No More Friday Nights

 

When I was observing Kaddish for my father about five years ago I started attending the local reform service on Friday nights with some regularity.  Much like my childhood USCJ congregation, they held services at 8PM, which conflicted with That Was the Week That Was z"l and later Wall Street Week z"l in an era where if you missed it there was not a second chance from rerun or VCR.  Even so, people came each week.  There was a traditional service and a little bit of pageant with a choir and an organ some of the evenings, a sermon and pleasant Oneg, often with a semi-formal discussion.  People of that era in that neighborhood at the fringes of suburban New York would commute by car all week, get home finally, have supper and unwind, either with their favorite shows or by welcoming shabbat in a well meaning frame of mind, if not exactly halachic.   Even so, shabbat morning was still  the centerpiece of the JCC of Spring Valley and most other USCJ affiliates where a very traditional experience would occur the following morning.

It seems over time, the Conservative Rabbi's acknowledged the secondary status of Friday evening and its competition with other respites from the long work week.  Many, including mine, did away with the late Friday night gathering, conducting a brief Kabbalat Shabbat at the seasonal time, sometimes with less than a minyan, with people ostensibly heading home to observe shabbat's entrance as family time though I suspect Washington Week and CNN really won out.  In my town, the Reform congregation was the last bastion of the 8PM shabbat welcome, ideal for Kaddish since it was the only place in town that could guarantee ten Jewish men for that service.

It turned out to be a pleasant place to be at the conclusion of my work week.  They had a liturgy that varies somewhat from week to week, musically excellent Hazzan and organist and the most insightful sermons in town which I still read when posted on the Web.  My year of Kaddish ended but a few times a year I would reserve an evening to be at the Reform congregation, even sometimes affording myself fish for shabbos dinner to enable more comprehensive sampling of the mostly milchig Oneg.

But this summer, the time moved from 8PM to 6:45PM.  While they can now have candle lighting from the Bimah prior to sundown instead of after shabbos has already commenced, the new time creates more of a burden for attendance.  A concluding time of about 8PM seems late for supper and those in attendance are less likely to schmooze at an Oneg if they have not yet had supper.  People who work nearby can probably eat and get there by the starting time.  From the appearance of those who come regularly, a large percentage are probably retired so may adapt to the earlier time easily, even prefer it, or maybe even lobby for it.  Yet that one uniqueness of that congregation, its later starting time for the people who benefit from it, may have disappeared from the community.

Projects for the Half Year

Six Months ago I changed my traditional planning categories to give a longer perspective, some things I'd like to complete, others open-ended projects that benefit from effort.  I completed three of twelve for the current half year and move onward.

1. Friends:  Contact an old friend each month
2. Family:  Dedicate special time each month for my wife
3. Financial:  Finally computerize my assets
4. Self:  Go on three day trips
5. Home: Declutter once and for all each room
6. Purchase: Cosmetic upgrades to the kitchen
7. New Frontiers: First draft of the book I'd like to write on Jewish institutional attrition
8. Travel: Drive to Florida
9. Long Term:  Engage in my post-retirement activities
10. Community:  Participate in two Jewish organization
11. Health:  Get my weight under 155 pounds
12. Mental:  Make my blog interactive

Will I actually do these?  As usual, some to completion, some not but worth the effort.

Keeping People Immersed

From time to time a published essay captured my attention along with my imagination of what might be but generally isn't.  This essay from Rabbi Alex Greenberg of Pittsburgh found its way to the USCJ site, interestingly in a section on developing congregational finances.  His remarks, My commentary.

Everyone wants to have a welcoming shul. Everyone thinks they have a welcoming shul. But, it's time for Beth El to no longer be a welcoming shul. It means nothing to be welcoming, if we are not engaging. Our goal, from now on, is to be more than welcoming. I want us to be known as an engaging shul.

Can't say I've ever been chased out.  I have sat through many a service wondering if my shabbos morning could have been utilized better.

    To “engage”: To attract and hold, to cause to participate, and to connect with. More members are not enough. Having a bunch of names on a piece of paper does not make a synagogue. We could have the largest synagogue in the nation; but, if we don't engage our members, then that's all they are - some letters on a piece of paper.

Our Executive Board doesn't even know who our members are.  They count how many credit cards they debit for dues.  While each household usually has only one checking account, they typically have multiple individuals with different needs.  One need only to scan the sanctuary of shabbos morning and count the half couples in attendance to figure that out.  Some things are a little harder to figure out, particularly one household member extended invitations for multiple elements of participation while another with the same checking account never gets invited personally for any activity.

    What is the ideal Conservative synagogue? Not the largest one, but rather the Conservative synagogue in which its members are willing, learning, and striving Jews. The perfect Conservative Jew is not perfect. The ideal Conservative Jew is always a work in progress. The ideal Conservative synagogue is filled with not Jews who are perfect, but rather filled with Jews who are willing, learning, and striving. It is not about the numbers, but rather about the people and how we engage them. Joining Beth El is not success, success is what happens next.

That probably applies to any organizational effort from workplace to political campaign to school to place of worship.

    We do not have an apathetic synagogue. We have a passionate synagogue, filled with passionate people. We are filled with willing, learning, and striving Jews. And that is our goal - not more members, but more passionate members. We have greeters at the doors, but do we have engagers in the seats? Every single member of Beth El must be an engager. Part of engaging in a Conservative shul is about outreach to our own membership. About 1/4 of our congregation has been members five years or less, 25% of our congregation is new. We have a responsibility to fulfill the needs of all congregants within the Conservative movement. The Conservative movement is not a special, secret club where you need a secret handshake to get in. It is a movement that respects all, the traditional, the observant, the liberal, the intermarried, and so on. Judaism is not a democracy, it is about pluralism, always has been, always will be. And, the Conservative movement is the place where pluralism is cultivated.

We do not seem to have a passionate membership at AKSE.  The Board's behavior to say the least has been more members.  Disciples of that medical cult book, The House of God whose motto was "We're Not the Best but the Most."  I think our baalebatim would give one of their relatively marginally functioning gonads to have a situation where a quarter of the people are new entrants but I doubt if they would look at that as a source of new talent.  More likely it would be a subsidy for those entrenched longer.

I would challenge the comments about the essence of the Conservative movement.  It only recently became pluralistic and to this day creates various litmus tests that stratify people based on Kashrut observance and intermarriage.

    We are a lay led congregation. We are engaged. But, how can we teach engagement to others? How can we instill it? Motivate? Invigorate? Engagement is accomplished through participation over performance. Engagement is having a congregation where everyone has a say, where we recognize that being a good Jew has nothing to do with how kosher you are or how well you keep Shabbat, but rather how well you treat your fellow human being.

The restrictions on office holding at USY differ from that suggestion that Conservative Judaism is a meritocracy.  And I must say, machers who swoop to override more general consensus within many a Conservative kehillah and at the intercongregational level do not seem to have their honored and disproportionate place at the table challenged because of what many would regard as misdeeds, many of them prime contributors to their movement's loss of adherents over a generation.  But as Speaker O'Neill observed, all politics is local and within a large collection of kehillot there will be some places like Rabbi Greenbaum describes of his and some Beth Sodom's in the mix as well.

Our shul, being independent of a formal movement, does not have that banner.  How well you treat people seems to matter less than how often you attend morning minyan, as a few key individuals can and do leverage that important but precarious niche to impede a more overriding need of the congregation to offer more to women, the one visible element of AKSE that has inhibited any realistic attraction to the younger families.  And they do it with the consent of the last two Rabbis.

If you look at the Nominating Committee slate, it has been recycled officers for the last three slates.  Who else may have been invited but turned the invitation down.  Doubt if anyone was.  And you cannot ignore performance.  Probably a mistake to regard Mediocrity as the Promised Land.

    Judaism is a religion of action over belief, of deed over creed. Words are cheap. We engage by being engaged. We walk the walk. We lead by example. We are one congregation, one community. We are a team. The question is not how do we get more members, but rather how do we get more members who care. How? By embracing our synagogue. If every single person in our shul is proud of being a member of our shul, then we will attract more caring members. All we need is a bunch of Jewish people who are happy where they are. (sounds easy) We must believe in ourselves. A synagogue only exists for its members, not the other way around. A synagogue cannot be engaging, only its membership can be. Beth El is no longer a welcoming synagogue. We are now an engaging synagogue. Watch out, because we're coming for you.

This is where the Rabbi needs to be at the forefront.  Beth El may be putting forth the effort to draw its passive members into its pageant.  AKSE does not seem to have a parallel initiative at the top of its agenda, at least in observable evidence.  They probably should and it can only happen if the Rabbi insists upon it as part of his tenure and pushes the structure among the baalebatim that enable its success.

Hillel Locked

Few Jewish organizations have commanded my loyalty as the St. Louis Hillel, where as a med student I would worship on Shabbos morning, sometimes walking three miles in each direction through Forest Park, study on Sunday afternoon, call schedule permitting, to be followed by a generous sandwich at their weekly Kosher deli night, which attracted the local community as well.  Their director, Rabbi James Diamond, z"l, became my Rav and we kept in touch after he relocated to Princeton.  My first donation with money given to me by the Boston Court system for testifying as an intern went there, as did many subsequent to that.

Trips to St. Louis have been few since returning east after graduation.  In 2007 I attended my alma mater's reunion which left me with a free Saturday.  I bought a day pass for the Metrolink Transit with the intent of starting with shabbos morning where I once attended regularly.  The train took me to the Skinker stop and I walked through the relatively uninhabited Washington University main campus to 6300 Forsyth only to find the building closed as the university had some sort of hiatus that October week.  With my son graduating from Washington University, I returned to the campus for Commencement.  After the proceedings concluded I elected to walk back to the Hillel building just a few blocks from the university Quadrangle, only to find it locked again, though this time with a few cars in the back lot.  I could have rung the bell to be let in, and may have had I been alone but with family less eager to relive my old time, we moved on.

Just a few days later I had visited the Mizzou campus where they also had a Hillel, a much smaller enterprise, part of a multipurpose building.  We just walked in, looked around, asked directions to the Six Columns and resumed our exploration of the campus.

As a college and medical student, the Hillels were open, welcoming places.  My college Hillel even voted to become a Miklat or refuge for draft dodgers where people could just come in during usual business hours.  In St. Louis, would just wander in, sometimes go to the living room to watch TV which I did not have in my apartment, sometimes take a text book into the library, eventually renamed in honor of my Rav, dividing my time between my medical studies and whatever was on the Hillel library shelf.  Barriers to entering the building just weren't there and maybe they aren't on shabbos when people are expected to stroll in at various times for services.

Security needs have changed and Jewish organizations in particular can be targets of violent attack.  Even in my college years, kids from the neighborhood would enter the sukkah and help themselves to the hanging produce as a snack.  Yet the balance of keeping threats out while not impeding those who derive benefit from partaking of what is offered inside remains a challenge to the organizations' boards.  How much of a barrier is too much.  Despite my enduring fondness for St. Louis Hillel, even ringing the door bell to explain why I wanted to be let in with no guarantee that I would be let in exceeded what I was willing to do to relive what had been an essential element of my past.

Shavuot Approaching

Nearing the completion of the Omer, a little rocky to remember the first week but accomplished, much easier since, even with recent travel where I took a small Omer card.  While the upward counting of the Omer implies an ascent to from Exodus to Torah, I think of Pesach as the crest of the calendar year with high grade ritual and Shavuot as a  denouement, a festival much less celebrated and largely devoid of imaging.  It coincides with Memorial Day this year, enabling me the days away from the office, though I will need to pass through the hospital at the midpoint.  It coincides by season with graduations, waning days of the public school calendar, planting the gardens, all which add to the seasonal elements of the Festival itself. I am one of the Torah readers for Bamidbar the day before.  Even Torah moves on to its next phase.

While the Yontiff has little formality, dairy meals pose a pleasurable challenge.  Not elaborate meals like Seder, no major restrictions of content or recipe, but something a little different just the same.  Sometimes new preparation, but more typically the blintzes and kugel and quiche.  Horn & Hardardt Macaroni and Cheese, one of my favorites this year.  I have apples so apple walnut pie.

Never got enthused about overnight studying the night before, would much rather rest up for the Festival.  But if any ritual has emerged in recent years it has been the rising popularity of people who are otherwise passive in their learning, partaking of whatever the Rabbi feeds them in his Aliyah Sound Bites, going out of their way at an inconvenient time to add to their Jewish knowledge.

But still a few more days of Omer to go.

Inclusiveness

An invitation from the local Jewish National Fund branch arrived in the mail inviting me to attend a breakfast with the Governor and an author on international politics.  From the planning committee composition, a bunch of local attorneys got together, arranged the event and in effect build a trough for the interested public to insert their snouts if they wished but were not really invited to be part of the event's creation or logistic.  They became consumers when with a little sensitivity they could have been participants.


So we have a leadership that originates with themselves to create a menu for the rest.  I could say the same of my shul's Nominating Committee which once again recycled its officers who will once again each proceed to the podium and tell those in attendance how wonderful they all are while I think there is not a whole lot of subtlety to its being a form of Peter Principle.  The trough will be built, the programs announced, nearly all recycled from the past just as the people are, and a mixture of invitations or pleas to partake will go out.


And that is my summary of where institutional Judaism has allowed itself to be taken.

So, How'd We Do?

I was reading some stuff on congregational development, not that I am involved in it or that anyone at the AKSE Officer Recycling Center has a clue that they need to change direction.  You need goals first.  There is a literature on this from a number of sources.  USCJ runs a course for representatives of their member congregations, though I feel justifiably skeptical of their experts who have managed to steer the decline of their constituency fairly steadily for about a generation.  But at least they have a plan and a curriculum that anyone with access to cyberspace can read.  Nothing outlandish about it at all, except when you get to the end which fails to include any means of assessment by the congregational representatives of what succeeded and what did not.  I could say the same of their Framework for Excellence that their honcho's assembled to upgrade congregational education at a time we were trying to merge the AKSE Hebrew School with theirs.  Again, lots of things to engage in but no means of measuring outcome.  A decade into this, I'm underwhelmed by the Hebrew literacy of the congregational alumni, though the sample is rather small.

Ultimately there are metrics imposed on the organizations, things like dues collections from a declining membership that may or may not change with the strategic planning effort, how many Bar Mitzvahs the congregation sponsors and whether the kids are more proficient at worship or at their Mitzvah projects.  But I think it would be better if the assessment of success were decided in advance of the effort.  Baalebatim, though, do not seem to want to incur that risk.