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communities and consumers
Launch point: B'rachot 8a, where the Amoraim are discussing places for torah study versus places for prayer and (later commenters) whether it is appropriate to suspend study in order to pray with a minyan. That is, if you're already in the study hall and there's no minyan and it's time to pray, do you pray there or go join the minyan? Some argue that study is more important than supporting the community in the minyan. This led us to a more general discussion: the tension between supporting community values and partaking of community offerings.
For the side that supports staying in the study hall, torah study is the ultimate mitzvah -- what we're made for (or rather, what elite scholars are made for). The sage best serves the community by limiting time away from the study hall, even if it means not making a minyan in the synagogue. The conclusive argument against, ironically, is that it will appear that he is shirking his obligation to the community (the minyan) even while he believes he is fulfilling that obligation (study).
This led us to talk about supporting the community in general. Why do congregations have trouble getting people to show up for weekday services? It's a source of frustration to some of us that our congregation of over 800 families can't reliably get a minyan for one weekday service a week. We thought that by narrowing the focus we'd avoid splitting the resources; there are probably people out there who will show up once a week but not daily, so we decided to limit the days. But it didn't work. (We used to do two days a week; that didn't work either.) Even the people who I think of as the dedicated core do not reliably show up. Yet people say they want it to exist.
People who want to -- a couple times a year -- show up to say mourners' kaddish want it to be there for them, but don't necessarily want to support others in similar quests. It's a "consumer" attitude -- what does the shul do for me? -- rather than a "community" attitude -- what do my fellow community members need? I think it's inherent in large shuls; in small shuls you know everyone and that makes it more personal.
Now it's not just us, not by a long shot, and it's not us in all things. People do show up for Shabbat and holiday services; people attend mitzvah day and participate in other acts of community service; people volunteer their time in the school and on committees and the board; people cough up a fair bit of money to keep the place running. All of this is important and I'm not trying to dismiss that. The people in charge of all of these activities will tell you that there are not enough people doing these things, but there are some. But we were talking primarily about worship.
I pointed out that if you're inclusive then you have to expect a wide range in commitment levels, from twice-a-year Jews who write a dues check and have no other contact on up to the folks who organize the community-service teams and show up every Shabbat and do a zillion other things. Our congregation has a long-standing policy of being a "big tent", of welcoming everyone who wants to be part of our family. But that doesn't mean you have a lot in common with the fourth cousins three times removed, y'know?
So why be a big tent? Why are there huge congregations? (That's not a universal truth; Pittsburgh has very large and very small congregations, and near as I can tell not much in between. But the small ones exist in all movements.) It all comes down to money. Synagogues require infrastructure, and infrastructure costs money, and a lot of that cost is fixed costs that are the same whether you have 100 members or 500. So if you can spread those costs out over more people, you make the per-person load more bearable. We run congregations the way we run businesses, because we do, after all, have to pay the mortgage and the gas bill and the salaries.
But if your 500-member congregation loses 200 members, you're going to have to either raise dues a lot or cut services. Maybe you can't afford a cantor any more, or you cut back the Sunday school, or whatever. And that may cause even more people to leave, because they aren't getting the services they're used to for the dues they pay. Because consumers expect value in proportion to cost, and the community might not have been strong in such a large congregation.
And it's always easier on the way up than on the way down. The 300-member congregation hasn't yet had a cantor, say, so they don't know what they're missing. The 500-member congregation that loses 200 members and its cantor feels a tangible loss. Eventually, if that keeps up, you merge, find a source of fresh people, or implode. Too often, implode.
I'm not worried about my congregation; while I might not know three-quarters of the members to see them on the street, I believe the core is healthy and we could survive a minor setback in membership. (Not the 40% I was talking about earlier, but that sort of thing either happens over a long time or is caused by some major event. We're studying demographics and the like now to address the former, and we're pretty good about not having major negative events.) Our congregation isn't going to disappear or make drastic changes.
But congregations of consumers are at more risk than congregations of community members, so it's worth thinking about ways to turn the former into the latter. No answers; just something to throw on the back burner.
This could probably do with more of an edit, but I have to go to sleep so I can go to minyan in the morning. :-)
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I should also clarify, because I don't think I was very clear about this last night, that I'm not so much whining or calling for change as sadly noting a trend. In a Reform congregation, in particular, we have to recognize people's autonomy; it's not like Conservative or Orthodox where we can say "you have an obligation to be here". That said, it would be nice if the people who don't come don't come because they made an autonomous decision not to, rather than because they just didn't feel like it. :-)
I also didn't mean to imply "consumer bad, community good"; it's not nearly that simple. Pretty much every new congregation starts as a community in someone's living room; something brings that particular group of people together, after all. Somewhere on the way to getting a building and a rabbi and a budget they have to shift to a business model, and people treat businesses differently from the way they treat the living-room community.
(Aside: the congregations that don't start as small communities are mostly started instead by groups of people who leave some other congregation in a huff over some event. I suspect this is a universal truth of organizational behavior. :-) )
It's funny how low self-esteem and selfishness (uncharitability) can go hand-in-hand, but this is a perfect example of it. The idea "I should show up to help them get a minyan" cannot be held by someone who rejects awareness of their power for good or ill to effect other people's lives.
Y'know, I never thought of it that way, but you're right!
So, really, there's an opportunity here. Instead of looking at it as a question of what people aren't doing for their congregation, you could look at it as an issue of your people needing to be strengthened, and taught to find their moral power.
Yes. We need to educate and encourage and thank. Maybe we just aren't doing enough of this. It's hard to judge where the line is between this and pestering; maybe we're too conservative.
(Though I am the person who seriously suggested obfuscating the start time of board meetings -- which are also on Thursdays -- to fool some board members into showing up. We haven't done that yet, but I haven't forgotten it. I believe in the power of an announcement like "minyan 7:30 chapel, meeting 8:00 library". :-) )
OK, thing the second: In any situation where you're having schedule coverage problems, instead of being casual about who shows up when, have you considered making an actual schedule and asking individual members to commit to being in a certain place at a certain time? Not the already mostly showing up people, but some of the every-once-in-a-while crowd?
It's interesting that you bring that up. We haven't tried that ourselves, but another congregation in town asks the fringe people to commit to one day a month (the 17th, or the fourth Wednesday, or whatever, so long as it's defined). They even hand out personalized refrigerator magnets to help people remember. They don't reliably get a minyan either, even though they've handed out lots of magnets. :-( (And they're not Reform, either.)
Some congregations get to the scheduled start time, see there's no minyan, and start making phone calls. Some congregants complain about being "pestered", though, and we have decided not to go down that path ourselves. We would rather have a non-minyan service made up of people who want to be there than make a minyan with perceived duress. (And a phone call can certainly be perceived as duress by some, or telemarketing wouldn't work.)
But I do like the idea of asking the occasional attendees to commit to a couple extra days. Even if that by itself doesn't get us a minyan, it shows them that they're imporant, and it might cause them to show up more in general, and it might influence others.
May I recommend a reminder email list?
Good idea!
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I'm don't see why the latter isn't an autonomous decision. Could you explain what you mean?
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Some people don't keep a mitzvah because they've studied it and they don't buy the reasoning, or don't believe it applies any longer, or whatever. That is, at least, an imformed decision. In other cases, though, people might just punt without considering the question, and it would be nice if we could encourage them to think about it. Some people who actually think about it will end up saying "yes", after all.
Is that any clearer?
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