Before saying anything to the topic at hand, in the interests of full disclosure, let me share a few facts about myself. I have been the rabbi of The Forest Hills Jewish Center, a large, urban Conservative synagogue in Queens, NY, for the past twenty-eight years. But though I serve a Conservative congregation and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, my educational and experiential background is Orthodox. I grew up in an observant Orthodox family, attended Yeshiva Day School and High School, and graduated Yeshiva University before completing a masters degree in Bible at NYU, and rabbinical training at JTS.
And so it is that I straddle two worlds, both personally and professionally. Leaving Orthodoxy was a conscious decision for me. Years spent at Camp Ramah, and ultimately at JTS, convinced me that the religious world of my youth had become too confining, standing in the way of my religious growth instead of nurturing it. I was suffocating there, and needed to acknowledge that my horizons had broadened in a way that could never be reversed. But even as I migrated to the Conservative world, I retained my deeply rooted love of (and respect for) the regular and passionate practice of Jewish ritual as a whole, and particularly Jewish prayer. I never stopped attending synagogue or being observant, even as I embraced a different conceptual framework within which to observe.
Within Conservative Judaism, at least as it manifests itself in many Conservative congregations (as opposed to Orthodox ones, and the more homogeneous, self-selecting Havurot and prayer communities), that life-long love of regular Jewish practice has, not surprisingly, proved frustratingly difficult to satisfy. Actually, it’s not only Jewish practice that I grew up loving, but also the “given-ness” of that practice, if you will, rooted in the idea of hiyyuv… the sense that said practice is obligatory, and not a volitional act depending on the will (or lack thereof) of the individual Jew. The religious world that I minister to today, in the language of contemporary sociologists, is one wherein the “sovereign self” has almost completely trumped the “commanding presence” of God and its accompanying notion of obligation. Everything religious needs to be marketed, and to the degree that it is marketed well, or effectively, it stands a chance of becoming part of a religious routine. But there is precious little idea of obligation in the world of the sovereign self. Sovereign selves do not like to be told what to do, or what is expected of them.
It is from this vantage point that I approach the work of Synagogue 3000, STAR, and similar organizations dedicated to the re-creation and re-vitalization of the American synagogue. I understand the challenge at hand. I work with those “Jews in the pews” (or not in the pews!) every day, and know the deep sense of alienation that so many of them feel from traditional synagogue worship and ritual. They are profoundly disconnected from that world of Jewish practice that I live, breathe, and so value. But I have a nagging feeling that, though I understand the goals of organizations like Synagogue 3000 and appreciate what they are trying to accomplish, re-creating the synagogue and its worship is, at its core, a flawed enterprise. That’s why I’ve called this piece a “concurring dissent:” an oxymoron if ever there was one. I agree with the problem, but I’m uncomfortable with the solution. We are changing the davening to suit the daveners, and in so doing, we are losing something precious and irretrievable.
This discussion is not, to me at least, about egalitarianism, which I embrace, or the need to make our services more participatory and less of a spectator sport. I agree, wholeheartedly. It is, rather, about being able to appreciate the prayer experience from within, as opposed to critiquing it from without.
Whatever ambivalence I might have about my Orthodox education through my college years, one great blessing that it gifted me with was a remarkable comfort level with synagogue life and practice. The words of our prayers come easily and naturally to me, as do the melodies to which they are traditionally chanted. Those prayers are my spiritual comfort food. No matter what state of mind I bring to prayer, they are the mantra that enables me to access my spiritual self, regardless of setting. Setting helps, to be sure, but it does not determine whether or not I can have a spiritual experience. When I visit a synagogue that I’m not familiar with, even if it’s a place where I would never choose to daven, I can still talk to God there.
Coming from Orthodoxy to Conservative Judaism, I have always thought that we set the bar far too low for our laypeople in terms of expectations. Because so many of them are Hebraically challenged, we’ve added more and more English. Because quietly spoken words of prayer don’t resonate with meaning for so many, we emphasize singing and minimize opportunities for individual prayer (which was always the bulk of the traditional prayer service, but today brings people uncomfortably close to their linguistic and spiritual inadequacies). And perhaps most importantly- we have decided for them that they can’t deal with the traditional service because they’re not equipped to. So instead of raising them up to the bar of tradition, we tend to lower the bar to them. Again, the issue is not egalitarianism, or participation. The issue is prayer itself. Is it possible that Orthodox outreach efforts enjoy the success that they do because they try to change the daveners to suit the davening?
Just something to think about…
Ron Wolfson’s response…
Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik raises important issues in his posting: the notion of hiyyuv – obligation – as the primary motivation for observance, the challenge of making prayer meaningful and accessible to those who do not feel “obligated,” and the need for “synagogue transformation” initiatives.
The first – and most important – point to be made is that phenomenal congregational rabbis like Skolnik “toil in these vineyards” on a daily basis…and understand the challenges facing synagogue leadership better than anyone. In the past year alone, I have visited more than two dozen congregations – Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Reconstructionist and Independent Minyanim – and most of them struggle with these critical issues.
For me, the great value in “synagogue transformation” efforts is to a) raise these questions and conduct research that reaches beyond anecdote to hard data for the purposes of illuminating the discussion, and 2) raise the bar of expectation in what a spiritual community can be – even for those “sovereign self” Jews who do not feel obligated in any way to participate and engage in synagogue life.
Why is it important to worry about the “sovereign self” Jews? First of all, there are far more of them in our community than “hiyyuv” Jews and I, for one, will not dismiss them, give up on them, or ignore them. Second, I have never bought into the “saving remnant” argument that the community ought to pour its resources into a tiny percentage of Jews who will “save” Judaism for the next generation. Third, in my opinion, we have done precious little to create a truly outreach-oriented, welcoming community in our synagogues. Since Synagogue 3000 “rang the bell” on this issue, some of our congregations have gotten better at creating a culture of welcome in our institutions…but, believe me, we have a long, long way to go.
As for what Synagogue 3000 “advocates,” particularly with regard to worship, let me make it clear that there is no one answer. We are blessed with staff and supporters from across the Jewish spectrum…and we embrace the diversity of goals and strategies that we have been privileged to bring to those interested in our work. What we share is a vision of the synagogue as a kehillah kedoshah, a sacred community of meaning and purpose. Our Number One challenge is to increase the level of engagement with such communities, even among the members we already have in our midst.
This brings me back to Rabbi Skolnik’s main point: should we alter the davenning or “alter” the davenners? Here too, there is some misunderstanding of what Synagogue 3000 advocates. We have never advocated “more English readings;” in fact, several of the most outstanding models of an engaging prayer experience are almost entirely conducted in Hebrew. Similarly, many of the “independent minyanim” that we have studied in the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute would certainly never think of “watering down” what they believe is an authentic Jewish prayer experience in order to reach more people.
Another “red herring” in this debate is the use of musical instruments on Shabbat. We have never suggested this as “the answer” to increasing the vitality of the worship experience. The issue is not instrumentation; it is what we used to call in our synagogue youth groups and camps “ruach” – spirit; a prayer experience that lifts up participants through a variety of means: participatory singing, serious text study, a challenging message, the warmth of a welcoming community, the celebration of lifecycle moments.
Personally, I wish more Jews felt a sense of “hiyyuv.” But, unless you are lucky enough to have grown up with this sense, I am convinced we need to continue to think of ways to invite the “sovereign self” Jews in, to ignite the spark of spirituality that I believe is just underneath the surface of most human beings, and to engage them in the life of the community in a much deeper way when they do decide to join our membership ranks. Otherwise, I fear we will see more and more empty seats in our pews, even on the High Holy Days (a phenomenon many rabbis report to us).
As for Synagogue 3000, we continue our research into synagogue life through the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute and welcome the debate, the dialogue and the heartfelt conversations that Rabbi Skolnik and others are good enough to stimulate.
Dr. Ron Wolfson
Larry Hoffman’s response…
Dear Rabbi Skolnik,
Many thanks for raising the issues you do. In his usual informative and sympathetic manner, Ron Wolfson has already provided our S3K position on them; and there is no point in restating what he has said — better, I expect, than I could have. I do, however, want to reiterate the fact that S3K has never mandated solutions for individual synagogues. As a transdenominational organization with enormous regard for congregations everywhere along the spectrum of practice and belief, we have emphasized new ways of thinking that congregations might or might not find useful (each in its own fashion). In the case of prayer, that has sometimes entailed drawing attention to areas of the service that were being overlooked and that could be attended to with equal ease by everyone — Ron’s best example is “welcoming.” Sometimes it has meant challenging denominational stereotypes that Jews in one movement have of another. Sometimes it has entailed initiating a conversation that was not likely to take place elsewhere.
With the last goal in mind, let me respond in a manner differently from Ron – using another hat I wear, that of a lifelong student of liturgy and prayer. How might we think differently?
I begin as you did: with personal candor. I am a Reform Jew who has arrived at these positions as part of the way I think my own movement ought to approach the issues of prayer. At the same time, I, like you, come from a positive childhood experience of traditional prayer. I learned to daven well before my bar mitzvah, and appreciate the traditional siddur, especially since I have the added benefit of studying it in such depth as an adult, whose scholarly field it is. On virtually every page I am tempted to stop and admire the story behind what I see; I love the different sounds of our musical tradition, and the psychological feel of the whole experience. This past Shabbat (second day of Shavuot) I attended an Orthodox shul where the davening took 4 ½ hours. The “regulars” apologized to me for its length. I, by contrast, enjoyed it from beginning to end.
But here is the rub: most Jews today do not know what I know, have not been brought up as I have, have different sensibilities than I do, and (as a consequence) think altogether differently about prayer in general. We have three options. 1. We can ignore or dismiss them as anything from ignorant to sinful. 2. We can alter the service – with English, let us say — so as to speak to them, but take a dim view of what we are doing: call it pandering (at worst), watering down (a bit better), or a temporary measure necessitated by the difficult times but intended to raise the ignorant to our own superior position of knowledgeable appreciation “for the real thing.” Or, finally (3), we can decide that there really is no such thing as the real thing; that we are not the first generation to claim the right to adapt the past to the present; and that there are many alternative criteria that we might adopt to guide the way we adapt.
Appropriately, as the committed Conservative Jew you are, your own view is determined by how you view halakhah, which, since the Middle Ages, has indeed codified certain practices as proper. I, by contrast, see halakhah as a richly textured testimony to the way Jews then had adapted Jewish prayer, but not necessarily how I should. The prayer book was codified in more ways than one – the ninth-century version of Rav Amram became probative, as it happens. But Amram and his scholarly colleagues regularly explain their custom by saying, “That is what how we do things here [in Babylonia],” knowing that theirs is not the only option. All of this is readily countered by a halakhic Jew who can easily find older, apparently more elemental, assumptions – “Rav Amram and his opponents at least agreed on the basics of the Talmud,” let us say. But as you know, the two Talmuds differ also on a great deal, and were you then to say that they both follow the Mishnah, I would contend that the Mishnah too has many alternatives. You know all this of course. You will agree with my facts but disagree with their implications. My whole line of thought may be irrelevant for someone committed to a traditional view of rabbinic authority as provided by the codes, and I do not argue it as a better way to think. I state it only to demonstrate that there is another way to think, and that depending on this bedrock starting point, one arrives at different criteria for what can or should be done today. Even if there were but one way to approach the question, I see no way to arrive at it without begging the question we want to approach.
To begin with, I do not concede your point that because of a sovereign self, people do not, as a rule, feel commanded (or even obliged) to pray. I prefer thinking that the sovereign self means simply that people are more apt to try on commandedness and obligation in their own personally idiosyncratic ways; that if they knew how, they would as readily seek out God’s will for us as did even the most pious Jews of the past; and that the problem is not them but us, the knowledgeable rabbis who want them to seek God “more conveniently,” meaning “the way we think we did.” My first point, then, is that those years are over; it is not just pointless but incorrect as well to mourn their passing; we need to appreciate what sovereign selves in fact do, insofar as they have any interest whatever in what might sometimes look to them like our own rabbinically arcane ways of thinking.
Second, I warn against setting ourselves up as curators of a Jewish museum. Insofar as we take the position that we must take care to guard the tradition against those who would dismiss it, trash it, or water it down, we are apt to lose perspective on what we are guarding. Sometimes even the greatest museums prune their holdings, putting some once-loved treasures in storage until, perhaps (but only perhaps), another generation reclaims them. Even as guardians, we ought to be wary of what needs guarding and what does not.
More troubling is the very image of ourselves as guardians. It presupposes adefensive response to Philistines at the gate, whereas I do not consider the sovereign selves in any way to be Philistines. I prefer thinking of ourselves not as guardians of art already finished, but an extension of the artists themselves – a chain in the Jewish People’s artistry. That is not the same as a chain in the Jewish People’s tradition, which might indeed presuppose a bedrock essence that is crystal clear to anyone who peers under the museum’s glass casing. If there is such a thing, except for truisms like Jewish monotheism, I do not know how we can arrive at it – and even there, what counts as appropriate expressions of that monotheism is not at all self-evident. That artists can go too far is clear to anyone who studies the history of art, but how we know just when the artist goes too far is harder to determine. At the very least, we know that the final say is available only after the fact, when history judges the work properly “artistic” or not. We know also that artists never work as fully sovereign selves – they create in response to traditional artistry with which they become familiar – so starting altogether de novo is not only wrongheaded but, in the case of serious Jewish artistry, even impossible. “Strong poets,” says literary critic Harold Bloom, are in agonistic struggle against with predecessors. New composers create variations on old ones. Standards of art can change – they do change, they must change — without debasing the excellence that defines the nature of art. The issue becomes the criteria for that excellence.
Now a fully halakhic Jew, in the sense in which I think you understand halakhah, would not have to deny my artistic analogy. At stake would be the criteria by which the art is measured, and here we return to our bedrock assumptions about the role of the law codes, the Talmud, and legal precedent. In their own ways, modern Orthodoxy and Conservatism too — no less than any other serious grappling with Jewish past — do not know what is right until after the fact. We are all in the same boat, or, at least, in parallel boats buffeted by the same waters. We stake our Jewish lives on different assumptions about the proper boat to get into, the criteria (that is) by which we will be measured; and where we agree on criteria (the continuation of the Jewish People, for example) we take bets on what the best strategy will be to attain our desired end.
With all of that in mind, I turn to just one real-life example from our time, the one you mention so prominently, the use of English. Let us posit the common goal of preserving Hebrew as the indispensible language of our people. We now must decide what strategy is most likely to attain that end. That some of us will continue to appreciate fully Hebrew services is likely. That is not at issue. What we wonder about is the growing number of people who do not appreciate Hebrew davening. That they even bother to attend prayer is, as I say, a sign of commendable adult search, a sign of openness, at least, to the possibility of Jewish meaning. If they find that in poetic English, the way our ancestors (or even you and I) find it in Hebrew, what is wrong with that? To be sure, the English liturgist may go too far, but who is to say that the adamant curator of the Hebrew museum does not go too far in the opposite direction? Only time will tell. We rabbis who are charged with making such weighty decisions must be properly humbled by what is demanded of us. That is why you and I are engaged in this machloket l’shem shamayin (“argument for the sake of heaven”).
I supply the English (“argument for the sake of heaven”) for less Hebraically knowledgeable readers who may actually choose to read this exchange of views, and who should not have to feel that they must be able to get the “esoteric” references in the original Hebrew. A further question might well be whether knowing Hebrew (and operating with the references) helps further the appreciation of the debate. I think you and I would agree that it does. I suspect that first-time readers engaging in this exercise will slowly learn some of this “in-language” that we like to quote. And similarly, I think newcomers to exceptional prayer in poetic English may come to appreciate the warmth and texture of traditional Hebrew prayer. If so, however, the goal is not that competence for its own sake! In one case (our conversation) it is appreciation of the argument for the Jewish People and for the purposes of God. In the other case (prayer) it is the human intuition (and, perhaps, divine will itself) that God and we be in dialogue.
I suspect Hebrew helps in both cases. But I also suspect that replacing Hebrew as universally better than the appropriate English parallels would rob each aspiration of its full possibilities for success – at least among many of the Jewish “searchers” we are discussing. Having appreciated the finesse of English in prayer, I, for one, cannot go home again: I want the best of both worlds, the Hebrew I learned as a child, but equally, the English I learned as an adult. My prayer is deepened by one as well as the other.
You raise so many magnificent issues! I am tempted to attend to them all. But I hope my overall point is clear enough as the matter stands. By no means do I advocate my own artistry over someone else’s. I argue only for a deep and passionate regard for other artists, and the recognition that their canvasses may be equally rich in Jewish value, equally appreciative of Jewish tradition, and no more a threat to the disappearance of our historical treasures than our own predilections, if taken to extremes.
Hence, to put back on my S3K hat, our S3K insistence on interdenominational conversation. We are not curators but artists, outfitting (rather than protecting) the museum of a Jewish eternity (not just a Jewish past). You and I have somehow found our way into adjoining rooms in this Jewish museum, committing ourselves to adding the newest touches of paint to a different vision of what the canvass might become. From time to time we wander into each other’s room to appreciate the alternative that we see there. We return enriched by what we have seen, better able to develop insight into our own project of the ages.
Warmly and with appreciation,
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman
Steven M. Cohen’s response…
The Rabbi is Right, uh, Conservative
This may be a case of the Fiddler joke that ends with, “But they both can’t be right.” “You’re right too!” – Or, maybe not.
To elaborate …
The backdrop for this stimulating exchange between Rabbi Skolnik and Dr. Wolfson is critical: Notwithstanding the familiar but often over-stated and premature pronouncements of the death of denominations, Conservative and Reform embody striking and healthy contrasts. The contrasts are both worth noting, and, in my view, worth keeping.
For its part, Reform Judaism is remarkable for its agility and for the premium it places on creativity and innovation. It is attuned to the ever-shifting and diversifying Jewish market place. In so doing, Reform temples manage to attract far larger numbers of intermarried Jews and converts than do their Conservative counterparts down the road, or in town.
At the same time, taken as a group and compared with Conservative shul members, Reform congregants are more tentative about their engagement with congregations. More of them drop out of congregations with the Bar/Bat Mitzvah of their youngest child. What’s more, the tendency to dis-affiliate at that moment is even more pronounced among intermarried than in-married congregants. On most of the standard measures of childhood Jewish education, Reform congregants score lower than do Conservative members. They score lower on equivalent measures of current Jewish engagement, e.g., the importance of being Jewish or frequency of attendance at services.
In short, Reform congregants are more tentative in their commitment (on average), less Jewishly well-educated (on average), and more recently arrived at Jewish engagement (on average). As such, they pose distinctive challenges and demands, very different from those posed by Conservative congregants.
Reform Jews need rabbis, cantors, educators, leaders, community and Judaism who are attuned to their needs, interests, language, worldview, and so forth. Hence, the adaptability and innovativeness of Reform is both necessary and, I would argue, proper for these Jews. Even the most traditional Jew who cares only about more Jews doing more mitzvehs ought to say, “Baruch Ha-Shem for Reform Judaism.” The purpose of Reform Judaism is embedded in its very name: to re-form Judaism, and to do so in line with the times, and the needs and sensibility of its prime constituencies.
In contrast, Conservative rabbis are dealing with a very different constituency. It’s older, more ethnic, more in-married, less converted, more tied to Israel, more familiar with Hebrew prayers and their melodies, more resident in areas of higher Jewish density, more tied to Federations, JCCs and other Jewish organizations, and on and on. The graduates of Ramah and Schechter schools, as well as today’s day school parents, are over-represented among the more active Conservative shul members and among the regular daveners.
In this environment, the Conservative approach is to treat the inherited and prevailing cultural patterns as “authentic.” Change in liturgy and tfilla undermines the claim to authenticity and to the compelling nature of Judaism. To many Conservative davenners, shorter services, instrumental music, the sound of English, an emphasis on social action, and divrei Torah that fail to emphasize textual analysis, all seem like concessions to the influences of the larger society (in general) and of Christian churches (in particular).
Conservative leaders therefore work to preserve the compelling image of authenticity by resisting visible change, especially in ways which can be interpreted as yielding to larger social forces and cultural patterns. Thus, Conservative Jewish leaders (both clerical and lay) do what Conservative Judaism does best: they conserve Judaism, as they understand it.
To bridge the gap between what they see as authentic Judaism and an under-committed and under-educated laity, Conservative rabbis and educators invest considerable time and effort in growing the skills of their worshippers. One rabbi’s proud remarks about his achievements stick in my mind as emblematic of this approach. To paraphrase: “When I came here, maybe three people could leyn. Today, if I need someone to prepare shlishi on the spot, forty hands go up.” [Translation: At one time, only three worshippers could prepare to read from the Torah on Shabbat mornings. As a result of classes and training, many worshippers now are able to do so with minimal notice.]
In other words, if one is confronted with a liturgy that appeals to very few worshippers, as I learned from my friend and colleague Prof. Lawrence A. Hoffman, one can change the liturgy or one can change/teach the worshippers (or do both). Reform tends to invest more in the former approach; just as Conservatism tends to invest more in the latter approach. And, Synagogue 2000, and now Synagogue 3000, has tended to emphasize the manifold ways to adjust the services, while not particularly developing new approaches to teaching and learning synagogue skills.
Hence, Rabbi Skolnik does have a point. The S3K effort with which I am proud and pleased to be associated is not explicitly Reform, but its methodology has what my teacher Charles Liebman, z”l, would call, an “elective affinity” with Reform Judaism.
So, as I said at the outset about Rabbi Skolnik and Dr. Wolfson’s comments – they’re both right – or maybe they’re not!
This is a wonderful discussion. The problem with any attempts at a S3K solution are doomed to failure and will further cripple the Conservative movement. Why? This is a top down approach to address a moving target. Congregant wants erode, evolve and vary with each upcoming age demographic. Ultimately a structure of reliable integrity and authenticity is the only sustainable option. Take English translations for example: A prayerbook that has the most current modern English translation will in ten years read stilted and dated. The Hebrew text remains approachable.
The Conservative movement is empowered by its legitimacy as an authentic option to reform and orthodoxy. Two generations ago, congregants knew what this meant. There is a unique philosophical approach to learning, women can participate fully in learning and ritual, or at least be permitted to say Kaddish for themselves, and there is no call for return to animal sacrifice in a rebuilt temple — NOT orthodox. A congregant who participates routinely would be able to feel comfortable in ANY Jewish ritual or service setting WORLDWIDE — NOT reform. We are defining ourselves to death. By embracing a big umbrella of dynamic locally directed expression within those parameters, (instead of dictating what a S3K should look like) the movement becomes whole and may grow.
I want to thank Rabbi Skolnik for opening a thoughtful discussion and speaking from his spiritual conscience. That’s what good rabbis do. However, his post baffles me on a number of levels.
Rabbi Skolnik says that, “…I understand the goals of organizations like (STAR–Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal).†In the 10 years that I’ve been associated with STAR, to the best of my recollection, I haven’t had a single conversation with him STAR’s work. So I’d like to offer to meet with Rabbi Skolnick at his congregation and openly discuss with him the challenges that beset contemporary American synagogue. Or, as an alternative, I want to invite Rabbi Skolnick to Minneapolis where we can explore the rich, independent data that we have gathered over the years which tell a story of positive impact that our initiatives have had on congregations of all denominations across North America. We have a good grasp on what has been successful and what has not, we think that it’s important to dialogue with others who share our passion for Jewish life and the synagogue, and to have rich conversations which are informed both by feeling and fact.
We have conducted approximately 20 independent, formative evaluations of our Synaplex™ Initiative, which about 200 congregations have experienced over the past six years. Each time we’ve evaluated synagogues, they typically report an initial doubling or tripling of participants on a Synaplex Shabbat. Even now, we have anecdotal data which suggest that many synagogues have sustained this increased involvement. We’ve also heard frequently that Synaplex participants take on new volunteer roles and learn new skills as a result of a joyful Shabbat experience. Those synagogues which have worked with STAR have every reason to be proud of raising the bar of expectation of what it means to be a part of a Shabbat community.
Like synagogues, we also take the notion of being created in God’s image seriously. For us, that means three things:
1. We don’t try to remake synagogues in some predetermined image
2. We don’t try to remake rabbis in some predetermined image
3. We don’t try to remake Jewish individuals in some predetermined image.
Rather, just as God created each individual with unique attributes, we appreciate the individuality of synagogues, rabbis, and Jews. That is why we empower rabbis in synagogues to dream bigger about Jewish life, provide them with frameworks which they adapt to their settings and then support them in achieving those dreams with ongoing learning and organizational tools.
Marketing, at STAR, means building and sustaining relationships with active members, inactive members and potential members. Marketing recognizes that in a world of choices, synagogues and rabbis need to be in regular touch with their community, putting out information about their synagogues smartly and receiving constructive feedback gracefully. Marketing means creating an ongoing dialogue with members and not assuming that just because someone is involved today means that they will choose to be involved tomorrow.
Finally, I want to observe that Rabbi Skolnik has had the “sovereignty†to make his choice about the kind of Judaism that best suits him. Through our efforts, we just want to make sure that all who care about synagogue life have the same opportunity. That’s why I believe that STAR and other initiatives, while not perfect, have made a significant contribution to synagogue life and the American Jewish community.
Millions of Jews feel they are disenfranchised from synagogue life. They have voted with their feet and stayed away in droves. As stated eloquently by Ron Wolfson… (paraphrased) the Ruach felt at Jewish camps are not being translated to ha beit Knesset (synagogue). Yes, we can continue to do the same things, the same ways but remember, we will get the same results.
People do things for two reasons: because they want to or because they have to. For the vast majority who identify as Jews (the approximately 4/7 Jews who are unaffiliated as well as the majority of the non Orthodox affiliated), Judaism and the synagogue are not in the “have to” (read obligatory) category and no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days” (read the middle ages) will change that fact. What’s left is the great opportunity to persuade those Jews to “convert” to the “want to” group. In today’s consumerist world, Judaism/the synagogue must compete in the arena of ideas and leisure time/discretionary income choices. People will give of their time, talents and tithes to that which is perceived to have value. Synagogues and Judaism are perceived by the masses of Jews as having at best marginal value and thus the result is at best marginal commitment.
The problem is relevance, specifically the lack thereof. Most Jews have voted with their feet that the synagogue and/or Judaism is/are irrelevant. Judaism and synagogues have to re-earn their place in the life of most who identify as Jews. To do this, synagogues need to deliver a Judaism which is relevant, practical, challenging and life application oriented, showing that Judaism actually speaks to life as it is lived and experienced in the 21rst century, ie., teach and talk about what Judaism has to say about our physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual well-being.
As Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church as well as the author of “A Purpose Driven Life,†has said: “clergy need to ’say something on Sunday that people can use on Monday.’†Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman who wrote “Rethinking Synagogues†calls this: sermons that emphasize where “Torah meets life.†So….. “on one foot†rabbi’s (and I‘ve heard many from the pews over the years) need to become/be made more aware that the content of their bimah teaching always be about answering the question, “why think/do Jewish?â€
All that’s left of “Judaism” for most who identify as Jews is the trivial to nearly meaningless “Jewishness,” that manifests as lifecycle “fixes” (b’not/b’nei mitzva births, weddings and funerals), the occasional perceived need for a worship service e.g., high holidays (yet another “guilt fix” for ever fewer Jews), the Holocaust/anti semitism, and let’s not forget an occasional trip to the Jewish deli/ restuarant. This residual Jewishness will go the way of borscht
belt humor and the Catskills. As the older generations pass, nostalgia (nose pain) will have less and less of a pull. It’s already quite evident among busters and millenials.
There is hope and it is in learning the lessons of successful megachurches, a segment of organized religious life that continues to grow in contradistinction to the remainder of denominations that are in decline. Kudos to Synagogue 3K as well as the Reform movement who had Pastor Rick Warren at their Biennial convention in Dec., 2007, for recognizing this important Truth. One of those lessons is found above in the paragraph that begins “The problem is relevance…”
“…no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days†(read the middle ages)..”
Although I’ve never been compared to an ostrich before, nor have I ever thought of myself as living in the middle ages, I think that, in his comment, Jordan has successfully illustrated what I was trying to say in my original posting.
I am grateful to Ron Wolfson, Steven Cohen, and Larry Hoffman for their most thoughtful and considered responses to what I wrote. Though the “teaser” for my blog accentuated the concerns that I have with the synagogue renewal movement, the truth is that I am enormously respectful of the work that it has done to bring alienated Jews into the active ranks of synagogue life, even if, in some fundamental ways, I come at the same challenge from a different place. If my original posting implied otherwise, then I am obliged to state that clearly. In very important ways, I consider you all my teachers, and my colleagues.
But here’s the thing. Maybe it’s just me, and my particular sensitivities given the upbringing of which I spoke of in my blog, but I have never felt that the synagogue renewal movement genuinely came at its work from a judgement-free perspective. No, Hayim, you and I have never had a personal conversation about the work of STAR, but for just about the past ten years or so, I’ve used a piece on the sovereign self. written by you and included in a wonderful, small paperback volume published by STAR, as an assigned text for the rabbinical and cantorial students in my senior seminar on professional skills at JTS. I obviously value your writing and thinking. But I’ve also “heard” in the tone of some of your writings an implicit assumption that the synagogue as we know it is essentially dead or dying, and needs to be re-created. ( I wish I had the text with me, but I’m not at home. Ironically, I’m at the Legacy Heritage retreat in Newark, because my synagogue’s Religious School received a grant to develop a new Shabbat-morning track for our second and third graders and their parents…. innovation!).
When my antennae pick up messages like that, messages that make me feel like the aforementioned ostrich trying to recapture the good old days of the middle ages (kind of insulting, by the way), it trips that wire in me that makes me feel hopelessly like a dinosaur, and I find that feeling distinctly and undeservedly unpleasant.
I’m not in the business of conserving for conserving’s sake; I can adapt with the best of them. Twenty years ago I risked my job to convert my synagogue to full egalitarianism, and in ways both more and less subtle I have tweaked long-established practices in our service. But I have also worked hard during my almost three decades in the same community to conserve what I considered to be of timeless value, and to teach others to love it and appreciate it as I have. No, it won’t be for everyone. Yes, there have been, and continue to be, pieces of my own synagogue that need to be “transformed,” and all of this is very much on my agenda. But I do not like the implication that “I am a large urban Conservative synagogue with a traditional (though egalitarian) main service, ergo I must be dying.” I hear you, Ron, Larry and Steve- and Hayim. It is not the agenda of STAR or Synagogue 3000 to transmit that message. But I am not the only pulpit rabbi who hears it, and on my better days, I like to think that keeping my occasionally crotchety if historic synagogue moving on down the road through major neighborhood change, the transition to egalitarianism with minimal trauma, being saddled with a building whose sanctuary architecture is at complete cross-purposes with the “ruach” that I want to create in shul… all this has been a pretty neat trick. If I’m a dinosaur, I’d like to think I’m a crafty one.
I find it very interesting when talking with rabbis. They are so comfortable
with their tradition. Most of them having been brought up in observant homes and in close Jewish communities. These rabbis really don’t get it.
They do not quite understand the lack of ‘rootedness’ most Jews feel today. Not withstanding “the Israel Connection”, many thousands of young and older Jewish men and women have turned to other faiths and have become the leaders in American Buddhism, Mooneys, EST, Scientology, American Hinduism, etc. etc.
They see modern synagogues as institutions lacking in any sort of Godly encounter (aside from the triology of daily rout davening). These Jewish souls have never been exposed to all the hidden jewels tucked away in the vaults of Jewish thought.
Jews hunger and are driven toward ideas and concepts which help to answer their call to relevancy. They need and want to know that the meanings they search for in their heritage can be found in and at the synagogue and are not for all intensive purposes clouded over with unending ritual practice tempered only periodically with pragmatic idealism.
The lack of Ruach, Kavanah, Hisbodedut and Mussar is so evident in even Orthodox shuls. The spiritual nature of Judaism is lost to those seeking a reason to re-discover what they in reality never had. At least S3 recognizes the problems and has looked inward for innovative solutions. I
honor and repect those brave souls who dared to think outside the box.
Allan Koven
For the record I did not compare you to an ostrich as you suggested in your last post. I did say, “For the vast majority who identify as Jews (the approximately 4/7 Jews who are unaffiliated as well as the majority of the non Orthodox affiliated), Judaism and the synagogue are not in the “have to†(read obligatory) category and no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days†(read the middle ages) will change that fact.”
As you can see I was referring to your ideas and not you. This is not just a semantic triviality. I am sorry you felt insulted and ideas are fair game in a forum such as this one. I offered mine and welcome any and all criticism.
Gerry—I’m also away facilitating 2 back-to-back executive leadership development programs for congregational rabbis (STAR Rabbis: From Good to Great). There’s not enough space to comment on their excellence, and as we promise confidentiality, I can’t express the angst of some over synagogues, but also the optimism of many. Having personally served a large suburban congregation for 10 years, I identify with your concerns, and theirs, but am also inspired by their willingness to hold on to two goals simultaneously:
1. Maintain and value Shabbat services which authentically reflect congregational, denominational and ideological history.
2. Experiment on Shabbat and during the week with spiritual, educational, cultural and social alternatives which expand possibilities for involvement and Jewish growth.
These goals can be compatible. Liberal (i.e., non-Orthodox) synagogue services work for some but not most American Jews. (This is not a judgment, but a description of reality, and for many of us it’s a hard fact.) But, when synagogue leaders demonstrate a willingness to turn up the dial on innovation with the outcome of connecting more Jews to the heritage—the yerusha—that we love (as you’ve done and are doing now), we create pathways between them and the work of the synagogue. Whether we define that work as infusing life with Jewish spiritual meaning, making the synagogue a microcosm of a perfected world, or creating sacred community, it’s work that urgently needs to be done.
A few other points of information:
1. For those interested, you can now pre-order Synagogues in a Time of Change. Fragmentation and Diversity in Jewish Religious Movements, published by The Alban Institute, in cooperation with The National Center for Jewish Policy Studies at Hebrew College and STAR, forthcoming in a few weeks. Among others, this volume has been praised by Dr. Jonathan Sarna, Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz and Ambassador Alfred H. Moses.
2. Rabbis and volunteers leaders who decide to work with STAR re-envision the synagogue as Beit Knesset, a house of social meeting; as Beit Midrash, a house of study; and as Beit Tefilah, a house of prayer, three authentic functions of the synagogue. They, not STAR, determine in which “container†they want to pour their energies.
3. The publication which you reference is likely the “The Commanding Community and the Sovereign Self: Increasing Understanding Between Synagogue Dwellers and Spiritual Seekers,†which offers a way to bridge the gap between these two communities. You can find it in Re-Envisioning the Synagogue, published by The National Center for Jewish Policy Studies at Hebrew College and STAR, Spring, 2005.
[...] and that there are many alternative criteria that we might adopt to guide the way we adapt.”- Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman (HUC Professor, Author, and co-founder of Synagogue [...]
Let me bring another perspective to this discussion.
I am an Orthodox Jew and Rabbi, and have been my entire life. I am also a product of programs run by S3K as well as programs run by STAR. My desire to grow personally and profesionally led me to STAR’s Peer program, as well as to S3K’s emerging communities cohort. Both of these groups forced me to ask myself important questions about how I could imrove my Rabbinate. As an Orthodox Rabbi, I feel fully confident in my rejection of instruments during tefilla, rejection of substitution of Hebrew prayer for english prayer, and adherence to a life of obligatory practice. I refuse to lower the bar when it comes to expectations I place on myself and on my congregants; expectations that include nothing less than a fully observant lifestyle.
Both S3K and STAR have been fully accepting and supportive of my philosophical background. They have allowed me to further explore what I do and how I do it, and simply asked that I evaluate various aspects of my Rabbinate in a quest for continued excellence.
So to me this whole discussion is somewhat foreign.
The questions need to be asked. The answers that are found will be dependent on one’s community and background. To me, the questions that Rabbi Skolnick brings up are less about S3K and STAR and more about the religious communities that are moving in the directions that Rabbi Skolnick describes.
Daniel Alter
DAT Minyan
Denver,Colorado
I feel compelled to respond to this interesting debate, both as a Jew and as a Jewish professional. I am the Director of Congregational Engagement for Synagogue 3000, which means that I spend my days trying to understand and help rabbis and cantors in the field combat the terrifying reality that Steven Cohen explains to us: We’re losing Jews. I am a proud alum of the STAR Peer Rabbinic Fellowship, the Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellowship and the CLAL Internship– all of which provided me with incredible opportunities (and mentors) to re- envision my rabbinate. Several years ago, Naomi Meyer, wife of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer z”l invited the rabbinic fellows in the program bearing her visionary husband’s name to her home to talk about the future of Judaism. “What keeps you up at night?” Naomi asked each one of us. Uncharacteristic for me, I sat in the circle in silence.
I had no answer to her question because i still believed that creative davenning and beautiful music on Shabbat would save the Jewish people. Naomi posed the question seven years ago– and only now do I have an answer: I am terrified that there will be no Jews left– maybe even in my lifetime. Unlike my grandparents, who survived the horrors of the Shoah, it is not the annihilation of the Jewish people from an outside evil force that I most fear. It is the fact that my generation and the generation growing up after me simply doesn’t care to protect and cherish our ancient traditions, texts or customs. And worse yet– we don’t even care to use the incredible system of change, evolution and reevaluation of Judaism which has always been at the core of our religion.
Rabbi Skolnik, I honor your struggle to determine if we should change davenning or davenners. You ask a very important question: Are we allowing the tail to wag the dog? Meaning– are we so desperate to hold on to people that we’ll do anything at all that looks a tiny bit
Jewish– and say it’s sufficient– as long as people will still show
up? And I respect the different viewpoints represented by many of my
teachers in the thoughtful responses to your concern. But– I think your question is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue here is not whether people feel obligated to pray and how accessible to make our services.
Let’s be honest: In generations past, people were willing to give their lives for Judaism. Gd forbid anyone is ever faced with that choice again. But I ask you: If the struggle at Masada, the Spanish Inquisition or the Shoah were to take place today, would anyone declare their Judaism central to their existence? Or would most Jews say “my grandparents were Jewish but I practice Buddhist meditation and have a Hindu mind-body spirituality and a deep sense of empathy for the Palestinians… I’m not a member of a tribe, I’m a citizen of the world” ? We are assimilating ourselves out of existence– maybe not, as Steven Cohen suggests, because of intermarriage, but rather, because of that which allows interfaith marriage: our profound education in all subjects but Judaism.
We, Jewish educators, have failed the Jewish people by not educating them. It’s not just about davenning; it’s not just about Hebrew; it’s not just about halacha. Why should American Jews come into the beautiful synagogues we’ve built to listen to the beautiful music we’ve written, when we’ve failed to show them how truly exquisite Judaism is? So many of the Jews out there have no idea what they’re throwing away– because they don’t know what it is that they have. It is easier for us to debate superficial questions– Hebrew or English? mixed seating or separate? instruments or not?–than to recognize the real problem.
The Minquass tribe in New Mexico teaches: “If the eyes had no tears, the soul would have no rainbow.” Does anyone care enough to cry? I certainly hope so, because the rainbow is Gd’s promise that there will be a future.
[...] 11, 2009 Synagogue 3000 guest blogger Rabbi Gerald Skolnik gives an interesting take on the field of synagogue transformation. It’s generated an [...]
At the November 2008 convention of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation I was asked to participate in one of the opening plenary discussions. The topic was “Strengthening and Transforming Congregational Lifeâ€. Hayim Herring, Executive Director, STAR and Amy Sales, Director of the Fisher-Bernstein Institute for Jewish Philanthropy and Leadership at Brandeis University, also spoke. Here are the thoughts I shared from that talk as I they appeared in our synagogue’s newsletter. Bnai Keshet is a Reconstructionist synagogue of about 250 household Montclair, NJ.
During my six years at Bnai Keshet we have participated in about as many synagogue transformation programs as possible. We were part of the first three year cohort of Synaplex, we were one of three synagogues to participate in a year of long range planning sponsored by STAR and we are in our third year of funding for a Legacy Heritage and Innovation Project. I am enormously grateful to have been included in each of these projects. Together these programs have provided ongoing and meaningful leadership development for our congregation. They have encouraged us to experiment and expand our programming and vision. They have opened up our Shabbat practice and helped us to launch our Values-In-Action Program and our Shabbat Bet Midrash.
However, my experience with these programs has also left me concerned about some weaknesses in these programs. In particular synagogue transformation programs are often so focused on the type of programming being developed, and the business of marketing that programming effectively or the business aspects of the synagogue (all of which are important) that they neglect paying close attention to what I believe are the core elements of synagogue life: building relational/covenantal community, building a spiritually meaningful Jewish practice and making Judaism relevant outside the walls of the synagogue.
Relational Transformation
As an example, one of the most transformational moments in synagogue life is when its members show up to shiva minyanim even when they don’t know the mourners. Being in each other’s homes almost always deepens relationships, but showing up at a shiva minyan helps concretize a covenantal commitment that transcends our particular personal relationships. It helps to clarify that the synagogue unlike many other membership organizations, comes with an expectation of community and mutual inter-dependence.
During the same time that Bnai Keshet has been participating in the official synagogue transformation programs mentioned above, we have also been engaging in Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO). We initially got involved in CBCO as a way of strengthening our commitment to social justice work. I believe that CBCO has been at least as transformational as any of these programs primarily because of its focus on building relationships and taking action rooted in self-interest. More than 200 members have participated in face-to-face relational meetings and house meetings to determine what kinds of issues might most be in our congregation’s interest to take action on. In these meetings we asked questions like, “What keeps you up at night?†or “What is a pressure or challenge in your life that most affects you or people you care about?â€. It is remarkable how often Bnai Keshet members have left those discussions feeling profoundly connected to one another, often in a way that they had never experienced before. These conversations have helped fuel our work around ending the genocide in Darfur, caring for the environment and strengthening our relationship to Israel. At the same time they have been an engine for helping to shape our congregations understanding of itself. Our Shabbat in which members of our congregation shared stories about their struggles with healthcare and health insurance transformed our understanding of how these issues effect people in our own community. Over and over again this process has built new lines of connection and community amongst our membership. I think we are still uncovering the impact of telling each other these stories and finding ways to take action in response to them.
Spiritual Transformation
I wish there were more programs focused on energizing synagogue services. Services are our most frequent and consistent program. We do them every week. Everyone, even those who rarely attend, understands services to be part of the core mission of a synagogue. Still there are remarkably few programs or grants centered on vitalizing this core aspect of synagogue life. Programs come and go but services remain. Sadly they often remain unchanged for years on end.
I believe that the core of every congregation should include spiritually energizing and engaging services. Our Ritual Committee (which I hope will officially be renamed the “Spiritual Life Committeeâ€) has recently committed to spending at least 80% of its time focused on deepening the spiritual experience of our members and broadening participation in and leadership of services. One of its projects that we are just starting is a series of experimental Shabbat services. We are planning services that speak to different spiritual edges of our community including: Jewish Renewal, Humanist and energetic traditional. These services are happening in our main sanctuary and are for the entire community. Our hope is that we will all be stretched by these services and expand the spiritual palette of the synagogue. But ultimately we anticipate that these experimental services will help to bring new energy and vitalizing ideas into all of our services.
Too often we settle for stale service rather than demanding exceptional services. Though many people join synagogues for reasons other than services, it is worth noting that many of the most dynamic synagogues in the country have very dynamic services. A vital service brings vitality and new membership to the synagogue.
Experimental Transformation
The best thing that Synaplex and the Legacy Heritage programs have taught us is to experiment. Both grants have pushed us to try new things. Many of have failed or proved unsustainable. I think a big part of my job as Rabbi is to support the congregational leadership in trying new things. This includes reminding everyone that it is alright, even good, to fail. Or that something new we try might be great even if there are some complaints that might change how we do it next time. It also means remembering that change is not always comfortable but that it is o.k. to sometimes be uncomfortable.
This year for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur our congregation experimented with CART, a system that provides real time captioning for the hearing impaired. Our hope was that CART would make our services more accessible to our members and to the Jewish community as a whole. Though this service would cost some money and might not work perfectly we felt it was so clearly in line with our community’s core values we should try it. Ultimately it wasn’t perfect. Some people found it distracting and it was not without technological challenges. We had to remind ourselves not to let these legitimate complaints cause unnecessary anxiety. This was an experiment that grew out of our congregation’s vision of itself as a truly welcoming community. Along with some complaints there were comments from members saying, “I never knew how much I was missing because of my hearing aids.†A first time attendee whose mother is deaf shared how meaningful it was to be at a synagogue with CART after growing up in a synagogue which refused a similar service for her mother. Members of the broader New Jersey Jewish Deaf community have showed up to Friday night services just to see what we are all about. Was CART perfect? No. But was it an important and transformative experiment? Yes! Most importantly we can learn from its and successes and get it better next year.
Evaluational Transformation
Though every congregational transformation program stresses the importance of evaluating your efforts, it has really again been through our training in organizing (CBCO) that has helped us institutionalize the practice of evaluation. We now end every Board meeting and many committee meetings with some time for evaluation. I hope this practice will expand to many more areas of our synagogue life. It is important because it helps us to appreciate what is working and to recognize what is failing. Sometimes the most important aspects of transformation require disorganizing what isn’t working or what is only average. Ending a program that is struggling or a practice that is not very functional is liberating. It often creates space and energy for something new and energizing. But the most important part of the practice of evaluation is that it creates the expectation that all of our time together matters! Evaluation helps us to remember that our time which we give with great generosity to the community should not be squandered. It reminds us that everything we do together should reinforce our core values and help to build a relational community that is spiritually energizing and relevant to our lives in and outside of the synagogue.
Skolnik clearly is concerned that S3K, possibly to the detriment of Judaism, is biased toward many of what he perceives as Reform Judaism practice and philosophy. To support his position, he relates Orthodox Judaism’s successful outreach to its ability to have daveners meet the demands of davening. Confusing correlation with causation, he would have the reader believe that if he could somehow immerse great numbers of uncommitted Jews in traditional prayer regularly, the future of Judaism’s would be strengthened.
Unfortunately, comments by Hoffman, and Cohen concentrate their rebuttal on Skolnik’s questionable thesis and don’t elucidate the big issue raised in Skolnik’s message: Namely, how should S3K assist concerned Jews create and increase engagement in sacred Jewish communities, and how can we attract uncommitted Jews and others to these communities? Honoring Skolnik’s arguments about the centrality of davening, Hebrew, and music at prayer services, I point out that these important aspects of Judaism are only part of why Jews often do not choose to affiliate in Jewish communities.
The other day at our havurah meeting, I was asked why I joined (Reform) temple. I responded that as I moved closer to retirement, I wanted to be in community with Jews. I was then asked to explain what I meant by “community.†I was not eloquent in responding and blabbered something about having friends, which I quickly realized I was not lacking presently.
What is a Jewish community, for this discussion, a ‘sacred†Jewish community? For me, it is attending Shabbat services regularly on Friday evenings; it is Torah Study on Saturday morning; it is the opportunity to have meaningful chats with a 20-something young lady and an 85-year-old young lady at text study; it is the opportunity to have coffee with the rabbi, it is the opportunity to join the temple team in the Rely for Life for cancer survivors, it is the opportunity to serve the poor at a local soup kitchen downtown along with other congregants and their children, and the opportunity to reorganize the temple men’s group…and much more.
The challenge to S3K is to help temples of all denominations create sacred Jewish communities that Jews and others of all backgrounds will feel comfortable joining and engaging in. Depending on their Jewish upbringing, some will wish to join a more traditional congregation, while others will prefer a less traditional congregation. We live in a pluralistic society where choice is essential. However, I concur with an implication of the Skolnik piece and the remarks of the other responders that leaders of the broad Jewish community need to establish the criteria for what constitutes a “sacred Jewish community.†The complexity of such a task introduces opportunities and challenges. Echoing the remarks of Zimmerman, The future of Judaism depends on its successful, timely completion.
Indeed, this has been an interesting thread! Warning: an overarching assumption and generalization about the status quo is coming. To the vast majority of Jews in the non-orthodox world, Judaism is of trivial to near meaningless concern, and its primary delivery system, the synagogue, has been and remains ineffective in changing that truth. Quite simply Judaism and the synagogue are marginal to irrelevant to most Jews.
We’ve done a fine job identifying the status quo. Few of us have outlined an actual strategy for fixing Judaism’s primary delivery system, i.e., the synagogue, in order to move Judaism from a fringe concern to a more valuable part of the lives of most Jews. To be sure, that’s what S3K and STAR are trying to do. And I find it quite disconcerting to have read the post of Rabbi Jessica, an alum of both of these organizations and a now a consultant for S3K. Rabbi Jessica with state-of-the-art Jewish leadership training is at wit’s end about the status quo and what to do about it. No blame or finger-pointing intended; I’m just trying to understand.
The challenge is to help Rabbi Jessica with the following hypothetical and question. You have ONE chance to Jewishly reach your Jewishly disengaged
“Gen X” peers. Budget is NOT an issue. Our objective/goal is not only to get them to assemble initially; it’s to engage them in such a way that they would want to return for “seconds.” What strategy and tactics will/would we employ? I know that this is the $64 zillion dollar question and I believe that we have the insight and tools to formulate a workable plan.
I wrote “one chance,” as I believe the truth of the old “Brylcreem” (hair goop) commercial, that “you only get one chance to make a good first impression.” Combine this with the fact that in a world of internet and information abundance the only thing that is really scarce is attention, and you can see the importance of getting it right the first time.
I offered the beginnings of a solution to the hypothetical that I just posed in my longer post above in the paragraph that began, “The problem is relevance..” In the spirit of Shim’on ben Zoma’s important question and answer, “Who is wise? One who learns from all people.” Pirke Avot 4:1, I offered hope in the form of the suggestion to learn the lessons of successful megachurches, a segment of organized religious life that continues to grow in contradistinction to the remainder of denominations that are in decline.
Rabbi Tarfon said, “the day is short, and the work is great, the workers are lazy, the reward is much, and the Master is demanding.” He also used to say, “it is not your duty to complete the work, nor are you free to abandon it…”
Pirke Avot 2:20-21.
Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman’s posting has been sitting with me for the past four days, and her words- and the questions she asked- have come very close to identifying the feelings that lie behind my original posting that started this fascinating discussion.
I, too, have issues that “keep me up at night.” After almost thirty years in the (same) pulpit, I find myself increasingly assessing what has been the sum total of my effectiveness as a rabbi. I know that, via pastoral experiences that have spanned the tragic and the joyous, I have been a part of my members’ lives at critical junctures. The bonds created at those moments are unbreakable, and even at my most skeptical moments, I know that I have made a difference in their lives by bringing our tradition to bear on what they were experiencing, good or bad. That, actually, helps me sleep at night.
But what keeps me up is this question: outside of those critical moments where I know for sure that my intervention was important and significant, have I really changed people’s Jewish lives? Has my rabbinate- and the synagogue I lead- really made a difference?
When I was first ordained in 1981, I delivered a speech at a United Synagogue convention in Toronto that was full of the arrogance and hubris of a young rabbi. Not that I don’t think what I said was true; I do. But saying it so publicly was audacious in so many ways. It was intensely critical of the earlier generation of rabbis in the Conservative movement who had presided over the demographic expolsion of Conservative Judaism, and confused (I said) demography with religious vitality. They had four bar or bat mitvah ceremonies every Shabbat, but it had much more to do with the post-war baby boom than Conservative Judaism. Their caterers were happy, membership rosters were swelling, and so they chose not to “rock the boat” with any kind of articulation of religious responsibilities (read, hiyyuv).
I had submitted a copy of the speech to the United Synagogue leadership before the conference (as an organization of lay leaders, you can imagine that the speech went over quite well), and unbeknownst to me, they released it to the press. It became a front-page banner headline in the National Jewish Post and Opinion (in red ink, no less!), and one of the local Rabbinical Assembly regions actually had a motion advanced by some of my senior colleagues to censure me!
So, Rabbi Zimmerman, when you asked “what keeps you up at night?”. I was able to answer quite quickly. I spend a lot of (uncomfortable) time wondering whether or not, in all my rabbinic efforts to talk about hiyyuv, religious responsibility, the healthy and essential dialectic between traditional forms and practices and modernity, etc., I have really been any more effective than the generation of rabbis that I so broadly critiqued. You are asking essecntially the same question, but graciously broadening the scope. Are any of us really making a difference?
I have read all of the postings in this thread very carefully, and I hear those who would challenge me by saying that my insistence on traditional forms and concerns lies in the way of those who are the true seekers of our generation. But I guess I harbor equal concerns about alternate strategies- hence my original posting. And I fear that abandoning those traditional forms in the name of renewal may be causing us to cede the immediacy of our connection to that which is most precious in our tradition.
What I have learned from this exercise is that I have a lot to learn about the varied forms and expressions of renewal and transformation that organizations like Synagogue 3000 and STAR take, and that can only be a good thing. I am most grateful to Synagogue 3000 for providing me with this forum in which to express that which I think about 24/7, and I thank all who have shared their thoughts with me, and each other.
I’m responding to those who identify “relevance” as a chief goal in adapting Judaism to “meet people’s needs.” That answer is partially correct–if Judaism is disconnected from people lives, then what is the difference between a lecture about Judaism and a sermon on a Shabbat. One is meant to inform, the other is meant to shape a soul. So while the choices rabbis, educators, etc. make about how they present Judaism should be guided by relevance, they should also be informed by infusing life with holiness or kedusha–that which differentiates us from the way animals behave and which then elevates that behavior so that we can at least aspire to feeling transcendence. Relevance and kedusha are compatible and I’m sure that those who spoke about relevance have this in mind, too. But, I wanted to make it explicit.
In the consumerist world in which we live where “what’s in it for me,” is the operative question, “relevance” is the key to bringing the disenchanted,
disengaged majority of Jews back to Judaism and the synagogue. Theses folks will not care about “infusing life with holiness,” until Judaism and the synagogue prove that they understand their lives as they are lived and experienced in the 21rst century. The folks want to know that the synagogue and and Jewish teaching, have “walked a mile in their moccasins.” People have to leave the synagogue saying, “yes they really get it,” and not “so what,” or heaven forbid, “whatever.” The only hope for Judaism’s life transforming prescription of a life of holiness is through the doorway of relevance.
Though this just hit my desktop, Pastor Rick Warren gave this talk in 2007, and it is germane to this discussion. It’s a little less than 20 minutes long. And, in the spirit of Shim’on ben Zoma’s important question and answer, “Who is wise? One who learns from all people.†Pirke Avot 4:1; it is worthwhile as well. Re the Christian theology that’s used; I’ve found that mentally substituting Torah for Jesus, Godly for Christlike, and Torah for usually works quite well.
My question is simple: where are the talks like this one, on the Jewish side of the aisle to be found? Where/Who are the Jewish teachers that teach and talk about these things?
In my opinion, the traditional prayer (the 19 blessing of the Amidah referred to as ‘birkat hameeneem) recited 3 times a day on weekdays that beseeches G-d to destroy human life is certainly an obstacle for many Jews who would otherwise desire to enter a synagogue and worship with a congregation. I’ve met more than a few Jews who look at that liturgical text and wonder how the synagogue is different from a Islamist mosque.
Respectfully,
Steve
[...] Synagogue life and those who lean more heavily on the side of tradition. Nothing new, but check out Synagogue 3000: A Concurring Dissent; Or, Of Babies and Bathwater to see the debate unfold in clear (if rather lengthy) detail. Rabbi Gerald Skolnik takes the [...]
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June 5th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
June 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
This is a wonderful discussion. The problem with any attempts at a S3K solution are doomed to failure and will further cripple the Conservative movement. Why? This is a top down approach to address a moving target. Congregant wants erode, evolve and vary with each upcoming age demographic. Ultimately a structure of reliable integrity and authenticity is the only sustainable option. Take English translations for example: A prayerbook that has the most current modern English translation will in ten years read stilted and dated. The Hebrew text remains approachable.
The Conservative movement is empowered by its legitimacy as an authentic option to reform and orthodoxy. Two generations ago, congregants knew what this meant. There is a unique philosophical approach to learning, women can participate fully in learning and ritual, or at least be permitted to say Kaddish for themselves, and there is no call for return to animal sacrifice in a rebuilt temple — NOT orthodox. A congregant who participates routinely would be able to feel comfortable in ANY Jewish ritual or service setting WORLDWIDE — NOT reform. We are defining ourselves to death. By embracing a big umbrella of dynamic locally directed expression within those parameters, (instead of dictating what a S3K should look like) the movement becomes whole and may grow.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I want to thank Rabbi Skolnik for opening a thoughtful discussion and speaking from his spiritual conscience. That’s what good rabbis do. However, his post baffles me on a number of levels.
Rabbi Skolnik says that, “…I understand the goals of organizations like (STAR–Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal).†In the 10 years that I’ve been associated with STAR, to the best of my recollection, I haven’t had a single conversation with him STAR’s work. So I’d like to offer to meet with Rabbi Skolnick at his congregation and openly discuss with him the challenges that beset contemporary American synagogue. Or, as an alternative, I want to invite Rabbi Skolnick to Minneapolis where we can explore the rich, independent data that we have gathered over the years which tell a story of positive impact that our initiatives have had on congregations of all denominations across North America. We have a good grasp on what has been successful and what has not, we think that it’s important to dialogue with others who share our passion for Jewish life and the synagogue, and to have rich conversations which are informed both by feeling and fact.
We have conducted approximately 20 independent, formative evaluations of our Synaplex™ Initiative, which about 200 congregations have experienced over the past six years. Each time we’ve evaluated synagogues, they typically report an initial doubling or tripling of participants on a Synaplex Shabbat. Even now, we have anecdotal data which suggest that many synagogues have sustained this increased involvement. We’ve also heard frequently that Synaplex participants take on new volunteer roles and learn new skills as a result of a joyful Shabbat experience. Those synagogues which have worked with STAR have every reason to be proud of raising the bar of expectation of what it means to be a part of a Shabbat community.
Like synagogues, we also take the notion of being created in God’s image seriously. For us, that means three things:
1. We don’t try to remake synagogues in some predetermined image
2. We don’t try to remake rabbis in some predetermined image
3. We don’t try to remake Jewish individuals in some predetermined image.
Rather, just as God created each individual with unique attributes, we appreciate the individuality of synagogues, rabbis, and Jews. That is why we empower rabbis in synagogues to dream bigger about Jewish life, provide them with frameworks which they adapt to their settings and then support them in achieving those dreams with ongoing learning and organizational tools.
Marketing, at STAR, means building and sustaining relationships with active members, inactive members and potential members. Marketing recognizes that in a world of choices, synagogues and rabbis need to be in regular touch with their community, putting out information about their synagogues smartly and receiving constructive feedback gracefully. Marketing means creating an ongoing dialogue with members and not assuming that just because someone is involved today means that they will choose to be involved tomorrow.
Finally, I want to observe that Rabbi Skolnik has had the “sovereignty†to make his choice about the kind of Judaism that best suits him. Through our efforts, we just want to make sure that all who care about synagogue life have the same opportunity. That’s why I believe that STAR and other initiatives, while not perfect, have made a significant contribution to synagogue life and the American Jewish community.
Rabbi Hayim Herring, Executive Director, STAR
June 9th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Millions of Jews feel they are disenfranchised from synagogue life. They have voted with their feet and stayed away in droves. As stated eloquently by Ron Wolfson… (paraphrased) the Ruach felt at Jewish camps are not being translated to ha beit Knesset (synagogue). Yes, we can continue to do the same things, the same ways but remember, we will get the same results.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Shalom All,
People do things for two reasons: because they want to or because they have to. For the vast majority who identify as Jews (the approximately 4/7 Jews who are unaffiliated as well as the majority of the non Orthodox affiliated), Judaism and the synagogue are not in the “have to” (read obligatory) category and no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days” (read the middle ages) will change that fact. What’s left is the great opportunity to persuade those Jews to “convert” to the “want to” group. In today’s consumerist world, Judaism/the synagogue must compete in the arena of ideas and leisure time/discretionary income choices. People will give of their time, talents and tithes to that which is perceived to have value. Synagogues and Judaism are perceived by the masses of Jews as having at best marginal value and thus the result is at best marginal commitment.
The problem is relevance, specifically the lack thereof. Most Jews have voted with their feet that the synagogue and/or Judaism is/are irrelevant. Judaism and synagogues have to re-earn their place in the life of most who identify as Jews. To do this, synagogues need to deliver a Judaism which is relevant, practical, challenging and life application oriented, showing that Judaism actually speaks to life as it is lived and experienced in the 21rst century, ie., teach and talk about what Judaism has to say about our physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual well-being.
As Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church as well as the author of “A Purpose Driven Life,†has said: “clergy need to ’say something on Sunday that people can use on Monday.’†Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman who wrote “Rethinking Synagogues†calls this: sermons that emphasize where “Torah meets life.†So….. “on one foot†rabbi’s (and I‘ve heard many from the pews over the years) need to become/be made more aware that the content of their bimah teaching always be about answering the question, “why think/do Jewish?â€
All that’s left of “Judaism” for most who identify as Jews is the trivial to nearly meaningless “Jewishness,” that manifests as lifecycle “fixes” (b’not/b’nei mitzva births, weddings and funerals), the occasional perceived need for a worship service e.g., high holidays (yet another “guilt fix” for ever fewer Jews), the Holocaust/anti semitism, and let’s not forget an occasional trip to the Jewish deli/ restuarant. This residual Jewishness will go the way of borscht
belt humor and the Catskills. As the older generations pass, nostalgia (nose pain) will have less and less of a pull. It’s already quite evident among busters and millenials.
There is hope and it is in learning the lessons of successful megachurches, a segment of organized religious life that continues to grow in contradistinction to the remainder of denominations that are in decline. Kudos to Synagogue 3K as well as the Reform movement who had Pastor Rick Warren at their Biennial convention in Dec., 2007, for recognizing this important Truth. One of those lessons is found above in the paragraph that begins “The problem is relevance…”
Kol Tuv,
Biv’racha,
Jordan
June 9th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
“…no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days†(read the middle ages)..”
Although I’ve never been compared to an ostrich before, nor have I ever thought of myself as living in the middle ages, I think that, in his comment, Jordan has successfully illustrated what I was trying to say in my original posting.
I am grateful to Ron Wolfson, Steven Cohen, and Larry Hoffman for their most thoughtful and considered responses to what I wrote. Though the “teaser” for my blog accentuated the concerns that I have with the synagogue renewal movement, the truth is that I am enormously respectful of the work that it has done to bring alienated Jews into the active ranks of synagogue life, even if, in some fundamental ways, I come at the same challenge from a different place. If my original posting implied otherwise, then I am obliged to state that clearly. In very important ways, I consider you all my teachers, and my colleagues.
But here’s the thing. Maybe it’s just me, and my particular sensitivities given the upbringing of which I spoke of in my blog, but I have never felt that the synagogue renewal movement genuinely came at its work from a judgement-free perspective. No, Hayim, you and I have never had a personal conversation about the work of STAR, but for just about the past ten years or so, I’ve used a piece on the sovereign self. written by you and included in a wonderful, small paperback volume published by STAR, as an assigned text for the rabbinical and cantorial students in my senior seminar on professional skills at JTS. I obviously value your writing and thinking. But I’ve also “heard” in the tone of some of your writings an implicit assumption that the synagogue as we know it is essentially dead or dying, and needs to be re-created. ( I wish I had the text with me, but I’m not at home. Ironically, I’m at the Legacy Heritage retreat in Newark, because my synagogue’s Religious School received a grant to develop a new Shabbat-morning track for our second and third graders and their parents…. innovation!).
When my antennae pick up messages like that, messages that make me feel like the aforementioned ostrich trying to recapture the good old days of the middle ages (kind of insulting, by the way), it trips that wire in me that makes me feel hopelessly like a dinosaur, and I find that feeling distinctly and undeservedly unpleasant.
I’m not in the business of conserving for conserving’s sake; I can adapt with the best of them. Twenty years ago I risked my job to convert my synagogue to full egalitarianism, and in ways both more and less subtle I have tweaked long-established practices in our service. But I have also worked hard during my almost three decades in the same community to conserve what I considered to be of timeless value, and to teach others to love it and appreciate it as I have. No, it won’t be for everyone. Yes, there have been, and continue to be, pieces of my own synagogue that need to be “transformed,” and all of this is very much on my agenda. But I do not like the implication that “I am a large urban Conservative synagogue with a traditional (though egalitarian) main service, ergo I must be dying.” I hear you, Ron, Larry and Steve- and Hayim. It is not the agenda of STAR or Synagogue 3000 to transmit that message. But I am not the only pulpit rabbi who hears it, and on my better days, I like to think that keeping my occasionally crotchety if historic synagogue moving on down the road through major neighborhood change, the transition to egalitarianism with minimal trauma, being saddled with a building whose sanctuary architecture is at complete cross-purposes with the “ruach” that I want to create in shul… all this has been a pretty neat trick. If I’m a dinosaur, I’d like to think I’m a crafty one.
And not extinct yet.
Gerry Skolnik
June 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I find it very interesting when talking with rabbis. They are so comfortable
with their tradition. Most of them having been brought up in observant homes and in close Jewish communities. These rabbis really don’t get it.
They do not quite understand the lack of ‘rootedness’ most Jews feel today. Not withstanding “the Israel Connection”, many thousands of young and older Jewish men and women have turned to other faiths and have become the leaders in American Buddhism, Mooneys, EST, Scientology, American Hinduism, etc. etc.
They see modern synagogues as institutions lacking in any sort of Godly encounter (aside from the triology of daily rout davening). These Jewish souls have never been exposed to all the hidden jewels tucked away in the vaults of Jewish thought.
Jews hunger and are driven toward ideas and concepts which help to answer their call to relevancy. They need and want to know that the meanings they search for in their heritage can be found in and at the synagogue and are not for all intensive purposes clouded over with unending ritual practice tempered only periodically with pragmatic idealism.
The lack of Ruach, Kavanah, Hisbodedut and Mussar is so evident in even Orthodox shuls. The spiritual nature of Judaism is lost to those seeking a reason to re-discover what they in reality never had. At least S3 recognizes the problems and has looked inward for innovative solutions. I
honor and repect those brave souls who dared to think outside the box.
Allan Koven
June 9th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Shalom All,
@Rabbi Gary,
For the record I did not compare you to an ostrich as you suggested in your last post. I did say, “For the vast majority who identify as Jews (the approximately 4/7 Jews who are unaffiliated as well as the majority of the non Orthodox affiliated), Judaism and the synagogue are not in the “have to†(read obligatory) category and no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days†(read the middle ages) will change that fact.”
As you can see I was referring to your ideas and not you. This is not just a semantic triviality. I am sorry you felt insulted and ideas are fair game in a forum such as this one. I offered mine and welcome any and all criticism.
@Allan
Bingo and Dittos!!!
June 9th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Shalom Rabbi Gerry,
Sorry I misspelled your name in my last post.
Biv’racha,
Jordan
June 9th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Gerry—I’m also away facilitating 2 back-to-back executive leadership development programs for congregational rabbis (STAR Rabbis: From Good to Great). There’s not enough space to comment on their excellence, and as we promise confidentiality, I can’t express the angst of some over synagogues, but also the optimism of many. Having personally served a large suburban congregation for 10 years, I identify with your concerns, and theirs, but am also inspired by their willingness to hold on to two goals simultaneously:
1. Maintain and value Shabbat services which authentically reflect congregational, denominational and ideological history.
2. Experiment on Shabbat and during the week with spiritual, educational, cultural and social alternatives which expand possibilities for involvement and Jewish growth.
These goals can be compatible. Liberal (i.e., non-Orthodox) synagogue services work for some but not most American Jews. (This is not a judgment, but a description of reality, and for many of us it’s a hard fact.) But, when synagogue leaders demonstrate a willingness to turn up the dial on innovation with the outcome of connecting more Jews to the heritage—the yerusha—that we love (as you’ve done and are doing now), we create pathways between them and the work of the synagogue. Whether we define that work as infusing life with Jewish spiritual meaning, making the synagogue a microcosm of a perfected world, or creating sacred community, it’s work that urgently needs to be done.
A few other points of information:
1. For those interested, you can now pre-order Synagogues in a Time of Change. Fragmentation and Diversity in Jewish Religious Movements, published by The Alban Institute, in cooperation with The National Center for Jewish Policy Studies at Hebrew College and STAR, forthcoming in a few weeks. Among others, this volume has been praised by Dr. Jonathan Sarna, Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz and Ambassador Alfred H. Moses.
2. Rabbis and volunteers leaders who decide to work with STAR re-envision the synagogue as Beit Knesset, a house of social meeting; as Beit Midrash, a house of study; and as Beit Tefilah, a house of prayer, three authentic functions of the synagogue. They, not STAR, determine in which “container†they want to pour their energies.
3. The publication which you reference is likely the “The Commanding Community and the Sovereign Self: Increasing Understanding Between Synagogue Dwellers and Spiritual Seekers,†which offers a way to bridge the gap between these two communities. You can find it in Re-Envisioning the Synagogue, published by The National Center for Jewish Policy Studies at Hebrew College and STAR, Spring, 2005.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:31 am
June 11th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Let me bring another perspective to this discussion.
I am an Orthodox Jew and Rabbi, and have been my entire life. I am also a product of programs run by S3K as well as programs run by STAR. My desire to grow personally and profesionally led me to STAR’s Peer program, as well as to S3K’s emerging communities cohort. Both of these groups forced me to ask myself important questions about how I could imrove my Rabbinate. As an Orthodox Rabbi, I feel fully confident in my rejection of instruments during tefilla, rejection of substitution of Hebrew prayer for english prayer, and adherence to a life of obligatory practice. I refuse to lower the bar when it comes to expectations I place on myself and on my congregants; expectations that include nothing less than a fully observant lifestyle.
Both S3K and STAR have been fully accepting and supportive of my philosophical background. They have allowed me to further explore what I do and how I do it, and simply asked that I evaluate various aspects of my Rabbinate in a quest for continued excellence.
So to me this whole discussion is somewhat foreign.
The questions need to be asked. The answers that are found will be dependent on one’s community and background. To me, the questions that Rabbi Skolnick brings up are less about S3K and STAR and more about the religious communities that are moving in the directions that Rabbi Skolnick describes.
Daniel Alter
DAT Minyan
Denver,Colorado
June 11th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I feel compelled to respond to this interesting debate, both as a Jew and as a Jewish professional. I am the Director of Congregational Engagement for Synagogue 3000, which means that I spend my days trying to understand and help rabbis and cantors in the field combat the terrifying reality that Steven Cohen explains to us: We’re losing Jews. I am a proud alum of the STAR Peer Rabbinic Fellowship, the Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellowship and the CLAL Internship– all of which provided me with incredible opportunities (and mentors) to re- envision my rabbinate. Several years ago, Naomi Meyer, wife of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer z”l invited the rabbinic fellows in the program bearing her visionary husband’s name to her home to talk about the future of Judaism. “What keeps you up at night?” Naomi asked each one of us. Uncharacteristic for me, I sat in the circle in silence.
I had no answer to her question because i still believed that creative davenning and beautiful music on Shabbat would save the Jewish people. Naomi posed the question seven years ago– and only now do I have an answer: I am terrified that there will be no Jews left– maybe even in my lifetime. Unlike my grandparents, who survived the horrors of the Shoah, it is not the annihilation of the Jewish people from an outside evil force that I most fear. It is the fact that my generation and the generation growing up after me simply doesn’t care to protect and cherish our ancient traditions, texts or customs. And worse yet– we don’t even care to use the incredible system of change, evolution and reevaluation of Judaism which has always been at the core of our religion.
Rabbi Skolnik, I honor your struggle to determine if we should change davenning or davenners. You ask a very important question: Are we allowing the tail to wag the dog? Meaning– are we so desperate to hold on to people that we’ll do anything at all that looks a tiny bit
Jewish– and say it’s sufficient– as long as people will still show
up? And I respect the different viewpoints represented by many of my
teachers in the thoughtful responses to your concern. But– I think your question is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue here is not whether people feel obligated to pray and how accessible to make our services.
Let’s be honest: In generations past, people were willing to give their lives for Judaism. Gd forbid anyone is ever faced with that choice again. But I ask you: If the struggle at Masada, the Spanish Inquisition or the Shoah were to take place today, would anyone declare their Judaism central to their existence? Or would most Jews say “my grandparents were Jewish but I practice Buddhist meditation and have a Hindu mind-body spirituality and a deep sense of empathy for the Palestinians… I’m not a member of a tribe, I’m a citizen of the world” ? We are assimilating ourselves out of existence– maybe not, as Steven Cohen suggests, because of intermarriage, but rather, because of that which allows interfaith marriage: our profound education in all subjects but Judaism.
We, Jewish educators, have failed the Jewish people by not educating them. It’s not just about davenning; it’s not just about Hebrew; it’s not just about halacha. Why should American Jews come into the beautiful synagogues we’ve built to listen to the beautiful music we’ve written, when we’ve failed to show them how truly exquisite Judaism is? So many of the Jews out there have no idea what they’re throwing away– because they don’t know what it is that they have. It is easier for us to debate superficial questions– Hebrew or English? mixed seating or separate? instruments or not?–than to recognize the real problem.
The Minquass tribe in New Mexico teaches: “If the eyes had no tears, the soul would have no rainbow.” Does anyone care enough to cry? I certainly hope so, because the rainbow is Gd’s promise that there will be a future.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:21 am
[...] 11, 2009 Synagogue 3000 guest blogger Rabbi Gerald Skolnik gives an interesting take on the field of synagogue transformation. It’s generated an [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 11:29 am
[...] We encourage you to take a few minutes to weigh in on these issues. Read the Synablog post and comments. [...]
June 12th, 2009 at 7:56 am
At the November 2008 convention of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation I was asked to participate in one of the opening plenary discussions. The topic was “Strengthening and Transforming Congregational Lifeâ€. Hayim Herring, Executive Director, STAR and Amy Sales, Director of the Fisher-Bernstein Institute for Jewish Philanthropy and Leadership at Brandeis University, also spoke. Here are the thoughts I shared from that talk as I they appeared in our synagogue’s newsletter. Bnai Keshet is a Reconstructionist synagogue of about 250 household Montclair, NJ.
During my six years at Bnai Keshet we have participated in about as many synagogue transformation programs as possible. We were part of the first three year cohort of Synaplex, we were one of three synagogues to participate in a year of long range planning sponsored by STAR and we are in our third year of funding for a Legacy Heritage and Innovation Project. I am enormously grateful to have been included in each of these projects. Together these programs have provided ongoing and meaningful leadership development for our congregation. They have encouraged us to experiment and expand our programming and vision. They have opened up our Shabbat practice and helped us to launch our Values-In-Action Program and our Shabbat Bet Midrash.
However, my experience with these programs has also left me concerned about some weaknesses in these programs. In particular synagogue transformation programs are often so focused on the type of programming being developed, and the business of marketing that programming effectively or the business aspects of the synagogue (all of which are important) that they neglect paying close attention to what I believe are the core elements of synagogue life: building relational/covenantal community, building a spiritually meaningful Jewish practice and making Judaism relevant outside the walls of the synagogue.
Relational Transformation
As an example, one of the most transformational moments in synagogue life is when its members show up to shiva minyanim even when they don’t know the mourners. Being in each other’s homes almost always deepens relationships, but showing up at a shiva minyan helps concretize a covenantal commitment that transcends our particular personal relationships. It helps to clarify that the synagogue unlike many other membership organizations, comes with an expectation of community and mutual inter-dependence.
During the same time that Bnai Keshet has been participating in the official synagogue transformation programs mentioned above, we have also been engaging in Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO). We initially got involved in CBCO as a way of strengthening our commitment to social justice work. I believe that CBCO has been at least as transformational as any of these programs primarily because of its focus on building relationships and taking action rooted in self-interest. More than 200 members have participated in face-to-face relational meetings and house meetings to determine what kinds of issues might most be in our congregation’s interest to take action on. In these meetings we asked questions like, “What keeps you up at night?†or “What is a pressure or challenge in your life that most affects you or people you care about?â€. It is remarkable how often Bnai Keshet members have left those discussions feeling profoundly connected to one another, often in a way that they had never experienced before. These conversations have helped fuel our work around ending the genocide in Darfur, caring for the environment and strengthening our relationship to Israel. At the same time they have been an engine for helping to shape our congregations understanding of itself. Our Shabbat in which members of our congregation shared stories about their struggles with healthcare and health insurance transformed our understanding of how these issues effect people in our own community. Over and over again this process has built new lines of connection and community amongst our membership. I think we are still uncovering the impact of telling each other these stories and finding ways to take action in response to them.
Spiritual Transformation
I wish there were more programs focused on energizing synagogue services. Services are our most frequent and consistent program. We do them every week. Everyone, even those who rarely attend, understands services to be part of the core mission of a synagogue. Still there are remarkably few programs or grants centered on vitalizing this core aspect of synagogue life. Programs come and go but services remain. Sadly they often remain unchanged for years on end.
I believe that the core of every congregation should include spiritually energizing and engaging services. Our Ritual Committee (which I hope will officially be renamed the “Spiritual Life Committeeâ€) has recently committed to spending at least 80% of its time focused on deepening the spiritual experience of our members and broadening participation in and leadership of services. One of its projects that we are just starting is a series of experimental Shabbat services. We are planning services that speak to different spiritual edges of our community including: Jewish Renewal, Humanist and energetic traditional. These services are happening in our main sanctuary and are for the entire community. Our hope is that we will all be stretched by these services and expand the spiritual palette of the synagogue. But ultimately we anticipate that these experimental services will help to bring new energy and vitalizing ideas into all of our services.
Too often we settle for stale service rather than demanding exceptional services. Though many people join synagogues for reasons other than services, it is worth noting that many of the most dynamic synagogues in the country have very dynamic services. A vital service brings vitality and new membership to the synagogue.
Experimental Transformation
The best thing that Synaplex and the Legacy Heritage programs have taught us is to experiment. Both grants have pushed us to try new things. Many of have failed or proved unsustainable. I think a big part of my job as Rabbi is to support the congregational leadership in trying new things. This includes reminding everyone that it is alright, even good, to fail. Or that something new we try might be great even if there are some complaints that might change how we do it next time. It also means remembering that change is not always comfortable but that it is o.k. to sometimes be uncomfortable.
This year for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur our congregation experimented with CART, a system that provides real time captioning for the hearing impaired. Our hope was that CART would make our services more accessible to our members and to the Jewish community as a whole. Though this service would cost some money and might not work perfectly we felt it was so clearly in line with our community’s core values we should try it. Ultimately it wasn’t perfect. Some people found it distracting and it was not without technological challenges. We had to remind ourselves not to let these legitimate complaints cause unnecessary anxiety. This was an experiment that grew out of our congregation’s vision of itself as a truly welcoming community. Along with some complaints there were comments from members saying, “I never knew how much I was missing because of my hearing aids.†A first time attendee whose mother is deaf shared how meaningful it was to be at a synagogue with CART after growing up in a synagogue which refused a similar service for her mother. Members of the broader New Jersey Jewish Deaf community have showed up to Friday night services just to see what we are all about. Was CART perfect? No. But was it an important and transformative experiment? Yes! Most importantly we can learn from its and successes and get it better next year.
Evaluational Transformation
Though every congregational transformation program stresses the importance of evaluating your efforts, it has really again been through our training in organizing (CBCO) that has helped us institutionalize the practice of evaluation. We now end every Board meeting and many committee meetings with some time for evaluation. I hope this practice will expand to many more areas of our synagogue life. It is important because it helps us to appreciate what is working and to recognize what is failing. Sometimes the most important aspects of transformation require disorganizing what isn’t working or what is only average. Ending a program that is struggling or a practice that is not very functional is liberating. It often creates space and energy for something new and energizing. But the most important part of the practice of evaluation is that it creates the expectation that all of our time together matters! Evaluation helps us to remember that our time which we give with great generosity to the community should not be squandered. It reminds us that everything we do together should reinforce our core values and help to build a relational community that is spiritually energizing and relevant to our lives in and outside of the synagogue.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Skolnik clearly is concerned that S3K, possibly to the detriment of Judaism, is biased toward many of what he perceives as Reform Judaism practice and philosophy. To support his position, he relates Orthodox Judaism’s successful outreach to its ability to have daveners meet the demands of davening. Confusing correlation with causation, he would have the reader believe that if he could somehow immerse great numbers of uncommitted Jews in traditional prayer regularly, the future of Judaism’s would be strengthened.
Unfortunately, comments by Hoffman, and Cohen concentrate their rebuttal on Skolnik’s questionable thesis and don’t elucidate the big issue raised in Skolnik’s message: Namely, how should S3K assist concerned Jews create and increase engagement in sacred Jewish communities, and how can we attract uncommitted Jews and others to these communities? Honoring Skolnik’s arguments about the centrality of davening, Hebrew, and music at prayer services, I point out that these important aspects of Judaism are only part of why Jews often do not choose to affiliate in Jewish communities.
The other day at our havurah meeting, I was asked why I joined (Reform) temple. I responded that as I moved closer to retirement, I wanted to be in community with Jews. I was then asked to explain what I meant by “community.†I was not eloquent in responding and blabbered something about having friends, which I quickly realized I was not lacking presently.
What is a Jewish community, for this discussion, a ‘sacred†Jewish community? For me, it is attending Shabbat services regularly on Friday evenings; it is Torah Study on Saturday morning; it is the opportunity to have meaningful chats with a 20-something young lady and an 85-year-old young lady at text study; it is the opportunity to have coffee with the rabbi, it is the opportunity to join the temple team in the Rely for Life for cancer survivors, it is the opportunity to serve the poor at a local soup kitchen downtown along with other congregants and their children, and the opportunity to reorganize the temple men’s group…and much more.
The challenge to S3K is to help temples of all denominations create sacred Jewish communities that Jews and others of all backgrounds will feel comfortable joining and engaging in. Depending on their Jewish upbringing, some will wish to join a more traditional congregation, while others will prefer a less traditional congregation. We live in a pluralistic society where choice is essential. However, I concur with an implication of the Skolnik piece and the remarks of the other responders that leaders of the broad Jewish community need to establish the criteria for what constitutes a “sacred Jewish community.†The complexity of such a task introduces opportunities and challenges. Echoing the remarks of Zimmerman, The future of Judaism depends on its successful, timely completion.
June 14th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Shalom all,
Indeed, this has been an interesting thread! Warning: an overarching assumption and generalization about the status quo is coming. To the vast majority of Jews in the non-orthodox world, Judaism is of trivial to near meaningless concern, and its primary delivery system, the synagogue, has been and remains ineffective in changing that truth. Quite simply Judaism and the synagogue are marginal to irrelevant to most Jews.
We’ve done a fine job identifying the status quo. Few of us have outlined an actual strategy for fixing Judaism’s primary delivery system, i.e., the synagogue, in order to move Judaism from a fringe concern to a more valuable part of the lives of most Jews. To be sure, that’s what S3K and STAR are trying to do. And I find it quite disconcerting to have read the post of Rabbi Jessica, an alum of both of these organizations and a now a consultant for S3K. Rabbi Jessica with state-of-the-art Jewish leadership training is at wit’s end about the status quo and what to do about it. No blame or finger-pointing intended; I’m just trying to understand.
The challenge is to help Rabbi Jessica with the following hypothetical and question. You have ONE chance to Jewishly reach your Jewishly disengaged
“Gen X” peers. Budget is NOT an issue. Our objective/goal is not only to get them to assemble initially; it’s to engage them in such a way that they would want to return for “seconds.” What strategy and tactics will/would we employ? I know that this is the $64 zillion dollar question and I believe that we have the insight and tools to formulate a workable plan.
I wrote “one chance,” as I believe the truth of the old “Brylcreem” (hair goop) commercial, that “you only get one chance to make a good first impression.” Combine this with the fact that in a world of internet and information abundance the only thing that is really scarce is attention, and you can see the importance of getting it right the first time.
I offered the beginnings of a solution to the hypothetical that I just posed in my longer post above in the paragraph that began, “The problem is relevance..” In the spirit of Shim’on ben Zoma’s important question and answer, “Who is wise? One who learns from all people.” Pirke Avot 4:1, I offered hope in the form of the suggestion to learn the lessons of successful megachurches, a segment of organized religious life that continues to grow in contradistinction to the remainder of denominations that are in decline.
Rabbi Tarfon said, “the day is short, and the work is great, the workers are lazy, the reward is much, and the Master is demanding.” He also used to say, “it is not your duty to complete the work, nor are you free to abandon it…”
Pirke Avot 2:20-21.
Shavu’a Tov to all of us,
Biv’racha,
Jordan
June 15th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman’s posting has been sitting with me for the past four days, and her words- and the questions she asked- have come very close to identifying the feelings that lie behind my original posting that started this fascinating discussion.
I, too, have issues that “keep me up at night.” After almost thirty years in the (same) pulpit, I find myself increasingly assessing what has been the sum total of my effectiveness as a rabbi. I know that, via pastoral experiences that have spanned the tragic and the joyous, I have been a part of my members’ lives at critical junctures. The bonds created at those moments are unbreakable, and even at my most skeptical moments, I know that I have made a difference in their lives by bringing our tradition to bear on what they were experiencing, good or bad. That, actually, helps me sleep at night.
But what keeps me up is this question: outside of those critical moments where I know for sure that my intervention was important and significant, have I really changed people’s Jewish lives? Has my rabbinate- and the synagogue I lead- really made a difference?
When I was first ordained in 1981, I delivered a speech at a United Synagogue convention in Toronto that was full of the arrogance and hubris of a young rabbi. Not that I don’t think what I said was true; I do. But saying it so publicly was audacious in so many ways. It was intensely critical of the earlier generation of rabbis in the Conservative movement who had presided over the demographic expolsion of Conservative Judaism, and confused (I said) demography with religious vitality. They had four bar or bat mitvah ceremonies every Shabbat, but it had much more to do with the post-war baby boom than Conservative Judaism. Their caterers were happy, membership rosters were swelling, and so they chose not to “rock the boat” with any kind of articulation of religious responsibilities (read, hiyyuv).
I had submitted a copy of the speech to the United Synagogue leadership before the conference (as an organization of lay leaders, you can imagine that the speech went over quite well), and unbeknownst to me, they released it to the press. It became a front-page banner headline in the National Jewish Post and Opinion (in red ink, no less!), and one of the local Rabbinical Assembly regions actually had a motion advanced by some of my senior colleagues to censure me!
So, Rabbi Zimmerman, when you asked “what keeps you up at night?”. I was able to answer quite quickly. I spend a lot of (uncomfortable) time wondering whether or not, in all my rabbinic efforts to talk about hiyyuv, religious responsibility, the healthy and essential dialectic between traditional forms and practices and modernity, etc., I have really been any more effective than the generation of rabbis that I so broadly critiqued. You are asking essecntially the same question, but graciously broadening the scope. Are any of us really making a difference?
I have read all of the postings in this thread very carefully, and I hear those who would challenge me by saying that my insistence on traditional forms and concerns lies in the way of those who are the true seekers of our generation. But I guess I harbor equal concerns about alternate strategies- hence my original posting. And I fear that abandoning those traditional forms in the name of renewal may be causing us to cede the immediacy of our connection to that which is most precious in our tradition.
What I have learned from this exercise is that I have a lot to learn about the varied forms and expressions of renewal and transformation that organizations like Synagogue 3000 and STAR take, and that can only be a good thing. I am most grateful to Synagogue 3000 for providing me with this forum in which to express that which I think about 24/7, and I thank all who have shared their thoughts with me, and each other.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I’m responding to those who identify “relevance” as a chief goal in adapting Judaism to “meet people’s needs.” That answer is partially correct–if Judaism is disconnected from people lives, then what is the difference between a lecture about Judaism and a sermon on a Shabbat. One is meant to inform, the other is meant to shape a soul. So while the choices rabbis, educators, etc. make about how they present Judaism should be guided by relevance, they should also be informed by infusing life with holiness or kedusha–that which differentiates us from the way animals behave and which then elevates that behavior so that we can at least aspire to feeling transcendence. Relevance and kedusha are compatible and I’m sure that those who spoke about relevance have this in mind, too. But, I wanted to make it explicit.
Rabbi Hayim Herring
June 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Shalom All,
In the consumerist world in which we live where “what’s in it for me,” is the operative question, “relevance” is the key to bringing the disenchanted,
disengaged majority of Jews back to Judaism and the synagogue. Theses folks will not care about “infusing life with holiness,” until Judaism and the synagogue prove that they understand their lives as they are lived and experienced in the 21rst century. The folks want to know that the synagogue and and Jewish teaching, have “walked a mile in their moccasins.” People have to leave the synagogue saying, “yes they really get it,” and not “so what,” or heaven forbid, “whatever.” The only hope for Judaism’s life transforming prescription of a life of holiness is through the doorway of relevance.
Bivracha,
Jordan
June 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Jordan–agreed and thanks for keeping this discussion going in various forums. Rabbi H
June 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Shalom All,
Though this just hit my desktop, Pastor Rick Warren gave this talk in 2007, and it is germane to this discussion. It’s a little less than 20 minutes long. And, in the spirit of Shim’on ben Zoma’s important question and answer, “Who is wise? One who learns from all people.†Pirke Avot 4:1; it is worthwhile as well. Re the Christian theology that’s used; I’ve found that mentally substituting Torah for Jesus, Godly for Christlike, and Torah for usually works quite well.
My question is simple: where are the talks like this one, on the Jewish side of the aisle to be found? Where/Who are the Jewish teachers that teach and talk about these things?
http://www.qideas.org/talks/default.aspx?id=14
Happy Father’s Day and Shavu’a tov,
Biv’racha,
Jordan
June 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
In my opinion, the traditional prayer (the 19 blessing of the Amidah referred to as ‘birkat hameeneem) recited 3 times a day on weekdays that beseeches G-d to destroy human life is certainly an obstacle for many Jews who would otherwise desire to enter a synagogue and worship with a congregation. I’ve met more than a few Jews who look at that liturgical text and wonder how the synagogue is different from a Islamist mosque.
Respectfully,
Steve
June 26th, 2009 at 3:18 am
June 28th, 2009 at 9:42 am
June 28th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Shalom All,
More than a week (five posts ago) has gone by since I posted my question
and the silence is deafening. Oh well……….
Shavu’a tov to all of us,
Biv’racha,
Jordan