That Partisan Rosh Hashanah Sermon

In traditional Judaism, sermons are given during religious services twice a year. Once on the Sabbath before Passover, Shabbat HaGadol (the "Great" Sabbath), when the rabbi is supposed to instruct the holy congregation on the laws that apply to the Passover observance. The other time is on Shabbat T'shuvah (the Sabbath of Repentence), when the rabbi is supposed to instruct the holy congregation on the laws that apply to the "great white fast" on Yom Kippur. At other times during the year, there might be a short D'var Torah (words of Torah), which is supposed to be a short talk or study session related to the Torah portion of the week. There are also separate times for Torah study and discussion throughout the week.

The idea that a rabbi should get up and give a sermon each and every week during worship services, and that he has the knowledge and the right to instruct congregants on matters political in a forum in which they have no room to dispute his words or to reply, was borrowed from the Christians, and particularly from those Christians who imbue their priests and ministers with a quality of holiness that comes from their office and that is greater than the holiness associated with the congregation itself.

To be clear, in normative Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher and decisor of Jewish law, but otherwise has no more claim to holiness than the humblest day laborer who is a member of the congregation. A rabbi is learned in Jewish law, but is not to be regarded as one would a priest or prophet or king. Those three offices are considered to be in abeyance for Jews since the destruction of the second temple, and among orthodox Jews, it is believed that they will be restored only by the coming of the Messiah. Traditionally, being a rabbi, a teacher and decisor of Jewish law, was not a job, but a calling. The rabbi was supposed to make his living doing something else. Thus, rabbis were merchants, shoemakers, and in the case of the beloved Rabbi Akiba, a shepherd and revolutionary.

Of course, in the modern Jewish movements such as Reform, the synagogue has been unpegged from Jewish law to one extent or another, and so the primary responsibility of the rabbi has become that of "professional Jew"; a provider of religious services and religious-based counsel, roles that traditionally belonged to every adult Jew. This role-change has had the unintended consequence of making most adult Jews less than adult in their understanding of Judaism and of their rights and responsibilities in the synagogue. Add the political Vision of the Annointed to this mix, and the results are positively ugly.

And this (finally) brings me to the notorious (yes, already) Rosh Hashannah morning sermon that caused a number of congregants to walk out and those who were left to become very quiet indeed.

Unfortunately, I do not (yet) have a written text of the sermon, though I have looked for it online, and requested it from the rabbi. Since yesterday was still a holy day, there may be some delay in getting it. Therefore I will not be going through the sermon to discuss each point. In any case, I am not that interested in arguing specific claims the rabbi made, because the thing that made this sermon so egregiously wrong was the structure of the talk itself, which lead to a smear* made from the pulpit against those Jews who disagree with the healthcare proposals of the current president of the United States and his party.

*A smear is an implication of guilt by false association. It is a logical fallacy in the category of presumption. The art of the smear is the art of conflating an unpopular idea espoused by a person or group with a stigmatized group or idea, thus ruining the reputation of the first, without actually addressing the disliked idea. In this case the rabbi conflated opposition to Obamacare with Social Darwinism.

The rabbi began his sermon by telling us it was going to be about politics. At that point a number of people got up and walked out, and frankly, I should have done so as well. It would have saved me a great deal of aggravation. However, in my defense, last year he gave a very good sermon about political argumentation. The point of that sermon was an admonishment against the demonization of those with whom we politically disagree.

Unfortunately, the rabbi must not have gone back and read that sermon again before writing this one, because that is exactly what he proceeded to do. Oh, it was demonization by implication rather than direct insult, but the implication was made clear by the structure of the sermon. There were thus two overall problems with this sermon. One was the structure of it that led to that demonizing implication, and the other was with the lack of a rigorous defintion of a concept, which in turn allowed the smear. I will deal with the second problem first, and then turn to the smear itself.

The rabbi began by telling a joke in which a lost gorilla is found at the New York Public Library study room with both a Bible and a copy of The Origin of Species open in front of him. He says he is trying to figure out if he is his brother's keeper or his keeper's brother. Not terribly original, as we have heard it at least twice before, but it got a laugh. It was the last one of the morning. The rabbi then proceeded to a discussion of Social Darwinism, but he did so without defining it accurately. I do not have his exact words in front of me, but he did imply that Social Darwinism was an idea conceived to explain why the rich are rich and the poor are poor in the service of maintaining this status quo for some undefined period of time. (Because in the United States, people enjoy much social mobility, this statement itself is open to question, but that is a another essay). The rabbi then rather subtly implied that Social Darwinism is a fault of the political Right. (I detest that artificial political divide, but that's still another blog).

The rabbi's definition is woefully incomplete and a half-truth at best. The term Social Darwinism can be applied to any of a number of collectivist ideologies that posit that competition among groups or nations leads to "social evolution." This idea requires an acceptance of group selection, and it also requires a social definiton of fitness rather than a biological one. For the record, the modern synthesis in biology defines the unit of selection as the individual. (This is axiomatic because it is the individual that reproduces and passes on genes). Fitness is defined as the ability to survive to maturity and to reproduce oneself. On the genetic level, the fitness of each gene is measured by it's frequency in the breeding population, using the Hardy-Weinberg equation. On the individual level, it is measured by number of offspring because offspring are the carriers of the genes in the next generation. Evolution is measured in a population by the rate of change in the gene frequencies. To put it into one pithy statement: Natural selection acts on individuals but it is populations that evolve. A population has a strict definition in biology and should not be confused with the more nebulous term 'society'.

Social Darwinism is pseudoscience. Historically, the Social Darwinism pseudoscience has been the impetus for many of the social programs put forth by the progressives, including American programs such as eugenics, the principles of which were enshrined into American law by the Buck v. Bell SCOTUS decision written by the liberal and progressive jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was also the inspiration for the National Socialist (Nazi) race theory, and it is well to remember that this fascistic movement was statism, another form of collectivism. Sans the race theory, this same kind of nationalistic socialism in Italy was hailed as progressive by American progressives of both major parties until WWII commenced. Historically, constitutional conservatives, libertarians and constitutionalists have opposed Social Darwinism not so much on the grounds that it is not even wrong scientifically, but that it is inimicable to individual rights.

(For historical information, please see American Progressivism: A Reader by Professors R.J. Pestritto and W.J. Atto, or for a more popular but well documented account, see Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. For information on the American eugenics movement from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, see The Mismeasure of Man by Steven J. Gould. For information on the soft eugenics in American education, see An Underground History of American Education by J.T. Gatto, or go to his sources, such as Democracy and Education by the progressive John Dewey. From these you can follow the sources and read the American socialists and progressives in their own words).

Now on the structural problem in the Sermon of the Smear.

Essentially, the first half of the sermon was, as I have said, a poorly defined discussion about the Social Darwinism pseudoscience. The second half of the sermon was an argument in favor of two things: 1) federal health-care legislation (Obamacare by another name) and 2) that when Congress votes, opponents of the decision are obligated to "sit down and shut up." (A paraphrase of the POTUS and erstwhile messiah-in-chief). Since the rabbi's argument for Obamacare was in favor of a plan that doesn't exist all in one place, it was of necessity based on a collection of disputed statistics, and a number of generalities designed to appeal to emotion rather than reason. The second argument, so fallaciously counter to the American ideal of freedom of speech, speaks for itself. No American should ever be persuaded to stop speaking out against an unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) legislation. This is all objectionable in itself, and when I have the text of the sermon in front of me, I may write a second part to this entry, outlining all of these problems.

The big problem was that no clear transition was made (at least in the spoken sermon) from the first part on Social Darwinism to the second part about Obamacare. This left the listener to conclude that the rabbi was arguing that anyone who opposes Obamacare is not only a bad Jew who wants poor uninsured babies to die on the streets, but that we are also Social Darwinists. Here is the Vision of the Anointed in spades. Don't argue an idea on its merits or lack of them, argue it on the basis of your moral self-righteousness as opposed to your opponent's moral depravity-- a moral depravity determined by his opposition to your "enlightened" idea.

If I were a betting woman, I would bet that there was not one person in that sanctuary who wants poor uninsured babies to die for lack of care*. There was not one person in that sanctuary who would not give from his or her own largesse to help a neighbor or friend in dire straits. However, there were a substantial number of people in that sanctuary who are opposed to the federal government taking over healthcare because it is unconstitutional. But the basis of the rabbi's smear was not our argument, but the fact that we were opposed to a policy that he supports. Therefore, by definition, we must be the benighted ones who need to be enlightened. (I suppose that our enlightenment is to be accomplished by this rabbi's tacit approval of taking our own property away from us at the point of a gun to be used as he and his anointed colleagues in government see fit. We will be "free" to do what they tell us to do).

*For the record, for many years, my children were among those poor and uninsured children, and I did not qualify for the help my tax dollars funded. I was at that time a tax-paying member of the "working poor." But my kids did not die in the streets for lack of care. I insured myself--all I could afford--and then paid out of pocket for their rather ordinary medical expenses. The medical crisis I faced was a diagnosis of breast cancer, and I was darn lucky to have my own private medical insurance. Under Obamacare I would not have had the option to insure only myself without paying a bill of attainder tax (unconstitutional) for not insuring my children. With my private insurance I got excellent and timely medical care, care that has historically not been available to those dependent on socialized medicine.

Although there were people who nodded all through the rabbi's sermon, (either because they did not catch the logical fallacy of presumption but agreed with the conclusion, or because they agreed with the logical fallacy) there was relative silence after the sermon. I saw people sitting back with their arms crossed, and others fled the sanctuary at the first opportunity. I stayed for the choir anthem but I cannot remember what it was about. Certainly, my focus was no longer on Rosh Hashanah or on improving myself. Rather, I was contemplating civil disobedience at that particular point. I hate being placed in the position of seeing a false characterization and not being able to counter it. I fled right after the Kaddish, not being of a mood to participate in the rabbi's hand-holding "Kum-Ba-Yah" moment with him because of the ugliness of what he did when he smeared those who disagree with him on a political issue.

I badly wanted to stand up right then and there and challenge him to put his money where his mouth is**. If he really practices what he preaches, he should eagerly allow us to force him forgo his raise in order to "spread the wealth around" to those members of the congregation who are unable to pay full dues or religious school and/or pre-school tuition. Maybe we should vote not to raise his salary until all these needs are met. And maybe we should vote to impose a special temple tax on his salary for this purpose, because he makes far above the average income in New Mexico, being a member of the CCAR, which is essentially a rabbi's guild. If "soaking the rich" is morally superior in his eyes, shouldn't he be happy to comply? The majority rules, right? (My point is not that he does or does not choose to give to worthy causes, it is that he apparently believes that it is a moral virtue to force others to give to causes they would not choose).

**From my own personal experience, I know of once case in which he did not abide by his stated moral code with regard to a person experiencing financial difficulty due to a health issue.

Alas, I am either too polite or too lacking in the prophetic characteristics of my more fiery ancestors. And frankly, who wants to end up like Jeremiah?

The sermon ended with the rabbi's earnest assertion that "we are our brother's keepers." In the actual story in Genesis, Cain uses a different phrase in a question, asking, "Am I my brother's guardian?" But the meaning in the context of the story is clear. Cain is using the statement to evade responsibility for murdering his brother. In B'reshit (Genesis), the question is appended to a lie told in response to a direct question about Cain's dead brother's whereabouts. It is twisting the context to imply that it means that every individual should be forced to surrender the fruit of his labor for the support of every other. That would be involuntary servitude. In B'reshit, the Eternal does not bother to answer the question, but instead confronts Cain with the evidence of his act of murder. "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground." Cain's crime was that he murdered his brother. It is not a crime to refuse to enter into involuntary servitude.

Enslaving someone is in itself an immoral act. Using the federal government as the agent of enslavement makes it no more moral. A majority vote by our representatives in Congress makes it no more moral and no more legal. One cannot vote away one's own rights or those of another. Individual rights belong to human beings by virtue of their nature, and are thus said to be given by G-d. This is why the Engineering Geek and I have agreed not only to walk out on any future political sermons, but also to seriously consider whether it is moral for us to continue to support the synagogue if our money is going to causes that support this rabbi's words. And even if not, should we pay to provide him the bully pulpit he is using to call us Social Darwinists?


Unfortunately, my daughter has mistaken the actions of this rabbi and the climate that he has created in our synagogue with Judaism in general, and that is why she is leaving the faith. (See Zichronot). She cannot imagine raising her children in that environment, where they will be taught that it is appropriate for a rabbi to practice or condone bullying and smearing. She is a smart, strong woman who sees through the twisting of justice that these practices entail. What she does not see is that they are also a twisting of Jewish values. She does not understand that this is a perversion of the Holiness Code of Leviticus.

I know better. Rabbis come and rabbis go, it is the congregation that is holy. Many important life-cycle ceremonies have taken place for me at that Bimah, and there are many people I love in the congregation. At the same time, the Engineering Geek and I believe that we have the moral duty to make our complaints known and to withdraw our support if they are not answered. This is not the first time this rabbi has used his pulpit to assert the moral superiority of the current adminstration's political policies. And it is not the first time he has said or implied that one particular political stance is the only proper stance for Jews. We know that this is not so.

I think that this rabbi needs to make amends with the holy congregation for the implications he has made in this sermon and in other such sermons that there is only one Judaically correct political viewpoint, and for making false statements using the art of the smear; that is bringing shame upon a person or group by conflating his/their position with that of a stigmatized group or idea. A smear is a lie.

In the meantime, I will not, I cannot sit still and listen to anyone who has a political viewpoint that differs from that of the rabbi being smeared from the pulpit. Although I can, and have, used my right as a Jew to interrupt services in the face of an egregious problem that affects the shalem--the wholeness--of the community, I do not think that this would be useful in the large High Holy Day gathering. Therefore, I will make public my opposition to such public smears through my blog and by other means.

And to get back to the beginning of this post, I really think we ought to revisit the role of the sermon and restore it to twice a year. I go to the synagogue to pray. I go to the synagogue to study. I go to the synagogue to talk to Jews. I do not go to the synagogue to be indoctrinated with the political dogma of a particular rabbi or even of a particular Jewish movement. And I certainly do not go to hear hard-working, tax-paying Jews smeared by the rabbi whose high salary (by local standards) our dues support.

Edited to add links and correct typos.

The Baby and the Bathwater Part II: Both Sides Now

Last week I began writing about our ongoing concerns with how we fit into our current religious institution. In The Baby and the Bathwater Part I, I talked about the idea of naming an institution a "community" even though it does not function like a community. It is likely that to those who are in the rabbi's inner circle, and those who spend a great deal of time there, it does feel like a community. I was more deeply involved when we had a different rabbi and power structure and I remember thinking of it as a community of sorts, albeit a somewhat dysfunctional one.


When the rabbi changed, the power structure changed, and many of us who had been deeply involved found ourselves on the outside. Much was done to create factions and circles within circles, that in my estimation has reduced the sense of community. For example, levels of membership based on the absolute amount of dues paid were established. Those who paid the most got certain perks and privileges--such as celebrating Channukah at the rabbi's house, or high tea with the muckety-mucks of the Reform movement. This is, by definition, Country Club Judaism.


This change was very painful to those of us who had more time and skill than money to give at that time. (Synagogue dues are a big-ticket item on most family budgets, costing well over a thousand dollars a year, not including religious education fees, the required building fund contribution, additional fees for youth group membership, brotherhood and sisterhood, life-cycle event fees, etc.) The relative value placed on my contributions in kind and in skill was made plain. For example, I was and am a skilled Hebrew teacher and I have given my services free of charge for many years. No high teas for me!
I have not seen the silver sisterhood tea service grace a table I have been invited to sit at since the days of the former rabbi.

I remember being introduced by the current rabbi to a well-known rabbi and speaker at the annual Jewish Book Week Book Fair. He was to speak about his book, which was about dealing with catastrophic illness. I was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time, and I would have loved to have heard his take on this subject. The guest speaker asked me if I would be coming to the talk. But it was one of those aforementioned perks. Along with high tea. I was embarrassed to say that no, I would be sitting outside with the rest of the erev rav*.
I admit that I used the derogatory term intentionally. It had the intended effect.

*Hebrew idiom that means the same thing as hoi polloi in the derogatory sense.

This is not community.
Certainly it was not in the I-Thou sense the rabbi was pushing this Rosh Hashanah. And even in a limited I - You institutional model or a straightforward commercial transaction (I -It), the congregation could have offered the lecture to the erev rav for a fee. Although I was not able to pay above and beyond the minimum dues, I could have skipped lunch a few days and bought a ticket.

In fact, I'd prefer the straightforward individual commercial transaction. The color of my money would have been the same as that of the hoi olgoi.

And when Bruce and I married, and we began to make the kind of contributions that put us in one of those highly valued circles, we chose to boycott the special perks and privileges, precisely because both of us still think that they are divisive. Thus I stand outside the favored faction, and having been critical of it, there is no way that I will be invited into it. I want to be clear that this was my choice.

And that's why I have never been to the current rabbi's house.
And I still have not sat at a high tea. At least, not at our temple err, congregation.

So I have been on both sides of the issue now.
I have known what it was like to experience my religious institution as a community.
And I know what it is like to see it as a place to obtain specific services.
And to be completely fair to the rabbi, these are very different experiences, indeed.

When I experienced the inside, I felt that my life was bound up with the temple; I was there a lot because I wanted to be. I was proud to be a part of this something great that we were building together. I understood that each person so involved was bringing the offering of his or her heart, her voluntary best, her own piece of Torah, to build up the community. I understood that we were exchanging values that included material things, as well as mutual aid and support in times of trouble.

Now that I am on the outside, I see that I live much of my life elsewhere. I pay for the educational programs for the Boychick and complain about the quality--actually, lack thereof--of the education he is getting, because I do view it as fee-for-service. I contribute my time to specific programs, such as the Interfaith Hospitality Network, but I ration my involvement.

Why do I ration my involvement?
Precisely because I learned a painful but valuable lesson from experience.
It does not matter how much of my money, my time and myself that I give, it will not be enough to make any difference should my circumstances change.

Communities have memory.
They look at each other, as the machzor says, and know who they are.
Individuals and their unique contributions are important.
A person's value is based on what they have done in the community over time.


Institutions have no memory.
There are no individuals, people are interchangable.
And if your circumstances change, then it is as if what you have been and done within the institution never was.
A person's value is based on the expediency of the moment.

On that day that I was embarrassed before the visiting rabbi, I learned exactly what determined my value to this institution.
It was not about every unique thing that I contributed over time.
I had become an "it."

At a congregational meeting, I heard myself being excoriated, along with the other "its," for not taking financial responsibility to support the synagogue.
Never mind the other ways we made our contributions.
The rabbi--the moral authority of the congregation--did not rise in our defense.
Instead all of us "its" received a letter that began with the following line:

"Im ein kemach, ein Torah."
"If there is no flour, there is no Torah."

But if a person falls upon hard times and has no flour to give, surely if she bakes the bread made from the flour given by others, surely that has value? Is that not also Torah?

Quite conveniently to someone, I suppose, the letter left off the second half of this saying from Pirke Avot--The Widsom of the Fathers:

"Im ein Torah, ein kemach."
"If there is no Torah, there is no flour."

If Jews do not follow the precepts of Torah, then we are no longer Jews.
And if we lose our identity, we lose our values, and then we lose the community that that identity and those values forge.
The synagogue becomes just another country club.
In Torah we are commanded to take care of our own, to look at each other and see who we are, to affirm our identity in how we treat each other.
The Holiness Code read on Yom Kippur afternoon affirms this.
"Be Holy, as I Adonai, your G-d am Holy."
It means: Be different. Be separate. Be unique.
Don't give in to the values of the moment. Be Torah.

Im ein Torah...

There is no Torah when some of us are "it."

So why am I still here?
Because rabbis come and rabbis go.
I live here.
I became Bat Mitzvah at this Bimah.
My children were named here. They became Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah here. I was married at this Bimah.
I expect I will be buried from it.

And there are Jews--mostly the old ones--with whom I can share a gaze and know who I am.
They are here.
And I am here. Stiff-necked. Willful. WIldly in love with who we are. And who we are meant to be.

I stubbornly hold onto the fact that I am not and never was an "it."
Not when I was comfortable, not when I was poor, not when I was sick, and not now that I have wealth and health.
And none of the rest of us are "it" either.
And though I am on the outside, I am still responsible to Torah.
Even if I am standing opposite to the Bimah.

We need four kinds of Jews: Those with Torah. Those with Righteous Acts. Those with neither. Those with both.
We need both sides of the perek:
"Im ein kemach, ein Torah,
Im ein Torah, ein kemach."

I am still here.
I am the Jew with none of the above. I can be the Jew who can use the flour and bake the bread so that there can be Torah. Which in turn means there can be flour. I think that's called lifting sparks.

The Baby and the Bathwater Part I: Pseudo-community

It is no secret that the Engineering Geek and I have been questioning the value of our temple synagogue membership in the past two years. There are many issues, some of which are big on their own, and some of which are niggling little problems that annoy--like an itch that no amount of scratching will relieve. For us, the list of concerns spans numerous areas of temple synagogue life, including education, religious practices, and communication. I had thought that the overall issue was our loss of a sense of ownership in the institution; the experience of being discounted as decisions are made that affect the quality of our membership with little regard to our concerns. I still think this is true. However, I also has a moment of clarity last week during Rosh Hashanah. The dawning of clarity began with the rabbi's Rosh Hashanah sermon.

The rabbi used Martin Buber's I and Thou psychology to posit that most of us were coming at our membership from the standpoint of commerce; that is, our approach is to pay our dues as if we are paying for services, and we are disappointed if we do not get quality for our money. This he said, is equvalent to Buber's I - It relationship, in which we enter into a fleeting relationship (?) with another person for the purpose of the transaction. Such a relationship does not require any sharing of the self at all, and no energy is expended by either party on more than a formal and passing recognition of the personhood of the other.

The rabbi then jumped to Buber's I - Thou relationship, suggesting that this most intimate and holy of ways of relating is appropriate to the relationship of a Jew to her religious institution. According to Buber, the I - Thou relationship requires each person to view the other's unity of being; that is as a whole and complete individual; as a subject rather than an object. And it was at this point in the sermon that the whole metaphor began to fall apart for me.

Perhaps I am flawed in some way, but I really have difficulty imagining myself relating to an institution as if it were a dear friend or lover. And, try as I might, I do not see this particular institution operating as a community. I think such an equation as this is a great example of Mark Twain's aphorism, "saying so don't make it so."


The politically correct notion is that if you change the name of something, you change it's nature. Thus we have had a whole string of politically correct name changes at our Temple Congregation. Starting with the name of the organization. We also no longer have rabbis and cantors, we have clergy. We no longer have a Director of Education, we have a Director of Life-Long Learning. But the changes must go deeper than the cosmetic name change if they are to be taken seriously by the membership. Buy-in requires a more intimate and closely argued discussion in which all members have a voice and consensus is reached at the grass-roots level. As it stands, the politically correct changes do not even scratch the surface of what has become a monument to certain egos to which the membership is expected to acquiesce without question or complaint.


One example: Reform Judaism has a well-developed set of traditions. (I will discuss this issue more thoroughly in a future post). One is that the religious services require a certain formality. But that formality is balanced by brevity. Adults are expected to sit through the entire service, something that is not true for other expressions of Judaism. However, at the High Holy Day evening services in recent years, the stark beauty of the anthem following the sermon has been tampered with, and schlock rock songs, an additional sermon by the president of the congregation, and a 'kum-ba-ya' hand-holding encounter have been added. These additions of questionable taste add at least half-an-hour to an already long (for Reform) service. But the membership, many of whom have already worked a full day prior to services, is expected to remain awake and in their seats. When too many people either take a break, bail-out completely, or go to sleep, we are subjected to much finger-shaking from the bimah (pulpit). (This temple synagogue seems to have problems allowing people to meet the most basic need of a bathroom).

Even in the most holy and intimate of I - Thou relationships, marriage, a contract is made and it is expected that something of value is exchanged. The covenant--the brit--requires the participation of both "thou's." Such a covenant involves the exchange of both material and spiritual goods and services between and among the parties. Commerce-in the form of material value such as money--is not foreign to such a relationship; it is simply not the exclusive form of value exchanged. A contract is considered null and void if one of the parties reneges on such an exchange. (For example, a marriage is not a marriage if there is no intimacy between the partners and lack of such is grounds for divorce). Thus, it seems entirely proper for the membership to withhold money if they feel that the institution is not returning something of value in the exchange. It seems to me that the rabbi's scolding is an attempt to distract the membership from the institutional side of the bargain. It is an evasion of the contractual responsibility of the temple congregation towards the membership.

And this is where the metaphor completely falls apart for me. The I - Thou relationship requires a deep level of responsibility from both (or all) parties. There must be give-and-take happening at all levels. I - Thou is not a completely different way of relating to another, rather, it adds additional layers of complexity to the relationship.

I do not, and cannot imagine something of this nature happening between an institution and an individual. And this is one, but only one, of my objections to the rabbi's attack on what he calls "radical" individualism. I will discuss this more another time, but I find it rather frightening that he equates Jewish identity with the subsuming of one's individual identity into a collective. Certainly, the Israelite religion of the Bible was based on such an ideology, but modern Judaism, and especially Reform, recognizes the voluntary nature of the relationship between the Jew, Torah and the people Israel. It is a contradiction of the concept of intimacy, and of the I - Thou nature of intimacy, to demand that individuality be lost. (I am NOT talking about ecstasy. In ecstacy, the temporary nature of the loss of boundaries is necessary to the experience).

Rather, I once heard a teacher who suggested that an intermediary form of relationship be added to Buber's construct: I - You. Such a relationship is more like an acquaintanceship; the individuals acknowledge one another's humanity on a deeper level than in the fleeting moments of a commercial encounter, but the kind of intimacy required for the I - Thou relationship is not expected. Encounters with others in this intermediary relationship do require a commonality of purpose for particular endeavors, but it does not extend to all areas of each individual's life. Such a relationship sets limits on expectations from all involved.

I believe that such a relationship is possible between individuals and their respective institutions, precisely because the limitations stress the voluntary nature of the association. Everyone expects to receive something of value from the association and understands that demands among the parties cannot be infinite or unqualified. The powers that govern such an institution understand that they have a responsibility towards all members that is equal to that demanded of the members towards the institution. The members of the board of directors understand that they are to represent not only their own wants and needs, but also those of different individuals in the institution.

Frankly, Rabbi, I am not about to give up the "I" in the I - Thou relationship you propose. And I am not even sure I want to deal with the temple synagogue in this manner. At this point in the history of this congregation, I would be happy overjoyed to see an evolution towards an equal exchange of goods and services in a more bounded I - You relationship.

Maybe this would work better if we go at it step-by-step. I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but I am not at all comfortable drowning the little darling, either.

Two Steps Back Part II: The Organization or Lack Thereof

A Digression on Cause

"In the room fog gathers under the ceiling and thickens

in every brain. Let us form committees spawning

subcommittees all laying little moldy eggs of reports.

Under the gray fluorescent sun they will crack

to hatch scuttling lizards of more committees."

--Marge Piercy, Report of the Fourtheenth Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group

The quote from the poem above summarizes some of my feelings about what might be going on with the problems in Machon, and in religious education in general, which has encompassed Sunday School (K-6) and Hebrew School. This at least, is how have experienced it over the past four years.

I think the ultimate problem is that the problem has been talked to death. Many bright and shining generalizations have been developed, mission statements have been written, and overarching dreams for a utopian future for education at the synagogue have been expressed. All of this at the expense of actually hiring an educator who knows what he or she is doing and then letting that person actually get something done. To put it more bluntly, the problem lies in talk as a substitute for action, and micromanagement as a substitute for competent leadership. Rather like the federal government.

Gentle Reader, I will leave who is doing the talking and who is doing the micromanagement to your imagination. If you have ever been a member of an organization that has slid into chaos, especially religious chaos, you know who I am talking about. If you haven't, then count yourself as a fortunate soul, and may you always be so blessed.

Now I don't have a clue as to how to solve such a problem. And I am rather thankful that my synagogue would never call on me to solve it. Or even to help solve it. I am not among the rabbi's favorites, and in fact, I expect he winces every time I approach him with a question, like I did on Friday night.

We haven't been going to services much lately.

We have lots of reasons, most of which are probably unimportant to anyone else. However, this past Friday night, we had been invited, and then uninvited, and then, through some politic maneuvering on the part of someone far more skilled at diplomacy than I, invited again, to light the candles at the evening service in honor of our covert anniversary. If you can follow that, you can probably understand why we have felt the need to step way back in our participation in the synagogue.

That this small personal insult unfolded at the same time as the latest crisis in Machon, and a turf-war surrounding a Torah study group, and a sudden, unexplained reoganization in the early childhood center--and if you can grok the fact that these are all probably unrelated--except to certain egos-- you might begin to get the picture of why I call it chaos. And you can probably also see how difficult all of this for me, hampered as I am by the absence of political and social savvy that is associated with the broader autistic phenotype, to even begin to unravel. For example, I am not certain which egos are at work here, or who might be behind what, but I can certainly smell something rotten in Denmark.

And I wonder why it took G-d forty years to get the Israelites to the promised land?

Meshuggeneh*!

*Nuts.

Where was I? Even telling the story tends to induce an episode of full-blown situational confusion in which all I want to do is throw my hands up in disgust and plead for mercy. Well.

Oh, yes. Friday night.

So we lit candles, although our blessing was omitted, for reasons that are unclear and which will remain so until the coming of the Messiah. We also stroked the possibly responsible egos by thanking them profusely and pretending we did not know that we had nearly been handed our hats.
(Score: political correctness 2, us 1).

The sermon--why, oh, why did the early reformers have to copy that particular Protestant invention?--was about the latest vision statement out of the Lifelong Learning Committee. They actually have a plan. Well, maybe not an actual plan--more like an ideal. Or..well, I don't know what to call it, but they said that they wanted to hire a Director of Life-Long Learning that will do just about everything except actually run the religious school. For that they want a Religious Education Coordinator. Oh, and they will need an Early Childhood Coordinator. And, naturally, so that adult education will not feel left out, they need one for that, too.

At this point, Bruce leaned over and began calculating on his watch. He was muttering:

"Open parentheses. Recruitment expenses. Salary. Expense account. Benefits. Close Parentheses. Open parentheses...."

I poked him in the ribs and muttered, "Don't geek out on me on Shabbat!"

He poked me back and hissed: "Well, they're the ones that mentioned money."

I whispered: "Well, they actually didn't, but..."

He muttered: "I can't pray when they start upping our dues in the middle of a service. How many relatives do they have anyway?"

But the part that really got my attention was when were told that if they could not find exactly the right person, they'd wait until the next year and start again.

I poked Bruce. "Great," I whispered, "So we can have chaos in the religious school for another year."

Bruce whispered: "I thought our G-d liked cosmos."

"No, honey," I whispered. "That's the 'Geek' gods. Ba-bum!"

Then we both turned and smiled angelically at the rabbi who was gazing in our direction.

Maybe he was regretting making us move out of the back row.

So at the oneg I asked my question: "In the meantime, what are you going to do about the current problems in Machon?"

I could give you a blow-by-blow account of that conversation, but my fingers are getting tired. Let's just cut to the chase.

Probably not much.

Possibly some new emergency policy that has not been well thought out.

Maybe a "coordinator" who knows something about school policy and discipline. Which raises another question. Will they let the person actually do the job?

Score: 'Process' 100, our kids ZIP.

I realize that I did not write the promised What Should Be Done installment.

But I wanted to answer a comments question: Why do you think this has become a widespread problem?

Maybe you can ferret out an answer from this account. I think it is ego-politics and focus on process at the expense of results.

In part III, I will get to what I would do if I were the Queen of Machon.

Here's a hint:

"...but oh, oh in me

Lurks a tyrant with double-bladed axe who longs

to swing it wide and shining, who longs to stand

And shreik, You Shall Do As I Say, pig-bastards!

No more committees but only picnics and orgies

And dances. I have spoken. So be it forevermore."

--Marge Piercy, Report of the Fourteenth Subcomittee on Convening a Discussion Group