Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah taught: “If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour” (Pirkei Avot 3:17). This aphorism is sometimes taught in relation to philanthropy: Learning cannot flourish without material support – and that’s true. But last summer, my appreciation for the relationship between physical and spiritual nourishment was enriched in the most unlikely of places.
Let’s do a thought experiment. How many Jewish organizations do you think there are in North America? 2,000? 3,000? According to Leading Edge, the go-to address helping Jewish organizations improve their workplace culture and leadership, there are an estimated 9,500 organizations – synagogues, federations, schools, Hillels, camps, social service agencies, and more – led by thousands of CEOs, clergy, and executive directors, 30,000 board members, with an astounding 120,000 Jewish communal employees serving their members and clients.
Moses went and sat in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall and did not understand what they were saying. His students said to him: My teacher, from where do you derive this? Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai. When Moses heard this, his mind was put at ease, as this too was part of the Torah that he was to receive. (Babylonian Talmud, Menakhot 29b)
Synagogue staff and volunteers are busy preparing to welcome hundreds, sometimes thousands, of congregants over the course of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The most attended synagogue days of the year, the High Holidays are a time when congregants who are otherwise infrequent participants make a special effort to show up. Cultivating a deeper sense of belonging will help these congregants connect more with our synagogue communities while they are with us.
It’s a strange question, isn’t it? Why would anyone want to hospice a synagogue? The rabbi’s sermons can’t be that bad, right? Yet at this moment in American Jewish life, it is a question that needs to be asked. Across the country, synagogue communities are facing similar realities of lower affiliation rates and economic concerns about the cost of Jewish living. Many congregations have an aging membership, and the synagogue facilities they built decades ago when membership was younger and growing are in desperate need of repair and maintenance.
When I tell you that our fast-growing 11-year old Jewish spiritual community in Chicago already has 11 small group gatherings planned with 11 different members hosting (and no staff presence) with over 90 participants thus far, all in the first quarter of the year, I promise that it’s not too good to be true. Oh, and these events cost us $0 in supplies and only several hours a week of one staff person’s time.
