PM Minyan

Our shul has been the full service congregation for most of its existence.  Two minyanim daily except Sunday night, control of the Vaad HaKashrut for the state, full kryat HaTorah at each scheduled time.  We need people to do these things.  For the Vaad the Conservative congregation now has some representation but Chabad does not.  Our minyanim, though have become insecure.  On Wednesday and Friday shacharit we have a combined service with the USCJ affiliate with a hybrid liturgy that is mostly from the Conservative siddur.  As people retire, the 7AM starting time gets less realistic but I am told the quorum usually materializes. 

PM has been more problematic.  I went yesterday, just the Rabbi and me and two men observing shiva.  Attending three a month had been one of the twelve initiatives for this half year.  Since I do not want to go to the Rabbi's classes that follow on Wednesday and Thursday, I selected Monday and Tuesday.  Rabbi has Monday off so for all practical purposes there is no service.  Tuesday never gets more than half a minyan when I am there.  I asked the Rabbi if there is ever a PM minyan.  Sometimes if enough men attend the evening classes and sometimes for Shabbos afternoon.  That would mean kabbalat Shabbat is no more, which is why I observe Kaddish at the Reform congregation that starts later of Friday nights and secures ten Jewish men, or at least within my system of counting ten men wearing kippot in a sanctuary where they are optional.  And I get some wonderful music and a thoughtful sermon thrown in.

We are running out of people. 

Nobody Showed

Having just retired from my 40+ years as a physician, I thought it would be of benefit to my synagogue to help out with minyanim.  I chose to start with three afternoon minyanim a month.  While my male phenotype is most useful for shabbos mincha where Torah is read when a minyan materializes, I do not want to be there through Havdalah and fidget during the Rabbi's teaching session, with which I have never connected well.  It would be better to start with ordinary 5:30PM mincha/maariv, a no frills session of much shorter duration.  So I went at the announced time earlier this week, my first as a retiree.  Got there a few minutes early.  Rabbi was off that day, but there was no announcement that minyan had been cancelled.  Waited 15 minutes past the announced time.  No other cars arrived.  I left.

Making the Minyan

Our Rabbi has decided that the security of our two daily minyanim, which makes us unique in town, should be the litmus test of our viability.  We may be in the process of depleting shabbos morning, but Monday morning must go on.  At least there are priorities, if not necessarily the best ones.  The minyanim, of which only men count, assemble at 7AM and 5:30 PM most days but on Wednesday and Friday, we combine with the USCJ congregation nearby unless Torah is read to avoid conflicts over policies on women.  Similarly, on combined services at their shul, their Hazzan being female, their Rabbi conducts services.  I do not know how successful the minyanim have been, as I've only gone to one combined service for Tziyum Bechorim last spring, finding the hybrid liturgy a lot more Conservative adaptation than our traditional fully Hebrew proceedings.

As a service to our congregants, and perhaps a form of Meaningful Use from the computer, people can request a broadcast of when they need to observe yahrtzeit and an email will go out requesting men to make a special effort to attend.  Such a notice went out yesterday for a person who really should get my best effort, so being on vacation this week, I'll help out this evening.

Blank Canvas of Time

A new week.  Sorta waiting for my new job to start so technically between jobs and not all that inclined to do stuff in the office that I ought to be doing.  In some ways the week is like a blank canvas with essentially no fixed appointments.  I could go to minyan though it's not one of my current motivations.  I could contact old friends, which might be closer to my motivation or could be partly accomplished via going to minyan.  I could spend the week on my soapbox.  I could pursue neglected projects, mainly the things I wanted to write this year but didn't.  We'll find out on Sunday's review how I did in my first hint of what retirement might be like.

Maintaining Minyanim

This week's announcements at the conclusion of shabbat morning services included an invitation to play softball the next day and a reminder to the men in attendance that the minyan failed to materialize several times during the previous week.  On four occasions they got nine, which would make for a softball team which I think counts women, but not for a minyan which does not.  I could have gone yesterday morning but didn't, even though I am an Ovel.  I hardly ever miss Friday night at the Reform Beth Emeth and if not on call generally make it to shabbos morning for kaddish but I do not feel captured by the plea of the Rabbi and a few others for community.  On occasion, it is announced that a particular individual has yahrtzeit and a few men set their clocks to enable attendance.  But other than shabbat and Sunday mornings, the required quorum does not always materialize.

Ari Goldman's Living a Year of Kaddish   included several hundred pages on minyanim, largely struggling ones, despite his orthodox practice.  During my shiva last fall we got the ten at the two Chabad locations in Florida and at AKSE each morning but struggled with the evenings, requiring personal invitations.

In many ways the minyan has become a club with its regulars.  They see themselves as a predictable service to others who can take it or leave it, but never see a need to inconvenience the club members in any way to make it more attractive or secure.  There will be appeals for attendance as long as the required ten remains insecure.  Once there are ten regulars, as there were at AKSE not that many years ago before three of the daily attendees made Aliyah, the solicitation to have more people attend loses its urgency.  There is no longer a reason to expand the club or modify it so that it might be more attractive to more men.