Covid-19 changed a number of relationships. I do not see friends personally so FB may be my best forum for keeping contact with people that I know or once knew. OLLI disbanded and will be going remote. I like the classes but I like the interaction with other people between classes more. I will still register for the next online session. The Holy Days are approaching, but I've also had Pesach, Shavuot, and Tisha B'Av to say nothing of every shabbat without synagogue gathering. And I don't miss it. There is some divided opinion on how congregations will fare once communal worship and synagogue social activities resume. Online worship seems to have attracted people who either had nothing else to do, were curious voyeurs, or didn't like the bother of dressing and travel so never went to synagogue. They attend now. I haven't. It remains to be seen how many of those sampling will remain interested to become in-person participants later or how many are more like me who not having gone wonder why I ever attended regularly.
For me, my congregation has become very uninviting, in part because my observations strike me as an underperformer, and in part because they have not invited me to do any planning or anything else requiring thinking or analysis, effectively disengaging me. They've become more of a limited clique, with me not in it, assembling a trough, then inviting snouts to immerse in it. There are online options, including a Rabbi class that's been among one of his best. I get the sermons but when I commented and challenged one I got a polite thank you rather than a more erudite discussion in return. I no longer read them. When I agreed to pre-record the Yom Kippur Torah reading for them, they would not take out a scroll for me to read from while they ran the video camera. My response is really one of not liking the trappings amid inferior substance, much like I abhorred those Model Seders from Hebrew School decades ago. Disappointment and irritation circles that intersect.
I suspect the folks in charge are aware that non-engagement has some very negative consequences, especially when you need to ask people for large amounts of money. They may have an in-crowd but they don't have a well-heeled in-crowd. So the honchos embarked on a project that's been done successfully at least once before. Their Board of Governors divided up the congregational member list and assigned a member to call each household. I do not know if they were given a script or if the intent was to get feedback or to shake members down for donations or just to remind them of what the congregation offered. My shul still insists on looking at their membership as households rather than people within households, much to their detriment I think, so if somebody answers the phone, the task completion box gets a checkmark.
Our call, which never became my call, was assigned to the person I would have chosen to do it, a fellow of immense Jewish capacity and nimble mind. My wife answered the phone, conveyed the fulfillment of the call to me later, even though I was working in My Space at the time. I guess if I was blackballed from being a meaningful contributor over time I did not need to offer a momentary statement now either.
