communities and consumers

[cellio]

This is going to be kind of rambly. I'm trying to record a thought stream, not make an explicit point.

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. :-)

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

I agree about cantors, but the general point is still valid, be it about cantors, or affording nice space, or a secretary, or whatever it is that isn't integral but is still something felt to be lacking when it's gone.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

sure it is. On the other hand, I belong to a shul (Orthodox...150 member families...70 associate member families) which has exactly one employee, the Rabbi (and he's technically only part time at 20%, though he probably puts a good 80 hours a week into the shul). We have no secretary, no administrative staff, nothing. And I came from a shul with a rabbi, a cantor, a shul administrator, several administrative staff members, janitorial staff and a director of education. I must say, I value the way the community at my current shul works a lot more than my previous shul because everything that gets done at our shul (and I mean everything from davening to mailings to cleaning to replacing light bulbs to shoveling the sidewalk to leading shiurim) is done by a volunteer who cares enough to put the time and effort into accomplishing something. It's very haimish.