2007-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Here's an email I sent to Shefa in response to a rabbi's post on how "counter-cultural" Conservatism is -- by which he means (I maintain) the fact that "the culture" today is different from the 1950s suburban values that Conservatism grew from. I take issue with the premise.

"There needs to be a reckoning with the kinds of institutions that house them and serve them.

I take Rabbi Bockman's point that Americans today are more individualistic, and that can be corrosive of community. But with all due respect to the "bowling alone" hypothesis, I continue to think that the 1950s suburban synagogue model, and the elevation of "community" as a mere mantra, is the problem, not the solution. The antithesis to having "my spiritual journey" is joining for the sake of joining, just babbitry.

To be sure, this swelled the ranks of Conservative Judaism in the mid twentieth century (and its decline has left our leaders nonplussed). But I would say that in truth it is antithetical to authentic community. To go back to Gella's post, much of the reason that committed lay Jews like myself do feel ill-served by existing synagogues is that the obsession with membership numbers and outreach to the unaffiliated marginalizes us. Services must be shortened, watered down, and made into a "show"; endless fundraising appeals must be made to make the building as nice as possible; etc.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for community and synagogues that can be a big tent. But to command my allegiance, that community must be authentic; it must indeed be organized around "a shared set of values" -- really shared, not just stated. Conservative synagogues (most American synagogues, really) seem organized in exactly the opposite way: the obsession with growth and numbers means that not only are there many members there who have no interest in Judaism, *the programming and life of the synagogue has to revolve around them*.

Also, and with no offense meant to the individuals on this group, the fact is that rabbis are employees of those synagogues and have to serve the institution's needs. Few initiatives are made to "core" ideological Conservatives because we literally are the "choir" to whom the rabbi is preaching (and we all know how "useless" that is). At worst, rabbis regard their most active members as just another power bloc with which to contend in the endless wrangling of shul politics.

In the face of that indifference, committed Conservative Jews have had to adopt a variation on "pick and choose" in which we look for authentic community anywhere we can find it -- either in orthodox households when we are traveling on Shabbat or in an online community like this one. But it's not happening in our synagogues.

I would never think of myself as an apologist for popular culture or the current zeitgeist or what have you. I'm committed to my synagogue and want to see it strengthened. I'm not quite sure why we are debating the merits or demerits of Chabad, whose ideology and zeal in any event we are not going to duplicate. But at base, the idea of doing something with and for your core committed members is something that successful religious movements (like Chabad) do well. Yet time and again, through rhetoric and action, committed Conservative Jews are made to feel like so much chopped liver. If it makes me a rank individualist to say so -- so be it!

Elisha Ben Abuya