Strengthening Jewish organizations - A constant pursuit

Bar and Bat Mitzvah is central to the life of my synagogue, the synagogue where I grew up, and many other synagogues across the country and the world.  No doubt, life-cycle events in general are such important building-blocks of religious communities of all faiths:  birth, coming of age, marriage, sickness-health, end of life.  Religious belief and life are both spiritual journeys that ideally are life-long projects, rather than one time or occasional ceremonies, detached and disembodied from the communities where they happen.

The ideal is always a reach, a hoped for status, and here the ideal is that the ceremony, Bnai Mitzvah in this case, is part of the flow of Jewish learning and experience, that the student and her family participates actively in community and that the community members see and interact with the student and family over time.  This is not to say that all things we do need to be part of a larger picture, an overall plan, a mindful and deliberate process.  There are moments when creativity, innovation, and taking a chance may lead to previously unseen possibilities.  At the same time, if we live life always shooting from the hip, always making decisions without some grounding in a process, in values, in a web of friendships and traditions, then life is fleeting, anarchic, and may lead to loss of trust in us.

The practical issue of the cost of Jewish living and experiences in the 21^st century is problematic.  The costs of running Jewish organizations, education, summer camps, day schools, and the like can add up.  There is also a prevalent psychology that, as we have seen in the health care industry, people or ‘patients’ have become ‘customers’ and as this psychology carries over into the spiritual world, people evaluate affiliations or memberships as to whether they receive sufficient return on their investment, much more a bottom-line model, tricky when part of religious experience is something that is intangible.  Still, it is up to Jewish leadership to be humble, to be better at evaluating our performance so that we do in fact provide the highest quality experiences.  We do have much to learn from, for example, service organizations like school systems that seek to evaluate success and promote excellence.  We should pursue excellence in all areas, not because we want to win a chamber of commerce award, but to be better about teaching the inspiring, meaningful, and sustaining message that  Jewish living is worthy of our time, our energy, and our patience, most of all, our loving care.