members of limited mobility to our activities.  And we could budget beyond our subsistence, paying rent and salaries from our never to be replenished profits of our building sale, to targeted purchasing of the things that make us a more inviting place.  The larger congregation has more resources.  They also seem to have more mindset, more determination. And they look at their people as potential creators, not only as consumers.  That's the difference.

Nursing Animosities

My personal friends are few, though invariably interesting.  A few highly accomplished, a few quirky, a few outspoken.  All stand for something.  Some have had big crashes, much bigger than my own professional or social fluctuations.  All provide me something stimulating to talk about when I am with them.  We'll leave the perfunctory Good Shabbos, Nice Tie for the Torah processional.  My friends discuss medicine, Judaism and its culture, the vagaries of our politics.  And there's our families, pretty much all turned out well.

In face meetings are few.  Synagogue has become a place where I am mostly cordial to everyone, candid with a few, social with almost none.  My closest friend, however, is of synagogue origin, almost parallel mindset as put off by mistreatment of people, more common in that setting than any presiding Rabbi would admit.  We like to move the furniture around, ask what if, and when offered a title of responsibility sometimes try to do what we imagined might be possible but may not.  As a consequence, we get some opposition, his more vociferous than mine as his ventures can generate some negative transference reactions and negative consequences.  There is an upside and a downside to boldness.  He found himself the one in isolation to the governance, basically evicted from it, soon departing.  He had a business that went on hard times as well due to some malfeasance from above.  The two events left him suspicious of authority.  We share a disappointment with our synagogues, but while he departed, I remain, sit quietly, express myself without much suppression from my higher CNS centers though politely, and on Saturday mornings more often occupy space or add to the male minyan count than benefit a lot from my personal presence.  His expression was absence from synagogue but all in on our local Kosher agency that provides Kosher products to our region.  As a result, when I see him in the last couple of years, it is almost always attending to some activities in the Kosher departments that our Shop-Rite has provided.  And as is our custom, our chats are pretty direct.

He found a friend in the now departing Rabbi, the director of the Kosher agency, and a devoted friend to have.  I liked the Rabbi personally as well, but saw his role as advancing our congregation, my Jewish commitments, and my Jewish mind, none of which really happened.  I keep a more stringent Kosher than ever, acknowledge and restrict activities for Sabbath and yontif, but find my Jewish presence more a personal one than as part of a kehillah.  Our Rabbi, his friend though more of a business deal for me, announced his departure, a nominal promotion to a larger more stable congregation in a community with a Jewish majority.  I asked my friend who the next supervisor of Kashrut would be.  He indicated that the Rabbi would continue as the supervisor, at least for the next few months.  Then the vitriol started

My friend has his bogeyman, the congregational President who eliminated him as a toxic VP who generated too many congregational complaints.  If this individual dispatched my friend, he must have worked behind the scenes to make the synagogue a toxic work environment for the Rabbi.  Since I really only associated the Rabbi as a hired professional, not as a friend, I did not really pick up on any directed toxic work environment.  He had reasons to do job hunting as the predicted longevity of our congregation would not take him to retirement age, but did not pick up on board relations as being less than professional and supportive.  As my friend related, there were clues, a closing contract with a lot more specific provisions than prior contracts that had him vigorously represented by somebody Archie Bunker would identify as a Sharp Jew Lawyer.  I did not know the sermons had to be submitted in advance for editing.  That may be why they have gotten more meaningful the past couple of years, but my friend saw it as an unwelcome assault on professional autonomy.  While I did not know about this, English comp would definitely benefit from having to go through an editor first.  

But the former congregational VP who done my friend wrong now has an enemy's imprint, one probably not deserved.  Yes, anybody looking at our synagogue with detachment would identify obvious elements of leadership failure, excessive comfort zones, and resetting the standard as mediocrity.  That is a lot different from the more nefarious Jewish canards of a few control freaks assembling together to consolidate and exert power to exploit the vulnerable.  Probably not the reality, or at least not my reality.  Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits identified people whose focus was either exacting revenge on enemies or shielding themselves with an impenetrable barrier.  Either way, the enemy always seems to control what happens, even when he really doesn't.

 

Minyan for Friendship

As much as my synagogue experience leaves me seeking more fulfilling experiences, there are a few valid reasons for restraint on absolute avoidance.  While the intersection of Hebrew School and Rabbinical Junior College is where the Rabbi and lay leadership seem most comfortable, a more stimulating, if not more interactive version of Judaism hovers in cyberspace for my taking.  And I take some of it.  Worship doesn't attract me.  Some of the cultural norms do.  Most importantly, though, is support of friendships.  Not exactly the people I share meals with, not frequently people I share ideas with, either.  But people who have made commitments to their family for which I can help create the minyan they need.  The Gabbaim probably have their invitations rejected more than I realize.  Decent people.  I'll default to helping them out unless I have a specific reason not to.  The synagogue has not been very inviting a place for me but it is for them.  A few hours allotted for their benefit should not be withheld.

An Anti-Nazir

We have always had people who want to be super frum, even if only for a limited time.  No wine.  No volunteering for the Chevre Kadisha.  Hairdo in the style of Jesus Christ Superstar.  And a Chatat, or sin-offering, at the end of the specified term of deprivation.

For a lot of reasons my synagogue composite has taken its toll on me.  Decided to become an anti-Nazir for a bit.  If the Gabbaim ask me to do something for which I have the skill, that stays.  Otherwise, I put myself in Cherem.  Not planning to change my diet, add to my prudent alcohol intake, or visit the barber more than I already do.  I am planning to protect my space and express thoughts ranging from the relentless pursuit of mediocrity and irritation when I sit at the intersection of Hebrew School and Rabbinical Junior College.  An unhappy consumer who's been denied the invitation of being more than a consumer, or even a creative mind who thrives juggling ideas.  The anti-Nazir.

Staying Cheerful

My New Year's initiative began in good faith but collapsed about a third of the way through the calendar year's first Shabbat shacharit when, for failure to acquire a minyan, various fillers were imposed.  The rabbi being away, he gave the President a Dvar Torah from somebody else to read to us.  Probably a Never Event in its own right.  And one of dubious quality that got plenty of mental comments.  Then a rather academic drush from the Cantor to fill space.  From a chapter written by a friend.  Great source for a seminar in an aspect of prayer, wretched having it read to us for as long as it took.  I wanted to leave.  I did leave, to stroll to my car and get an update on my son who just tested positive for Covid with annoying but not life-threatening symptoms.  Then back for the rest.  Little banter.  Maybe Judaism is a series of time boxes that need to be filled, whether worthwhile or not.  

How I respond to something put my way remains my ultimate autonomy.  I could have remained cheerful as intended.  I didn't.  Sometimes you need to take broken things to the local landfill.  My shabbos morning experience has been broken.  Too big an impediment to my personal cheerful mission.

Synagogue's New Home

My first shabbos morning in the new sanctuary, functioning as leader of Shacharit and one of the Torah readers, or I likely would have postponed my return a few weeks longer.  The room, far longer than wide, does not really hold a lot of people, perhaps leaving the impression of full attendance.  Comfortable movable chairs, attractive Ark and chanting table, decent acoustics and in the rear half walls covered in a cherry red with starkly contrasting white trim, though with more lemon yellow less awakening walls in the front half.  Commercial movable rugs seemed more for acoustics than aesthetics.

People mostly the same with the addition of one young couple.  Ritual proceedings very much the same.  Still I much prefer having space that is really ours.  We remain tenants of another congregation but not one with a parallel offering at the same time as ours.  This is better.  It felt more like ours.  I have now been restored to a consumer of worship.  That's not the same as being a contributor to the synagogue where my impression of blackball remains.

Arising Too Early

Challenging day yesterday, both physical impediments and some emotional strain with my synagogue as it reopens and perks along without me.  Do I want to return as they reopen?  Not yet.  Do I want to defect  someplace else?  Probably not, though not entirely off the table.  It's been an unfavorable experience of a few years in duration, the extent unmasked perhaps by the forced separation of Covid.  So dizziness, dyspnea, and rumination all converge with the hope that REM will sort them out.  It hasn't.

My two sleep trackers interpret two very different nights for me, but the iTouch wristwatch sleep monitor seems almost fiction while the smart phone app matches my own assessment pretty closely, though it really cannot identify REM.  Rare difficulty falling asleep, which I attribute to some rehashing displeasure with the shul.  Once asleep, the pattern remained of waking at about two sleep cycles, dozing off for another two.  I woke partially refreshed about an hour before my wrist alarm setting.  I got up, did dental care, did weekly weight measurement, went to kitchen and made coffee.

Ordinarily, I make an effort to stay in bed until the wrist vibration so that there would be a clear demarcation between sleep time and activity time, but this morning I just proceeded ahead.  FB Roulette landed at 36, an even day without FB which makes me optimistic about what might be accomplished providing I tolerate my time on the treadmill this morning a lot better than I tolerated my venture to the garden yesterday afternoon.  And the synagogue really needs to be set aside until its annual meeting in two days when I can decide whether to impose some abrasive candor. 

Virtual Shul

Like much of the world, medical care and food shopping have been deemed essential services but public worship has been set aside.  The institutions that sponsor this have not disappeared, and there have been some attempts at surrogates.  An old friend serves as a senior pastor at his Protestant Church in Massachusetts where he streamed his last sermon.  I listened to it, coming away impressed by its thoughtfulness and its eloquence, not something my own congregation duplicates.  He posted the reality of his presentation which looked a lot more like a studio than an active place of worship, though it was definitely better to watch my friend deliver his sermon than it would have been to read it online.

My own synagogue's attempt at social distancing has been disappointing to me personally, though I've not polled anyone else.  I don't miss not being there and it is unlikely that I will restore an online presence.  The offerings seem Hebrew school like with an ulterior motive of linking it with a service or part of a service.  It probably salvages community but I find it more like being a spectator.  I'm really not part of anything that goes on there, a person of useful skill but not useful perspective.  Online just exaggerates that impression.  Instead, I prefer to be part of the action, at least for the two hours or so that I am present on shabbos morning.  Those personal greetings, whether handshake or surrogate, have a sincerity that screens do not.  If I am going to listen to Rabbis on video or audio, they are readily available with more profound insights than we receive from our weekly sermons.  I may as well watch those.  It is being on-site and interactive that makes all the difference. 

Eventually we will reassemble.

Virtual Judaism

Synagogues closed but the things synagogues do have not disappeared.  Mine has had some communications that reinforce my pre-coronavirus impression of mediocrity.  Didn't attend parsha and pizza before.  my convenient excuse was that I don't want to shlep there on Wednesday evenings but the real reason is that I am content reading the four learned commentators whose presentations I review without fail on Thursday.  Never been to our Rabbi's presentation.  Maybe I should have tried it out.  Looking at shabbos online, I never attended Kabbalat Shabbat there before and have no idea why they need a Hazzan from a hundred miles away to conduct it, or to do Havdalah the next day.  If I weren't a congregant, my thought would be doesn't the Rabbi have the capacity to do that without assistance?  Having been there, it's not a definite yes but perhaps should be.

I go because I like the people, not because I like the insights that are imparted from pulpit or bimah.  No people, no desire on my part to choose my own congregation over another.  I would skip shabbat periodically because I did not want to be there.  A minor remorse would appear but subside by Havdalah.  Unavailability has remedied the remorse.

As worship and learning no longer are dependent on site, reports are starting to emerge on attendance increasing, becoming more diverse, and including a fair number on non-Jews, mostly curious people but a few malicious types intent on disruption.  Eventually coronavirus restrictions will run their course.  Will the synagogues be more inviting or less.  At the moment mine registers as less.