I don’t really feel like writing this post. Instead of taking the bait and responding to Margot Lurie’s latest hit piece on independent minyanim, my time would be better spent on actually organizing an independent minyan. If you’re in the DC area this weekend, you’re all invited to Segulah on Shabbat morning. We’ll be meeting in the Tifereth Israel building, 7701 16th St NW (entrance on Juniper St), Washington DC, starting at 9:30 am. (Yes, we rent space from a synagogue, and no, that’s not a secret.)
But I’m taking the bait anyway, because I guess someone has to.
But before I do that, a number of people have asked me if I was going to respond to Noam Neusner’s oped in the Forward. (It seems to be Crap-On-Independent-Minyanim Month in the Jewish press.) The answer is that I already responded 4 years ago. And that’s all I have to say about that. (I would think that Neusner, as a former Bush speechwriter, would understand that independent minyanim aren’t taking away synagogues’ share of the pie, but are making the pie higher.)
Back to the story. Margot Lurie wrote a fanciful review of Empowered Judaism by Elie Kaunfer, in the Jewish Review of Books. I took it apart last fortnight right here on this blog. The review also got attention in other parts of the world, including from Shmuel Rosner on the Jerusalem Post website. Rosner then ran a letter from Kaunfer, correcting Lurie’s fabrication about “organized community money”. Then this week, Rosner did an interview with Lurie, asking some followup questions. (I don’t know whether either Rosner or Lurie has read my original fisk; neither of them reference it directly, though they both refer in general to criticism.)
In this interview, Lurie once again conjures up straw men, and then defeats them. She criticizes independent minyanim for failing to live up to goals that they never claimed to have in the first place.
From the top:
Let’s start with factual questions. You write that “There is an open secret about Hadar: like many other minyanim, it is funded by lots of organized community money, offered by institutions eager to keep young Jews connected to their heritage.” Hadar’s Elie Kaunfer writes: “Independent minyanim are overwhelmingly self-supported by the supposed slacker population that attends it.” Can you both be right?“Shape of Earth: Views Differ”
I was referring to things like Hillel campus subsidies for leaders of independent minyanim which draw college students,I’ve never heard of these subsidies, so I’m unable to respond to this. Does anyone know what she’s talking about?
as well as the subsidized rent and other in-kind contributions that most independent minyanim receive.This is clearly a retcon (or in Aramaic, chisurei mechsera v’hachi katanei). There is no way that the plain sense of “funded by lots of organized community money” is “in-kind contributions”; by definition, “in-kind contributions” can be anything but money. Lurie got caught in an error, and then instead of saying “Oops, my bad” and printing a correction, she’s doubling down.
But addressing her claim at face value, I’m curious how she arrives at the figure of “most independent minyanim”. There are, roughly speaking, three types of independent minyanim: 1) Those that meet in participants’ homes or other “free” spaces. As a commenter pointed out in the previous thread, these spaces represent in-kind donations. However, that doesn’t involve the “organized community”. 2) Those that meet in non-Jewish spaces. These generally don’t receive any “subsidized rent”; their relationship with their host space is purely a landlord-tenant business relationship. 3) Those that meet in Jewish spaces. These include a) those that receive donations of space (and for you minyan entrepreneurs out there, I don’t recommend this: your host institution will want something in return; you just don’t know what it is yet), and b) those that pay rent. It’s hard to determine which minyanim in group 3b are receiving “subsidized rent” and which aren’t — they pay whatever level of rent they negotiate with their hosts, and the hosts don’t necessarily have a standard rate for renting out space, to which the minyan’s rate can be compared to determine whether they’re getting a subsidy. Lurie is claiming that 3a plus part of 3b adds up to “most”, and I’d like to see some justification for that.
I just did a quick back-of-the envelope estimate: I’ve been to at least 25 independent minyanim, so I listed the ones I could think of, and about half of those meet (or most recently met, if the minyan no longer exists) in Jewish buildings. That’s an upper bound for how many of them are getting “subsidized rent” from the “organized community” (since some of them may be paying full price, however you define that). So I don’t think “most” is correct.
As for Hadar in particular, the minyan is only one of its three affiliated institutions, the other two of which report receipts of funding from the organized community.The minyan is also the only one of the three institutions that is a minyan! The original article said “Hadar, like many other minyanim”, suggesting that it was talking about a minyan named Hadar, not a yeshiva named Hadar or a star named Hadar.
The three (terrestrial) Hadars are two separate legal entities, with separate budgets (Yeshivat Hadar is a program of Mechon Hadar, but Kehilat Hadar is separate). If you want to accuse them of money laundering, then come out and say it.
You write that “It is no accident that of the three leaders of Yeshivat Hadar, both Kaunfer and Ethan Tucker are the sons of prominent Conservative rabbis, and Shai Held is the son of a late professor at the (Conservative) Jewish Theological Seminary.” Is this more proof that independent minyanim aren’t really “independent” or more indictment of the Conservative movement’s inability to retain its best and brightest?
The term “independent” suggests a self-sustaining body outside the traditional synagogue structure. But most minyanim are not independent in that sense.I (inadvertently) had a central enough role in the popularization of the term “independent minyan” that I feel qualified to play Marshall McLuhan and say “You know nothing of my work.”
That’s not what “independent” (in “independent minyan”) ever meant. “Independent” means two things: 1) not affiliated with any of the Jewish denominations. (The denominations all have formal membership for congregations, so there’s no gray area here. None of the denominations accept being founded by the son of a rabbi of that denomination as a substitute for a membership application.) 2) not part of a larger organization, such as a synagogue.
That’s all. “Independent” doesn’t mean completely self-sufficient, with your own power generator and a basement full of canned food. The United States is an independent country, even though it imports goods from other countries, and even though its founders were originally British subjects. Independent candidates appear on the same ballot as other candidates. Rosner and Lurie are trying to play “gotcha” (and they’re not the first), but this stems from a misunderstanding of the claims that independent minyanim are making.
Or, more accurately, their independence extends only to serving the needs of their members for prayer and learning, and that’s it. As soon as someone wants to get married or divorced, or arrange for a funeral, then, well, no minyan is an island – it needs the resources of the larger community, on which it is very much dependent.Independent minyanim don’t claim to be one-stop shops for everything Jewish in their participants’ lives. In many (most?) cases, they don’t even claim to be one-stop shops for prayer and learning: as Lurie noted in her original review, many (most?) independent minyanim don’t have services every week, so anyone who wants to pray with a community every week has to look elsewhere some of the time. No one denies this. Independent minyanim are very openly a-la-carte, intended to function as part of the larger Jewish ecosystem. They focus on the areas where they have a comparative advantage, and let other organizations do the rest. No minyan claims to be an island. This is in contrast to many synagogues, which do attempt to be one-stop shops for everything Jewish, regardless of whether they’re any good at it. This is understandable in places where one synagogue really is the only game in town, but wasteful in big cities with many Jewish congregations.
Tikkun Leil Shabbat is an excellent example of an independent minyan that engages strategically with the broader community. TLS is a community committed to social justice, and decided from the beginning that rather than putting together its own half-baked “social action programs” (with great effort and minimal impact), it would connect its participants with organizations that are already doing real social justice work, both inside and outside the Jewish community. This leads to the maximum benefit for everyone.
As far as the specific examples that Lurie cites:
Jewish marriage doesn’t require any institutional infrastructure; it just requires two witnesses. Lots of independent minyan participants have organized their own weddings.
Jewish divorce is a big mess, and that’s a problem that independent minyanim can’t solve, but apparently neither can synagogues.
Funerals and burials do, of course, require infrastructure. But most synagogues don’t operate their own funeral homes or cemeteries either. They work with funeral homes and cemeteries in the larger Jewish community, and there’s no reason an independent minyan couldn’t do the same. For example, the Newton Centre Minyan does its own funerals (led by participants), and has its own section in a local Jewish cemetery.
Independent minyanim speak to the portion of the Jewish community that is interested in traditional prayer and ritual practice, in progressive halakhah, in modernization, and in women’s full participation in services—in other words, Conservative Judaism.Independent minyanim come in many flavors. Not all of them are “interested in traditional prayer and ritual” (depending on how “traditional” is defined), and not all of them are gender-egalitarian. So a good number of them don’t fit into even this overly broad definition of Conservative Judaism.
As for those minyanim that do display all these traits, it’s a logical fallacy to say “X has these traits, Y has these traits, therefore X=Y.” Conservative Judaism defines itself by other aspects besides these, including a structure for religious authority that independent minyanim do not recognize. (And by the way, not all Conservative congregations are gender-egalitarian either, so this isn’t a defining feature of Conservative Judaism.)
One Conservative rabbi has said that my problem with independent minyanim is that they aren’t Orthodox. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My interest is in having a vigorous liberal Judaism that can hold its own next to Orthodoxy. In my article I gave my reasons for thinking that the minyan movement doesn’t hold the answer.“These do-Nothings profess a commitment to social change … and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, ‘I agree with your ends but not your means.’ They function as blankets whenever possible smothering sparks of dissension that promise to flare up into the fire of action.” –Saul Alinsky
If your interest is in creating a vigorous liberal Judaism, how is attacking the people who are trying to do something about it going to advance that interest? Early on in her review, Lurie writes that “the suburban mausoleum that is the liberal synagogue was, at best, built for a sociological reality decades out of date”, so surely she would agree that attempting incremental change within those institutions is not a recipe for success. Nor is it possible to have alternatives to those institutions descend from heaven in flames, fully built, like the Third Temple. So the remaining option is to start small and build from there, even if the alternative communities don’t start out fixing every problem in American Judaism from day one.
I moved to New York’s Upper West Side from Iowa, so I can attest to the fact that people in small or struggling Jewish communities see the minyan movement (to the extent that they’re aware of it at all) as largely irrelevant to their concerns. There are much more significant issues facing American Judaism, and much greater challenges for young and energetic leaders with big visions.So what should these “young and energetic leaders” outside of Iowa be doing differently that would have a more positive impact on the Jews of Iowa? Bear in mind that most of us have day jobs.
Did you expect this article to become so controversial - did you think you’re going to be criticized in such way? Do you think independent minyanim have become the sacred goat [SACRED COW?] of contemporary Judaism?Ok, that was weird. Is “[SACRED COW?]” a copy editor’s note that got left in by mistake? I’ve never heard of “sacred goat” before.
I knew I was going to kick up some dust. Still, the extent of the hysteria brought on by one person’s dissent is a little telling, don’t you think?And if no one had responded, Lurie would instead have written “Still, the deafening silence brought on by one person’s dissent is a little telling, don’t you think?”
I’m certainly not calling—or capable of calling—for the dismantling of independent minyanim, which are, as I say in my article, a response to the spiritual bankruptcy and the organized failures of the Conservative movement.The Conservative movement doesn’t have a monopoly on spiritual bankruptcy and organized failures. Independent minyanim are responses to the spiritual bankruptcy and the organized failures of all the movements.
But the tendentiousness of the independent minyan movement’s critique of synagogue life needs to be addressed, as it has real, and not unrelated consequences.Here, Lurie (or Rosner?) links to an article about the shrinking membership numbers in the Conservative movement (and some inside baseball in the other liberal denominations). Is she really suggesting that these shrinking numbers are a consequence of independent minyanim? A few paragraphs earlier, Lurie wrote that minyanim are “largely irrelevant” to “people in small or struggling Jewish communities”, and now they’re the reason those communities are struggling.
According to the article, USCJ congregations lost 37,100 member families. Let’s conservatively (as it were) estimate an average of 2 people per family, for a total of 74,200 members. By all estimates, this is far greater than the total number of people involved in independent minyanim. There’s just no way mathematically that independent minyanim can be a significant factor in this decline.
Furthermore, these population trends began before the independent minyanim discussed in Empowered Judaism were founded. To the long list of problems that independent minyanim haven’t solved, add time travel. It seems that post hoc ergo propter hoc doesn’t even need the post hoc part anymore!
The elitism and uncritical self-regard of these communities are a big problem.“Elitism” : independent minyanim :: “socialism” : President Obama
Think about it: they’re both self-perpetuating accusations that get thrown around repeatedly because everyone else is doing it, to the point that they have become almost completely divorced from the actual meaning of the word or the actual facts about the accusee.
Rather than debunk this yet again (not that that would be any more effective at staving off further accusations of “elitism” than asking what exactly is socialist about cutting taxes on millionaires), I’ll just link to my old comments here and here. There’s probably more too - bonus points for finding them.
For one thing, I don’t think it’s a random statistical point that independent minyanim are so age-specific.No one has claimed that it was random. There are many causal explanations for it. All we said is that it wasn’t an intentional decision by the minyan organizers.
Some of the explanations: The founders of many minyanim were in their 20s and 30s, and the word spread first to their friends, and their friends’ friends, and people tend to be friends with people around the same age. Why were the founders in their 20s and 30s? There’s an age explanation and a generational explanation. Age explanation: people in their 20s and 30s have more time and energy to devote to this kind of thing. Generational explanation here. Why haven’t more people of other ages gravitated to these minyanim? In the case of older adults, many of them have been involved with other Jewish communities for years and are attached to their existing community. In the case of parents and children, there’s a coordination problem, since there’s a need to be in a community with other children. Finally, the most obvious explanation is that people in their 20s and 30s feel most out of place in establishment Jewish institutions, and therefore have the greatest motive to find (or found) alternatives.
These explanations apply to some minyanim and not others. The independent minyanim founded in the ’60s and ’70s may have been founded by people in their 20s and 30s, but their participants have aged, and now those communities have older (as well as younger) populations. And some of the new minyanim have attracted more multigenerational crowds. One successful example is Segulah, which has all ages from babies to over-70. See you this Shabbat!
Lurie neglected to mention that the founder of at least one independent minyan is the son of a Reform rabbi. Does that mean that you're out to destroy the Reform movement as well? Did you realize that you are that powerful?
ReplyDeleteStay cool, BZ. There is certainly none of the "hysteria" Lurie is mentioning in this post, is there?
ReplyDeleteThere is one point that Lurie made that struck me, and you do not seem to have responded to it. Toward the end of her comments to Rosner, she accuses leaders of independent minyanim of being self-congratulatory when, as religious people, she argues, they should be self-negating. What has surprised me a bit about this back-and-forth debate between you and other minyan founders and Lurie is that at no point have you said anything like "Well, maybe she has a good point in area X. I'll think about that, and maybe Hadar's leaders should, too." Lurie is a critic. Her job is to poke holes. But if you and Hadar's leaders are thoughtful religious people, you job can't just be to poke holes in return. Shouldn't it also be at least to consider whether anything she says is of value before declaring her entire argument to be totally illegitimate? Wouldn't you expect the same from the so-called "organized Jewish community" if you tried to have a dialogue with some of their leaders? And even if you haven't gotten it from them, that doesn't mean you can't give the same consideration to Lurie.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous writes:
ReplyDeleteStay cool, BZ. There is certainly none of the "hysteria" Lurie is mentioning in this post, is there?
We prefer "shrill".
(And hey, Anonymouses, can you pick some pseudonyms so we can tell you part? With the new format, you can do it under "Name/URL". URL optional.)
Much of Lurie's difficulty in presenting a coherent analysis seems to come from the fact that, as she is a New York City resident, she assumes that Kehillat Hadar is the model on which all independent minyanim are built. At least two of her assumptions can be traced to popular observations about Hadar as an entity:
ReplyDelete1. The halakhic tenor of its services is virtually indistinguishable from that of a right-wing, egalitarian Conservative synagogue. In fact, to the extent that Kehillat Hadar takes on any of the roles of a Conservative synagogue (tefillot, some learning), it looks superficially like a model Conservative synagogue.
2. New ba`alei qeri'a and ba`alei tefilla must audition before serving those roles, a policy that has its purpose, but which is so uncommon in most organized branches of Jewish life that it strikes many outsiders as elitist.
Anonymous #3: While Lurie's review is a fair deconstruction of the manner in which Kaunfer writes about independent minyanim—her quip about grant applications is spot-on—I don't see any pointed criticisms that could realistically lead to reform within such minyanim. That doesn't seem to interest her: her main goal appears to be to get the minyan members to scatter and go back to synagogues where they belong. Setting aside for a minute the question of whether that would be a good thing, does it strike you as the sort of outsider's proposal that could ever lead to constructive change?
Paham writes:
ReplyDeleteThe halakhic tenor of its services is virtually indistinguishable from that of a right-wing, egalitarian Conservative synagogue.
Not true for a wide variety of reasons that someone else can numerate. But if you want just one anecdote, how about the fact that Hadar-- totally without fuss-- publicly and joyfully celebrated the aufruf of two women well before the Conservative movement was allowing such things. (Not to mention the awesomely colorful kiddushim celebrating Pride Shabbat). I don't know if you meant right-wing politically or ritually (whatever that means, especially if the shul is egal), but Hadar's really neither. Actually, I take that back. Hadar's certainly not politicall right-wing, but the term ritually right-wing doesn't even make any sense in case so I think it just doens't apply. Do you perhaps mean "Uses a full, all-Hebrew liturgy"?
Paham also writes:
New ba`alei qeri'a and ba`alei tefilla must audition before serving those roles, a policy that has its purpose, but which is so uncommon in most organized branches of Jewish life that it strikes many outsiders as elitist.
Urban myth. This one is just plain old wrong on factual grounds. As someone who has read Torah and led davening at Hadar (and therefore was once a first-timer in both roles) I can tell you there is no such audition. Hadar was once stricter about who they allowed to read Torah, but someone who was around in the very, very early days can comment on that. I've just been around since the very early days.
Anonymous 2:
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, this is a sign of the progress of egalitarianism that men, too, can be dismissed with charges of "hysteria".
Anonymous 3 writes:
ReplyDeleteWhat has surprised me a bit about this back-and-forth debate between you and other minyan founders and Lurie is that at no point have you said anything like "Well, maybe she has a good point in area X. I'll think about that, and maybe Hadar's leaders should, too." Lurie is a critic. Her job is to poke holes. But if you and Hadar's leaders are thoughtful religious people, you job can't just be to poke holes in return. Shouldn't it also be at least to consider whether anything she says is of value before declaring her entire argument to be totally illegitimate?
Your comment reminds me of the controversy following Larry Summers's remarks on women and science. The intensity of the response wasn't just to the content of what he said, but to the fact that he thought he was being original and provocative when he was in fact rehashing ideas that had been knocked down before. So people didn't stop to consider his new ideas, not because they were humorless PC yadda yadda, but because his ideas weren't new.
I think there's a parallel here. Other than the parts that seem to have just been made up, none of Lurie's criticisms are new -- it's the same stuff we've been hearing for years.
(And, as Paham notes, it's not in the spirit of constructive criticism.)
Rooftopper writes: But if you want just one anecdote, how about the fact that Hadar-- totally without fuss-- publicly and joyfully celebrated the aufruf of two women well before the Conservative movement was allowing such things.
ReplyDeleteThere have been Conservative synagogues celebrating same-sex unions, and Conservative clergy officiating thereat, since before Hadar was founded and without any official censure from the USCJ, RA or CA. How does this demonstrate a profound difference? In case you're referring to the 2006 CJLS ruling, be advised that it only bears upon the private conduct of gay, lesbian and bisexual Conservative Jews and the seminaries' ability to ordain same as rabbis and cantors.
I don't know if you meant right-wing politically or ritually (whatever that means, especially if the shul is egal), but Hadar's really neither. Actually, I take that back. Hadar's certainly not politicall right-wing, but the term ritually right-wing doesn't even make any sense in case so I think it just doens't apply. Do you perhaps mean "Uses a full, all-Hebrew liturgy"?
I don't think my statement was nearly as confusing as you make it out to be, but for the record I mean a synagogue that uses all Hebrew liturgy and does a full qeri'a and two full hazarot where appropriate. I'm not dealing with gender here, since non-egalitarian synagogues are a marginal part of the Conservative movement at this point (and increasingly so, as many either go egal or leave the USCJ).
Urban myth. This one is just plain old wrong on factual grounds. As someone who has read Torah and led davening at Hadar (and therefore was once a first-timer in both roles) I can tell you there is no such audition. Hadar was once stricter about who they allowed to read Torah, but someone who was around in the very, very early days can comment on that. I've just been around since the very early days.
It's a little odd to distinguish between "the very early days" and "the very, very early days" when talking about an organization that's about ten years old, don't you think? In any case, your statement is false, and demonstrably so. I know people, including some who were JTS students at the time, who were required to demonstrate to a gabbai that they could leyn or lead tefillot competently before being allowed to do so, and not in 2001. Perhaps the practice has fallen out of use, and perhaps it was applied inconsistently, but it is no urban myth.
I'm Anonymous #3. @Bz: I see you are still not taking seriously my comments about taking Lurie seriously.
ReplyDelete@Paham: I agree that most of what Lurie said is not conducive to institutional change. I was thinking, rather, about changes in attitude. Lurie has accused the people who go to independent minyanim of being self-congratulatory when they should be self-negating. Might there be a little truth in that? Shouldn't all religious people try to be a little more humble if they can?
I was also struck with how blithely BZ brushed off the possibility that Hadar and other minyanim might have more than a few members who, in the absence of Hadar, would belong to Conservative synagogues. If that's the case, and if that's because Hadar is providing something these synagogues can't, then why can't Hadar attendees just admit that and take responsibility for it? What is the point of denying it? The only thing I can think of is that Hadar attendees might actually WANT there to be a Conservative movement around should they ever want to move to the suburbs, and they don't want to feel even partly responsible if there isn't. Could that be the case? I'm just wondering if people might want to think about it; that's all.
There have been Conservative synagogues celebrating same-sex unions, and Conservative clergy officiating thereat, since before Hadar was founded and without any official censure from the USCJ, RA or CA. How does this demonstrate a profound difference?
ReplyDeleteBut those Conservative synagogues and clergy would certainly not be considered "right-wing". I think that was Rooftopper Rav's point.
I don't think my statement was nearly as confusing as you make it out to be, but for the record I mean a synagogue that uses all Hebrew liturgy and does a full qeri'a and two full hazarot where appropriate.
There's nothing "right-wing" about doing that. And insofar as this makes sense on a left-right spectrum within the Conservative movement, it provides evidence that Hadar (where such a left-right spectrum is incoherent) is intellectually distinct from the Conservative movement.
And on the flip side, there's certainly nothing left-wing about triennial Torah reading.
ReplyDeleteBut those Conservative synagogues and clergy would certainly not be considered "right-wing". I think that was Rooftopper Rav's point.
ReplyDeleteFair, but that doesn't blunt my initial point at all; it merely makes Hadar seem a bit less like a right wing (in a sense other than the one below) Conservative synagogue and more like a moderate or progressive one.
There's nothing "right-wing" about doing that.
This conversation is devolving into an argument about semantics, which I find often happens when talking about perceived conflict between independent minyanim and the old guard organizations. You're right that "right wing" is not a good term, but that's because there are too many axes to work with. For the moment let me define one axis as the axis of ritual traditionalism, where "left wing" means highly innovative and relatively unbound from traditional forms, and "right wing" means more bound to traditional forms and less innovative. This makes sense for the three things I listed:
1. Hebrew (and by implication, some Aramaic) liturgy. Obviously the practice of including vernacular language in the liturgy is ancient, hence the Aramaic, but the trend died almost as long ago, and the Jews kept using Aramaic even when Arabic became the lingua franca of the Near East. The widespread use of the vernacular in synagogue services today can generally be traced to the 18th century.
2. Full qeri'a. The triennial cycle employed by part of the Conservative movement was developed in the 1950s, and does not closely resemble the one that was used for a time in the Palestinian rite.
3. Two full hazarot. The notion that one can recite a partial repetition for reasons other than an emergency of zmanim is not really supported by the rishonim (except for Rambam, who wanted to do something completely different from what we do) or acharonim prior to the 20th century, and even then I think we can all agree that those authorities who do support tend to be outside the Orthodox realm.
And insofar as this makes sense on a left-right spectrum within the Conservative movement, it provides evidence that Hadar (where such a left-right spectrum is incoherent) is intellectually distinct from the Conservative movement.
Only if one imagines that there is a single left-right axis within the Conservative movement. I've explained that I don't believe such a thing, and I don't think you actually believe it either. Where does that leave us?
I read Shmuel Rosner's interview with Luria and I have to say that in what she says there, I have to agree with her. It is incorrect to say there is something wrong, or unconstructive about the independent minyanim (IM), but I think the point she is trying to make is that it is unrealistic to think that the IM's mark some kind of "revolution" in American liberal Judaism (ALJ). The deep crisis ALJ is immersed in will not be solved by the appearance or even spread of the IM's. The problem ALJ faces is a crisis of values which I believe is uniquely American, due to an American way of looking at religion.
ReplyDeleteThe point that must be emphasized is that Judaism is not merely a group of people that gather together once a week or so and pray. It is also an institution. This institution involves things like organized "hesed" (good deeds) such as helping the poor and sick but, even more important, is that it carries a huge body of knowledge and learning that has been transmitted over thousands of years. This body is so large that few individual Jews can master it, so over the generations a small body of scholars has been supported by the larger community which devotes itself full-time to study and teaching this body of knowledge. This requires a constant level of financial support and this support can only come from a committed laity that has respect for these scholars and their scholarship. It also requires that the laity be committed to relating in a serious way to this knowledge, and this comes through "hatmadah"-persistence in committment, study and observance of the Jewish mitzvot. Occasional apprearance at Jewish worship in an IM or more established congregation does not engender this type of committment because such a person does not develop understanding of the importance of this body of Jewish knowledge.
Another negative factor particularly American attitudes towards religion that weakens ALJ and the possible influence of the IM's is the rejection of doctrine as being something in importance. Americans feel they have the right to "choose" the parts of a particular religion they like and reject other parts. This is not seen so much in liberal European settings where religious observance is very low, even lower than in the US, but there is an attitude that "if you do something, do it right", i.e. you don't attempt to change a religion to suit your particular whim. This is true in Israel as well, although there the level of religious activity is much higher than in Europe. Examples of the American confusion over this issue are the numerous Protestant parents who send their children to Catholic day schools. The Catholic priests try to point out the inconsistency involved in giving the children signals at home and at church which are at variance with what they learn at school. The like outcome of such an education is a attitude that the whole thing is not serious.
The question is "what values are the IM movement conveying"? I think Lurie is saying that the IM's are saying that you can be as committed or as uncommitted as you want, come once a week, come once every two weeks, whatever you feel like. Judaism ultimately can only survive if committed young Jews get married, set up households, raise and educate children and have a willingness to reach into their pocket and take out their wallet in order to support the Jewish instutions I mentioned. The only way the IM's can have a real effect on American Jewry is if they (gently) pressure those involved to move in this direction, against the current of American values and "the right to choose", and I think Lurie is saying that this is not happening. Obviously, you can't dump a whole load of committement on someone who is new at Jewish observance, but after a while the Jew has to become aware of what is really required to have fully Jewish life.
End Part I
Part II
ReplyDeleteI close quoting an article I read some time ago about the new lay head of the Episcopalian Church in the US. This church suffers from all the problems that liberal American denominations have, particularly a rapidly shrinking membership. In the article it was pointed out that the birth rate of Episcopalians is very low....below replacement level. When the new leader was asked about this, she said "our church teaches that we shouldn't use more than our share of the world's resources". The writer than asked " but if there aren't any Episcopalians left in the world, who is going to teach this message?". I don't recall the answer but this question is food for thought for ALJ as well
Paham writes:
ReplyDelete2. New ba`alei qeri'a and ba`alei tefilla must audition before serving those roles, a policy that has its purpose, but which is so uncommon in most organized branches of Jewish life that it strikes many outsiders as elitist.
It's not so uncommon. In many synagogues, only people who have completed a 5-year postgraduate professional degree can be ba'alei tefilla. What could be more elitist than that?
Anonymous 3 wrote:
ReplyDelete@Bz: I see you are still not taking seriously my comments about taking Lurie seriously.
President Obama is a religious person, so shouldn't he give at least some consideration to the arguments of his critics, and think about whether maybe he was born in Kenya and is a Muslim?
(Ok, I know, it's been done.)
BZ: In many synagogues, only people who have completed a 5-year postgraduate professional degree can be ba'alei tefilla.
ReplyDelete"Many"? I've never encountered one such synagogue. Can you name an example of one where non-clergy may not serve as ba`alei tefillah?
Rooftopper Rav wrote: "Urban myth. This one is just plain old wrong on factual grounds. As someone who has read Torah and led davening at Hadar (and therefore was once a first-timer in both roles) I can tell you there is no such audition. "
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read Torah at Hadar a gabbai came by to listen to me to make sure I was up to the task. I don't know if I'd call that an audition, but it was certainly an attempt at quality control. And certainly one thing Kehillat Hadar stresses is quality davening. (This experience was in either 2002 or 2003).
"...Steven M. Cohen, a leading Jewish sociologist and newly appointed senior counselor to Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen..."
ReplyDeletehttp://forward.com/articles/135323/
What??? Now I really can't read his studies as unbiased independent research...
-Sara
Pāħām: In numerous Reform synagogues that I've attended, the entire service is always led by the clergy (except for the passages that are recited by the day's bar or bat mitzvah). I have heard of Conservative synagogues where the same is true, but I haven't attended any myself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to clarify the point about Hadar's practice: While I was a gabbai (July 2006 - October 2008), we did indeed ask people who were leyning at Hadar for the first time to review on the phone in advance -- usually the week before the Shabbat when they were scheduled to leyn. However, the word "audition" (in the sense of a competitive tryout) is misleading: I cannot think of a single instance when someone was prevented from leyning based on that conversation. Rather, our aim of those review sessions was to help the leyner improve his/her reading by catching some errors in advance, as well as to discourage the practice of learning one's leyning the night before. I can't speak to the specific experiences of RooftopperRav, OJ, or the JTS students whom Pāħām knows or to the minyan's current practice, but at least during my time as a gabbai, that practice was very rarely waived -- essentially, only if a gabbai had already heard the person leyn in another setting. By applying this policy consistently, we sought to prevent people from feeling insulted at being asked to review in advance.
Also, for what it's worth, I've been to at least one other community (a Conservative synagogue in California) with the same practice.
Adam: I'll concede the point on Reform synagogues, which weren't on my mind when I was writing. I am far less will to say the same about Conservative synagogues, which tend to operate on a very different model. I don't claim that there are no Conservative synagogues where a typical service is entirely clergy-led, though this would be quite unusual—I can't remember the last time any of my colleagues reported being asked to lead pesuqe dezimra on Shabbat or a holiday. What I am challenging is the notion that there are many synagogues (to use the language of BZ's statement) in which non-clergy are by policy forbidden to lead.
ReplyDeletePāħām writes:
ReplyDeleteWhat I am challenging is the notion that there are many synagogues (to use the language of BZ's statement) in which non-clergy are by policy forbidden to lead.
I didn't say "by policy forbidden to", and I didn't say "may", I said "can". And in these communities (including many Reform synagogues, as Adam notes), even if there are non-clergy who are capable of leading, they usually don't.
When people accuse independent minyanim of being "elitist", they're not usually talking about policies, they're talking about who is there and what goes on. For example, some people might claim that independent minyanim are elitist because many of their participants are familiar with the service, but I know of no independent minyan where people who are unfamiliar with the service are by policy forbidden to attend.
I'll concede the point on Reform synagogues, which weren't on my mind when I was writing. I am far less will to say the same about Conservative synagogues, which tend to operate on a very different model.
ReplyDeleteYou did originally say "in most organized branches of Jewish life", not just "in the Conservative movement".
BZ: I didn't say "by policy forbidden to", and I didn't say "may", I said "can". And in these communities (including many Reform synagogues, as Adam notes), even if there are non-clergy who are capable of leading, they usually don't.
ReplyDeleteYou're trying to draw a distinction between "only people of class X can perform action Y" and "people not belonging to class X cannot perform action Y." That is not a real distinction.
For example, some people might claim that independent minyanim are elitist because many of their participants are familiar with the service, but I know of no independent minyan where people who are unfamiliar with the service are by policy forbidden to attend.
You seem to be taking a specific statement I made about popular perception of one minyan, then (1) assuming that I agree with this perception and (2) applying it far more broadly than I did. I said that Hadar is perceived by some as elitist, and I don't think there's any room to argue that it is not perceived as such.
Several years ago a then-gabbai at Hadar asked me why I didn't attend, and I mentioned that I didn't find it a particularly welcoming place. His/her response was: "Why, because we have standards?" Take that as you will.
You did originally say "in most organized branches of Jewish life", not just "in the Conservative movement".
And then I conceded the point. What are you trying to accomplish with this statement?
You're trying to draw a distinction between "only people of class X can perform action Y" and "people not belonging to class X cannot perform action Y." That is not a real distinction.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the distinction I was drawing - I was trying to draw a distinction between (on the one hand) "only people of class X are permitted to perform action Y" and (on the other hand) "only people of class X are capable of performing action Y" or "only people of class X do perform action Y".
When did capability come into the discussion? When you made your comment "In many synagogues..." were you referring to capability or policy, or both?
ReplyDeleteIf capability, then it may be a failure of (or lack of) an educational system, but it's not elitist. There's nothing elitist about insisting that a person serving as a communal functionary have basic competency in the skills required. If policy, then I don't know where the discussion of capability is coming from.
I was referring to what actually happens, whether that's due to capability, policy, or interest.
ReplyDelete