A Window on the World

I spent three years in Jackson, Mississippi from 1977-80 as the manager of one of our family’s production plants. That was less than 15 years from the civil rights battles of the 60’s.  In the Jackson Jewish community you heard stories about the few courageous souls to stood up for justice and a muffled acknowledgment that most had done little. In Jackson, the cost of courage was real. The rabbi, Perry Nussbaum, had taken a stand for civil rights. In 1967 the synagogue and his home were bombed.

Some people, like Rabbi Nussbaum, have the courage to stand and be counted.  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma. This is what courage looked like.  I heard that Heschel insisted that his office at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC have a window that looked out over Harlem. He wanted to ensure he was not cut off from the world.

When I saw the riots in downtown Baltimore last month my first thought turned to Beth Am Israel, the only Conservative Congregation in the inner city of Baltimore. I asked some colleagues if they had heard anything from Rabbi Daniel Burg. They said no.

Then one offered, “Whatever happens in the crisis you can be sure that Rabbi Burg will be there the day after to help rally the community like a modern-day Heschel.”

Crisis in Baltimore

So I went to do some research. The Times of Israel reported:

Burg’s 93-year-old synagogue was once in the center of the main Jewish neighborhood – before most of the community moved further north toward the city’s borders and the suburbs. Now, Burg’s synagogue is the only permanently active Jewish institution in Reservoir Hill. Burg and his congregants are committed to remaining deeply involved in the neighborhood, the surrounding community, and Baltimore City. His congregants, he says, were very aware of recent cases of police violence against young black men – even months before fellow west Baltimorean Freddie Gray was taken into a police van and emerged an hour later with multiple breaks to his spine, paralyzed and comatose.
“Since Freddie Gray was killed, the conversations here have become more pointed and there is deep concern and consternation about the current state of race relations in this town and about the lack of trust between law enforcement and the civilian population,” Burg said.“On Shabbat after services, I walked down and joined a few congregants who joined a group from Jews United for Justice, and we had a Shabbat prayer experience together. Then we joined the protests at the Western District [police] headquarters where Freddie Gray had been, and walked through west Baltimore in what in my experience was a very peaceful demonstration. “

What the Times article demonstrates is that Rabbi Burg and his community have a “window on the world.” They have an external focus that looks beyond their walls. They look for opportunities for community programs and partners. They helped create a playground for the neighborhood partnering with the Baltimore Ravens. They worked with local groups to create a community garden. In the wake of the crisis the garden was damaged.

Rabbis Nussbaum and Heschel could affirm that having a “window on the world” can be dangerous. 

In Burg’s neighborhood, windows were smashed. Blocks away, protesters burned a CVS drug store and looted local stores.
 “My job first and foremost is to [take care of] my congregation, but our values, mission and vision as a synagogue is to be accountable to and in a relationship with our neighborhood in Reservoir Hill and to Baltimore City. [We try] to capitalize on the opportunities that come at the nexus of history and geography that is a 93-year-old synagogue building in a majority African-American neighborhood,” Burg explained. “In that sense I serve as a community leader, a faith leader. So today [Tuesday] I was out in west Baltimore helping with the cleanup, and working with our partners leading prayer services.”
Burg called on his congregants – and others – “to think about ourselves as part of this community and this city, and on a day like today, not just our neighborhood – Reservoir Hill. The more that we can do that, the more that we can build bridges,”That is what you see when you have a window on the world.

A Mission Bigger than Ourselves

 Rabbi Daniel Burg spoke to the Torah’s mandate of piku’ach nefesh, that we are compelled to act if by doing so we might save a life. I believe that “Prophetic Judaism” challenges the status quo. It forces the community to see. It helps them have a window to Gods will. A commitment to social justice helps Beth Am’s neighbors. It also, I believe, helps Beth Am. A commitment to social justice and opportunities for hands-on social action (Heschel called marching “praying with his feet”)  creates a mission that is bigger than just sustaining the congregation. It gives people a chance to connect to a higher purpose. That is an idea as old as Abraham.

Purpose driven congregations attract members and potential leaders. We find that “thriving congregations” connect Jewish learning, Jewish prayer and prophetic social justice. This is more than an annual mitzvah day or a teen trip to Washington. By weaving the three elements it creates a critical mass of commitment to see the right and to respond to what is called for.

I learned on my visit to Beth Am that this commitment to social justice existed before Rabbi Burg arrived there, but he has built on it. Some congregations are consumed by internal politics rivalries and day-to-day operations. Beth Am had a vision to be in a relationship with their neighborhood in Reservoir Hill and with Baltimore City.  Rabbi Burg has kept his window open and encouraged others too look out of their windows. In the process of helping to transform the Reservoir Hill District I imagine that many of Beth Am’s leaders have been personally transformed. When the crisis came they did not have to break down the walls that separated them from other community leaders. They found that the doors of the community were open to them. 

Programming for Today’s Jewish Audience

In the New York Times on May 11, 2015, Dave Itzkoff wrote, “David Letterman’s departure is in some ways the end of an era in late night television. If Mr. Letterman represented an era when a late-night show was a comprehensive end-of-day viewing experience, meant to be watched in a post-twilight setting for an hour (or until you fell asleep), the coming age is fragmented by technology, designed for online virality, unstructured and unmoored from time slots.”

Changing Expectations for Viewers

Itzkoff continued, “What is going away is the expectation viewers will watch these programs in close to their entirety, or even sequentially. And future shows will abandon the familiar, rhythmic tempo of late-night altogether.” It seems to me that Next Generation watches things when they want to, on the device they want to and where they want to. Observers report they have a short attention span. Program developers may find they are just ‘one click away from oblivion.’

We are all too familiar with the disruptive impact of generational changes fueled by economic and technological changes. How do these changes impact the attitudes of the next generation for synagogue’s engagement and or membership? 

Kathy Elias has noted that most synagogue leaders are what she refers to as “structuralists.” They want people to join up and attend key programs at set times, within the boundaries of their culture and within their synagogue walls (structures). In today’s environment, prospective members are often what Elias calls “experientialists.” They may feel they can get Jewish content and experience from a wide array of providers when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. They also have learned that they can get much of this for little or no cost.

Outside of the walls of Jewish institutions (synagogues, federations, seminaries, denominations) the world is changing. Leaders within their institutions must deal with major paradigms shifts. They are challenged to see the world with new lenses. Rabbi Hayim Herring writes about this shift in “Educating Rabbis for Jews Without Borders”:

In the 21st Century, we can now clearly see a new paradigm of a world characterized by human networks that can swell swiftly to upend governments or fund game-changing products; an unbounded start-it-yourself and share-it-with-others ethos; and, heightened influence of lone individuals, ephemeral crowds, and enduring social networks. Individuals have the ability to span cultures, geography and time, and relatively small groups have the means to violently shift national borders.

He then shifts to explain the impact on Jewish institutions:

The American Jewish community has naturally been affected by this new zeitgeist. For many Jews today, the beliefs, behaviors and values that animated the Jewish community have lost their former power. Beliefs don’t hold people. Rather, people hold beliefs – and may discard them when they no longer “work,” customize “new traditions,” or design Jewish rituals drawn from multiple faith traditions. As a result, we might call the Jewish community of the United States, “Jews Without Borders.”

The New Program Scheduling Paradigm

A new paradigm? While many of the changes have been going on for last 20 years, change has accelerated and the accumulated force of these disruptions has created a new reality. How do we create programs in a world where audiences have become “unmoored” from such programming staples as late-night TV? How do we engage current and prospective members when they have a finger on the mouse or the remote control and are ready to turn their attention elsewhere within a moment’s notice? How do congregations program and communicate in a world where the basic assumptions they have operated on have a smaller and more fragmented audience? Here are some programming guides:

• Volunteer activity will be more episodic. More people will opt for a short projects or task forces.

•  Programs will need to be able to stand on their own. Leaders can’t assume their participation will be sequential.

• Resources need to be accessible when people need them. We may have fewer people that attend a live Sulam webinar but many who access these materials later.

• Programs will need to have shorter time frames- more mini-series where people can jump in for a limited time period.

• There need to be multiple locations where one can connect to the community (multiple service rooms, home Shabbat networks, book groups, service streaming, sermon podcasts that can be played as you walk through the park etc.)

• Programs need to show how the synagogue connects members to the world outside the synagogue’s walls through hands on social action.

• Leaders will welcome programs from the bottom up. The synagogue or Jewish organization may tap the knowledge and skills of groups and simply help them convene. Let them go with their passions within a supportive framework.

• Leaders have to create a strong brand experience. HBO’s president understands that not all of his subscribers will love boxing or political comedian Bill Maher.  He just needs subscribers to find among all of the programs enough perceived value to sustain his monthly fee.

• Leaders can welcome programs from across the community. Not everyone can afford to have the program breadth of HBO (from comedy to boxing) . Some need to find ways to collaborate and partner to program with others across  borders.

• Programs will have to show how they welcome different types of people into the walls of the synagogue (LGBT, singles, interfaith, financially struggling, etc.).

• Programs have to appeal to people’s interest in learning, social action and spirituality. Programs need to weave different elements together to cluster enough value for an experience.

• Programs are not enough. Participants need some kind of relationship building experience with others.  They need to make friends.\

• Participants have to believe in the synagogue's brand. HBO’s subscribers believe in HBO’s brand. Synagogue participants need to believe in the vision (brand) of the synagogue.

Conclusion

Television programs and synagogues are both experiencing disruptive change. Some leaders choose to ignore the paradigm changes and continue to do what they have been doing. Others realize that there is a new generation with their own personal playlist. These synagogue leaders are hoping to get some of their best ideas and programs on these playlists. They want to be a brand that wins the hearts, minds and loyalties of their audience. It’s not an easy process but having a sense of urgency about the need for change is the first step.