We'll Go There for the Holy Days

Once a year my wife and I have our entry into Transdenominationalism.  For the past twenty-five years a dedicated cadre of observant Conservative Jews, still members of their USCJ congregations, depart from what can be an irritating experience, conducting something akin to what I aspire to, almost a College Hillel for the Alumni of the College Hillels at Rosh Hashana.  No Rabbis.  No new clothing from the fancy outlets.  No reserved pew seating.  Nobody checking tickets.  They have an honor system to pay $18 to cover the cost of building and chair rental, along with a small kiddush.  Nobody asking for pledges.  No interruption of the service to honor the congregation's machers and raise money at the same time.  Aliyot and petichot and gabbaim assigned that morning with no expectation of a donation for the honor.  No chazzan or Symphonic Choir, though each volunteer baal t'filah has been outstanding.  Sermons also superior in content and analysis from what I have come to expect of our congregational Rabbis.  No kvetches about faulty air conditioning or having to park the car too far away.  And we got done with the service in its entirety at least a half hour before our home congregation did.  It's the shabbos experience transposed to the Holy Days when the realities of congregational experience often corrupt what the congregation should be aspiring to.  If only they knew about it and did not mind either the drive or the gender equality, AKSE would not be competitive on the days the Board depends upon most for people to have a favorable experience.

Much can be said about shopping down.  When I need a new cars or house or suit, I look first at the ones I cannot afford, noting their special features that are most important, some of which are preserved in the offerings more readily available to me.  Synagogue membership has become a big ticket item, one rather expendable if the only thing derived is a three day, four service appearance that can be had for $18 a person per year.  Unfortunately for some, that outstanding experience invites other outstanding experience, which means ponying up for the membership which at its best includes some means of molding the congregation.  People can observe the Holy Days for free at any Chabad but they cannot influence what Chabad has become.  Congregational members can impact on who the Rabbi is, what the Rabbi does, the social activities that go on through the year, the educational offerings, maybe even the finances.  Inability to do that, particularly in those Beth Sodom's that have kingmakers or macher swoops greatly devalues the cost of membership, as many a congregational leader now grapples with membership retention as the ultimate goal with membership participation as the element that cements retention.

So as RH transitions to YK, I return to AKSE as a Torah reading participant, a curious listener to hear what the Rabbi has to say about the Pew Research Report, his announced pre-Yizkor topic and perhaps even a minor league schmoozer at the buffet that follows shofar blowing.

Rosh Hashana Solicitations

Since I do not attend minyan on weekday mornings, I do not get to hear the Shofar to mark the approach of the Holy Days.  On shabbat morning twice a month, my current AKSE ration,  white adornments on the Aron and scrolls send their message.  But for those who do not show up at all, which is apparently much of the Conservative world and a fair fraction of the AKSE membership as well, the mailman brings a daily reminder of the season.  For the month of Elul I can expect a variety of requests for donations, some in exchange for calendars or greeting cards for the upcoming New Year, promoting a variety of global causes and many highly sectarian agendas.  I harvest the calendars, set aside the greeting cards, most of which have given way to e-cards and avoid relentless clutter by opening each envelope but making the recycling bin its next destination.

I suppose how I react to these endless solicitations notes characteristics of me that change a little on a long time trend but are resistant to the calendar driven transitions.  Many of these letters come from Haredi sources, promoting basically decent projects like relieving the effects of poverty in their community without pursuing things like employment that are more effective at reducing poverty itself.  There are requests to support their Yeshivot whose graduates admittedly have contributed to Jewish insight over time.  One organization gets a small gift each year, basically to support a retirement community for their men but for the most part I find myself sufficiently irritated by the underpinnings of what that same leadership does the rest of the year.  Their own Rav Dessler, whose lived in the first half of the last century and whose Michtav M'Eliyahu is still widely studied for its Torah insights, was fifty years ahead of candidate Romney in dividing the world into Givers and Takers.  I see my old school district which afforded me the opportunities that have had for my adult life being trampled by these people who do not use the public schools themselves by begrudge the education that the taxpayers gave me to the current students.  No, I will not support their yeshivot if that is the way they view entitlement to education and the investment required for it to succeed.  This summer we read about brave Israeli soldiers meeting an untimely end.  The security of the Haredi community there cannot come primarily with the blood of Russian immigrants.  Friends of the IDF gets a check from me.  Masorti gets a check from me.  Haredi solicitations go into the recycling bin with a hostile thought connecting my frontal lobe with my right hand as I toss it there.  You can learn what a person really thinks by inebriating him, irritating him and asking for money:  Koso, Kiso, Ka-aso.  Don't need any schnapps for this one.

Another genre of money requests come from international organizations, often with tribal undertones to resist anti-semitism of some type.  We've seen it emerge primarily in Europe but my friend's father's Kosher butcher shop in Philadelphia also fell victim to this.  Definitely something decent people want to try to reverse, but it's hard to purge what is actually in somebody's kishkes.  These various organizations do something very useful this season, however.  They take people whose Jewish identity is always there but largely dormant and offers them a brief opportunity to put themselves into the Giver class, no matter how transient.  After all, it is what is in their kishkes too.

A variant of this comes in the mail every Thursday when our community receives its weekly advertising from the local supermarkets.  One particular grocer dominates the Jewish shoppers in our community but which one varies from town to town.  Each supermarket ad has a half page or so of sales, or at least availability, of traditional fare that makes the Holy Days both festive and unique.  They sell grape juice and round challot with raisins and yahrtzeit candles and gefilte fish and honey.  Other than the challah being twisted, my household uses these products regularly, though jarred gefilte fish has become an expendable luxury for me.  But there are plenty of Pew Research expatriates who remain privately Jewish in their homes but have largely abandoned the institutions, other than this time of year.  And when they have finished their chicken soup and dipped the apple in honey, they will be asked to asked to press down the pledge tabs for an Israel Bond and donation to the congregation, not by daily junk mail but by a public Bimah request from a live person.

"To all things there is a season..." [Eccl 3:1]  Ironically, Kohelet neglected to include fundraising in his list.

Scheduling Shabbos

Since I elected to ration Saturday morning at shul to twice monthly, having been pretty much done in by the Aliyah Sound Bites and maybe the decline in physical comfort that comes with moving the weekly service from the main sanctuary to the homier chapel to make it look more crowded than it really is, sometimes I have to choose which two shabbatot.  It has been my custom to select the first two, modified for platelet donations which I usually do toward the beginning of a month or other special circumstances like a Bar Mitzvah which I assign to a shabbos off.  These are uncommon.  Thus my pattern has become two on, two or three off.  I'm thinking of changing that to first two on odd numbered months, last two on even numbered months making it effectively four on, four or five off.  Doubt anyone other than myself will know the difference or recognized my absence when not there for a full month.  Not a good season to experiment with this, as YK falls on a shabbos early in the month and October is usually a platelet donation month for me.  Reconsider as 2015 and its new projects approach.

Elul

Rosh Hashana approaches once again.  I have my assignment as YK Torah reader, do not yet have an invitation to open the Ark on YK, the only day I will be at AKSE.  It has become a minor fundraiser.  Two people who merit some form of real honor were named as High Holy Day honorees, a real fundraiser for AKSE.  For the first time in memory, whatever committee selects them opted for two men instead of the usual man and woman though I can think of a few women who the congregants would donate generously to honor.  Rabbi probably writing the drafts of his various messages.  Last year he spoke about a book that inspired him.  Not being there, I asked later which book.  He told me, I read a few reviews and decided to read other things instead.  I think we went to different colleges.

Despite last year's good intentions, I'm probably not very much different than I was as the self-examiner last year.  Cynicism must be in my kishkes, though undoubtedly re-inforced by actual encounters.  Each year I get tempered in some way, often by reading about what could be but isn't in the Jewish literature, this year by witnessing what the Mormons have done through their passion for excellence and seeing the gradient in our dedication to getting by.  Religious organizations probably have kishkes too.  If your core involves welcoming, you will be welcoming.  If your core offers the illusion of being welcoming while it is really the more exclusive USY clique that remains at the core, that will eventually be expressed inevitably in its various forms.  The introspection of Elul and beyond allows us to recognize that a little more readily and perhaps make some attempt at upgrade.

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.

Disbursing My Treasure

When I put myself of Federation's Do Not Call list fifteen years ago after some experiences that justified my becoming one of the Pew Research Center Study drop-outs, I did not pocket the donations but distributed them myself, first bi-monthly for a couple of years, then monthly until last year, and now quarterly, though monthly was better.  Quarterly allows me to spend too much time on my figurative High Horse from which I tease out relative worthiness and themes.  So last quarter I sent checks to support Israel's security and Jewish camping to the neglect of people in my community whose lives are currently a little more precarious than mine.  So this quarter it looks like the checks will go to forms of outreach, some religious, some social.  I think randomness of support, or really inclusivity of support, better reflects the concept of Tzedakah, so I think I will return to the previous format next month

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Suggestions to the President

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

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

So some real suggestions:

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

Giant sigh.