Repackaging Community

On my Whiteboard, at my line of sight when I gaze left, is a column of core values listed on the right third in multiple colors.  It includes Kehillah, or Community, something that has challenged me, as my experiences when there have often prompted me to seek community someplace else.  I have my loyalties, though.  Banding together was probably an evolutionary residual to enhance the likelihood of personal and species survival, which it still might.  But as threats to defend become less, the willingness to trade off some personal autonomy wanes in proportion.  Defections from previously established communities have accelerated over about fifty years, quantitated in a compelling way by such works as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, now thirty years post-publication.  Moment Magazine recently examined the changing nature of community with comments from about twenty or so distinguished and accomplished minds.

https://momentmag.com/community/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=getresponse&utm_content=Why+Debates+Don%E2%80%99t+Solve+Problems&utm_campaign=Moment+Minute

Many of the swamis, as agency heads, focused upon and promoted their agencies.  Others took a more abstract approach to communities, including a co-author with Professor Putnam of a recently released book that offers contemporary solutions to the challenges that Bowling Alone exposed. Affiliations exist for the evolutionary purpose they always have, attaining security or compete amid perceived scarcity beyond what individuals could do for themselves. The process of assembly seems to me ethically neutral  though the social results are not, nor are the affiliations entirely voluntary.  Military drafts existed in the USA and still do elsewhere.  Most of us have a nationality or a religion into which we were born and for which some type of permanent imprint was offered.  Groups can be small like nuclear families or large like a national political party.  Most people seem to find more meaning, though, from being with identifiable people who can be recognized though the senses of appearance, voice, handshake.  Moreover, the second half of the twentieth century with its mobility and communication enhancements have redefined groups.  Geographic and employment mobility, less permanence to marriage, our fickle nature as consumers, transience of our ideologies, and the option of electronic friends whose interest overlap ours but we will never meet personally have all redefined our voluntary affiliations.

Of the various comments, the theme that captured my attention most categorized allegiance to a group either as a consumer of what that organization offers or as a contributor to the offerings.  As we recover from Covid-19 restrictions and my synagogue plans to reopen, I'm not ready to return.  They are not evil people, they just excluded me from development of anything meaningful.  Instead, the weekly email announcement comes as a menu of activities for me to select from their buffet.  I feel as a pure consumer, which gives me about as much loyalty as I have to which loaf of bread I prefer.  At my doctor's she needs to be in charge, but she cannot function professionally if I fail to provide the information she needs and volunteer myself for exam and lab work.  It's a partnership, though of necessity not an equal one.  She has my interest paramount but needs me to provide the information she needs to function on my behalf.  The shul has me more as an interchangeable customer, part of an attendance figure if they care to take attendance at all.

At the other extreme has been my favorable experience with the Delaware Community Foundation, a community resource that distributes funds for current benefit.  Ironically, I latched on when I attended a public presentation by Professor Putnam himself a few years ago.  After the speech, they solicited volunteers at tables in the foyer.  I thought it would be interesting to review scholarship applications of high schoolers.  They seemed appreciative of my interest, invited me aboard, and this spring I completed my third year of application review.  I take nothing in return other than a parking voucher.  My purpose for being there is entirely contributory.  The psychic dollars of what I do there far exceed anything I could possibly derive as a passive attendee of any event from the synagogue buffet, worship included.  People know when they do something important and they know when they are more convenient or inconvenient in lieu of important.  Not to mention the Kavod that comes with being invited to do something.

From a Jewish perspective, which is what the Moment Magazine forum focused upon, I had an interesting encounter with a venerable agency that does important work well.  They have an Executive Director of world prominence whose work I greatly admire.  Not being a great Twitter enthusiast, but finding it selectively useful, I put his comments as my premier Go To tweet, as they generally come by in the morning.  He generated a few comments, occasionally mine, never the hundreds that a famous author or entertainer or elected official would get.  Then one day I found the response option blocked.  Well, not really blocked but blocked to me and any other peasant he thought too much of a Nobody to be worthy of expressing a polite, though sometimes challenging remark.  He was very effective.  His feedback went down to zero.  I Unfollowed him, but opted to follow some of his younger subordinates who would often retweet the boss's message without the feedback exclusion.  But I very much resented being excluded that way.  I was no longer a contributor, other than financial, but a consumer of what he had to express on behalf of his agency.  He must have gotten some feedback similar to my thoughts, since when reconsidering a couple of weeks later, the restriction on having to be a Somebody to express a thought to his agency on his behalf had been lifted.

At present I am nearing the end of a respite from Facebook and Twitter.  I thought they would be communities, particularly FB where I knew all the Friends personally, nearly all from my high school, but over about ten years of subscription, people either established themselves as sloganeers, got fed up, perhaps resented the many successes that some of us have had.  High School comprised real people. While my close group was smaller than many, I knew everyone else well enough to carry an impression from forty years back.  Some reinforced what I thought, some enhanced my impression, some detracted, but a virtual community, even with a fundamentally fond common link, falls short of the real thing.  On Twitter I don't know the people.  Mostly I find them interesting but the exchanges of ideas have been minimal, mostly perfunctory.  I doubt if I will return there in any meaningful way.  The people on my FB list really were part of a viable community, some valuing me at the time, all at least tolerating me.  I always had my own niche, never a pure consumer.  And even on FB now, it's always an exchange of ideas, valued greetings for notable events, admiration for their achievements with no resentment on my part, and a little pleasant banter or electronic small talk.  It's community repackaged in a decent though far from ideal way.  I'll be back if I can manage my own presence more wisely.

Languishing Kehillah

Sid Schwarz in his Jewish Megatrends included a tetrad of aspirations for sustaining communal Judaism.  He highlighted Chochma or Wisdom, Tzedek or Righteousness, Kehillah or Community, and Kedusha or Holiness as the guide to success.  We've not done very well these past ten years.  As we share space with another congregation, a quick walk-around in the shared space shows that we've neglected kehillah more than the other elements.  It's not that we don't have it.  At a sponsored talk by the other congregation, one by a senior member of the national Jewish intelligensia, it was our members who were over-represented in attendance.  With the right occasion, we can fill a chapel on shabbos.  With no occasion other than shabbos we falter from where we once were. You can learn a lot from wandering around.  In our new digs, we are greeted by a screen that announces events.  For good or maybe not, their members wear name tags.  Identifying every single member as a unique individual with his own identity and talents enables Kehillah.  We make a big mistake by tracking the number of individual membership dues units as a surrogate for the real people. 

They now have informal groups, guys who go out for a beer on a specified day or discussions of a book or ongoing communal mitzvah projects.  I do not know the last time we have served a local soup kitchen or partnered with a church.   We have events, which is OK but they have a formality to them when what might be better is sponteneity.

I think we developed A-lists and B-lists, something that has evolved since my initial arrival.  We do not seem to develop expertise or anything approaching mentorship.  People come to learn Hebrew but they never graduate into our mainstream worship as its end point.  The Pareto Principle where 20% of the people accomplish 80% of the output is probably pretty universal.  20% of the people getting 80% of the participatory invitations is probably not what Vilfredo Pareto actually observed.   We have half-couples, one member of prominence, another identifiable but more of an appendage to the participatory partner.  Very little seems to be done to reach out to the person in the shadows.

As our landlord's kehillah prospers, ours falls further behind.  One of the roles of Rabbi is probably to be a talent scout.  One of the roles of President is probably to appoint a cruise director to dunk everyone into the pool and make sure that they have a good time.

I don't think I'm really having a good time.

Kehillah

Ran into a synagogue acquaintance at Shop-Rite this weekend, wanted to pose a question to him but we ran in different directions in our quests for nutrition and bargains so  it did not materialize.  I thought about telephoning my question to him later in the week, looked up his phone number and still might, but decided to save it until I see him on shabbos morning at Chabad, which will probably occur soon.  This fellow does one critically important project for AKSE, almost entirely on his own, the relatively thankless job of arranging our High Holy Day proceedings, contacting large numbers of men to honor with Ark openings and making sure the Rabbi has an accurate list to announce from the Bimah.  He does this exceptionally well and with an attention to detail that eludes most of the AKSE participants.  During the year he will take his turn as haftarah chanter, maybe two or three times, and show up a handful of shabbatot beyond that, but for the most part he can be found at Chabad near his home on shabbos morning.  At the moment I can only speculate why.  Similar reaction to the experience of sitting in our sanctuary on Saturday morning?  Being more absorbed into the Chabad community?  Having meaningful things to do at Chabad that occur more than once a year?  Just have to ask him.

In anticipation of his soon to be released series of essays on Continuing Education for Rabbis, Rabbi Hayim Herring has presented a series of You Tube interviews on the subject.  One explores the difference between broadcast and social media.  For a broadcast, you partake of what you are given but you are on your own to accept, reject or pursue what is given to you.  Social media is more interactive, more personalized, as is blogging.  My disappointing shabbos morning experience can be traced back about three years through my blog.  In one respect it is what it is, a presentation to me of shabbos, take it or leave it.  That's not very hard to deal with.  I find it much more irritating to try to express what I encounter, its negative consequences which diminish community, only to have multiple layers of baalebatim never even acknowledge the comments.  That is no more community than a bunch of fans watching the home team as an aggregate of individuals at a stadium, at least until they express themselves by booing as a group.  Yes, shabbos morning at AKSE is less than it once was, it is less than it once was for cause, and those doing something else instead, myself among them, could be a kehillah in its own right if we had a way to interact other than disappearing into the woodwork as individuals.

There is also the illusion of community.  Shabbos dinner and kiddush do not make a kehillah unless discourse occurs there.  Being responsible for each other, being sensitive to each other, enabling talent to emerge without suppression, that creates community.  By that definition, which I think is accurate, the grand American community may be in decline in parallel with AKSE's shabbos morning.

So what are my kehillot at the moment?  Primarily work and Sermo.  I'm a contributor to both.  People tolerate my mind, people at both do not hold a grudge when that mind becomes an irritant.  Nobody at work has invited me to dinner or any other social activity outside of work.  I've only met a handful of the grand collection of fellow physicians on Sermo.  Yet both are forms of pageantry that welcome whoever comes by, irrespective of what they think.  Nobody gets marginalized at either.  There are some basic rules of Derech Eretz, but not a lot of them, and nobody can say they are ignored because of what they think.  That's a functional kehillah, one that I do not think the leadership of my congregation is really prepared to pursue.  The Rabbi probably might if he understood it better.  But for now, it seems the right circumstances to join my congregational amigo at Chabad for a while.

Visiting Temple Square

"Ben (the son of) Zoma said: Who is wise? He who learns from all people, as it is said: 'From all those who taught me I gained understanding' (Psalms 119:99). [Pirke Avot 4:1]

Time away often enables a new perspective.  For me, the summer escape brought me to the enclave of biologic and geologic nature that we call Yellowstone, productive farmland of Northern Utah and Southeastern Idaho where I encountered people who remained personable even while they reasoned like Republicans, and finally to the core of Mormonism.  Temple Square posted the religious tenets right out front, our Decalogue on the left, respect for rightful authority and individual opportunity in the middle and a declaration of faith on the right.  Nothing about being politically correct, nothing about avoiding intoxicants including my beloved coffee or craft brew while respecting my personal desire to enjoy them.  People visit Temple Square from all over the world, from missionaries on temporary assignment to tourists in Salt Lake City for a short while whose destination was really one of the National Parks. 

Temple Square exudes excellence.  There is chochma, wisdom imparted by the founders to be offered to believers and non-believers alike.  There is tzedek, an obligation to bring justice to the world with respect for law and to not trample the freedom of others.  There is kehillah, with Temple Square serving as a gathering place for young and old.  Young missionaries wore name tags with flags of their countries of origin.  There were a lot of different flags but all shared a common dedication to promote Mormonism.  Even if geographically isolated or dispersed, they could count on being part of their religious community.  The combination of these evokes kadosha, or holiness.  Temple Square exists and its participants excel at what they do, be it creating extraordinary edifices, treating all comers to superb music, keeping the grounds and interiors immaculate and welcoming visitors unconditionally because the participants believe they contribute to divinely inspired projects.

These criteria of performance do not come from the Book of Mormon, however.  They derived from the aspirations for Judaism expressed by the editor of Jewish Megatrends.  I'm seeing the desire for chochma, tzedek, kehillah and kadosha in my Jewish world but I'm also not seeing the quest for excellence or consistency in its pursuit they way I experienced it at Mormon headquarters.  While visiting their main chapel, I asked the tour guide who got to sit in the ten seats of honor on their bimah, facing the congregation.  The young missionaries did not really know.  No doubt in their world they were esteemed elders.  Seen through my American Jewish lenses, they were machers.  My congregation does not have respected ambassadors.  We have Rabbis with agendas, some with real accomplishments, more with little more than a certified seminary pedigree.  They have young people valued for their energy and dedication.  In my Jewish world obedience will trump talent every time starting with report card grades from pre-Bar Mitzvah Hebrew school where the docile kids find their way to the honor roll while the challenging ones get reported for their behavior instead of their intellect.  While I am not much of an enthusiast of cathedrals, there is much to be said about worshipping in an atmosphere of physical beauty, something recommended by none other than Maimonides and expressed in Torah where people volunteered to beautify a Mishkan and in Tanach where people were conscripted to create a Temple.  We have slouched to a building where some of the insects on the windowsills should be sent to a museum for carbon dating to see how long they have been lying there.

Yes we have our Federations and our elders who give their time and money.  But we also have a very large constituency that are more convenient or inconvenient to those self-directed elders, never quite inherently valuable unconditionally.  People can sense that and walk away as they have with secular Judaism for some time in the same era that Mormons seems to retain people who continue express enthusiasm for their affiliation.

Our shul recently generated a nice sum from a fundraiser.  It would not be unreasonable to take some of that and send the Rabbi, President, and Building VP to Salt Lake City for a few days to give them a better sense of what excellence and enthusiastic participation can be achieved with the right perspective.

Disconnected

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

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

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

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

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