daf bit: Nedarim 17

(Today's daf is 18.)

The g'mara discusses the case where someone swears to transgress the torah, such as "I swear not to sit in the sukkah". If he swears to transgress and does not follow through (e.g. he actually does sit in the sukkah), is he liable to punishment when he obeyed the torah? The g'mara says that oaths to do evil, like those to do good, apply only to something that is optional. In this case the one who swore is not punished for sitting in the sukkah (it wasn't a valid oath in the first place, so he couldn't violate it) -- but he is punished for swearing falsely. (The penalty for this is lashes.) (16b-17a)

Off hand I don't know the penalty for not sitting in the sukkah, nor whether it comes from heaven or from the beit din (court).

Is this just a Reform+American thing?

Dear Jewish LJ brain trust,

For a while I've been hearing leaders of the Reform movement talk about how we have to "innovate" and "rethink congregations" in order to build for the long-term. Young families and millennials, we're told, aren't really into joining congregations, so we need to be more appealing, a mix of actual changes and marketing. Most visibly (in my congregation) this means more Shabbat services targeted to specific subsets of the community (young families, youth group, others), though it also affects the school, program overall, and finances.

Tonight I came across this article on this theme, and it got me wondering:

Is this just a Reform thing? Or maybe just an American Reform thing? I'm not aware of Orthodox congregations changing what they do -- nor perceiving a need to, because (it appears to me) community is already a core value there. So, sure, people come and go, but I don't perceive that they're as worried about "losing the young". On the other hand, I don't frequent an Orthodox synagogue and these sorts of things would be more visible to insiders. So I haven't picked up on it on my visits to Orthodox synagogues, but would I?

Any insights and/or "reports from the field" would be most welcome.