Yizkor: Recovering Our Memory

Growing up in Springfield, Ohio, I did not have much of a Hebrew vocabulary. When the High Holidays were upon us people would say “Good Yuntif.” It was years before I learned that the words Yom Tov had any relationship with the High Holidays. Hebrew words and Yiddish words were given a Southern Ohio re-casting. To this day my New York-raised wife Carolyn cannot believe some of the hackneyed Yiddish-like constructions that come out of my mouth. When people were getting ready to go back to synagogue on Yom Kippur I would hear them say, “What time is yisskur?”  I did not know that this had any relationship with the ritual of observing Yizkor (which means remembrance).

During the High Holiday services I would get few clues. In our Reform congregation it was called the Memorial Service.  Clearly there were a lot more people for this service than for the afternoon Torah reading about Jonah and the whale. Our Russian name was Leviatan (big fish) so my father felt called to read (and we to listen) this portion of the afternoon service. We thus had a seat to watch as the room filled up for the Memorial Service.

Our rabbi clearly understood that the Memorial Service was the big draw. He reminded them that there was a time when there was an “unseemly exodus after the memorial service” as people rushed home to eat before the sounding of the Shofar. Of course, this was a mythical past. There were always people moving toward the doors after Kaddish. So that is how I remember how we use to remember.

When I began to go to Conservative synagogue I became aware of Yizkor.  For background, I am sharing this information from Jewish Virtual Library:

Yizkor (Hebrew, literally "remember") is a traditional mourning service recited by those who have lost a parent or a close loved one. This is based on the Jewish belief in the eternity of the soul and that although a soul can no longer do good deeds after death, it can gain merit through the charity and good deeds of the living. It is recited as part of the prayer service four times during the year.

Yizkor is said following the Torah and Haftarah readings on Yom Kippur, on the last day of Passover, on the second day of Shavout, and on the eighth day of Sukkot (Shemini Atzeret). It is said on Yom Kippur because of the belief that the dead as well of the living need atonement on this day. Yizkor also includes a pledge for charity, which is something that is believed to help avert a harsh decree.

Repetition – Excavating our Past

The big idea that has emerged for me is the idea of repetition as an aid to memory. I find the traditional approach has merits over the one day rush to honor and remember that I grew up with.  The wisdom of the tradition speaks to the very challenge of remembering. When I remember my father Harry and my sister Barbara (both May yahrzeits) four times a year I gain new insights.

I understand why my father was sometimes fearful. At age 64, I now understand more about the dangers of the world. I understand why he wanted to hold on to his role in the company.  I am currently training mentees to consult congregations. They now have the primary relationship with the client. I understand what it’s like to get old.  I work with a personal trainer just to be able to bend my knees more fully. It doesn’t just happen. Working through the stiffness makes me all too aware of my own mortality.

Not long ago I heard a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter called “Only a Dream.” It brought back memories of my sister and me playing in the backyard in the late 1950’s in Springfield. My sister, Barbara Leventhal Stern, was a painter and she painted a picture of the two of us from an old black and white photo where she is twirling me around in our backyard. The words of the song brought memories of those long past summer days.

We lived on a street where the tall elm shade
Was as green as the grass and as cool as a blade That you held in your teeth as we lay on our backs Staring up at the blue and the blue stared back
We'd grow just as tall and as proud as we pleased
With our feet on the ground and our arms in the breeze
Under a sheltering sky
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down,
Say it was only a dream

I used to believe we were just like those trees

Twirl me about, and twirl me around

Lifting Up the Veil

Yizkor helps me pull back the veil of forgetfulness about my sister’s and father’s lives. I see them more clearly. I also meet them halfway. I am changing all year long. Layer by layer I lift back the veil to overcome my amnesia and to correct the lens of my vision.  Over time I am able to make connections between an old painting in our collection and song I just discovered. Together the memory becomes real. Yizkor provides a time for these explorations and I am thankful for having a tradition that encourages me to excavate and uncover my memories- to remember. For those in mourning, Yizkor is a time where the synagogue community can really be a place of remembrance and healing.

It's Never Too Late

Some friends asked me if it was a little late for such a celebration at my age. Since I am in the synagogue ritual business I felt compelled to consider their question. The following are some of my remarks from my speech at the wedding reception for Carolyn Reinach Wolf and me (6-14-2015):

When I was transitioning from the business world I decided to get a Masters in Jewish education. As I was writing papers one friend asked, “Isn’t it a little late to start grad school?”

After Carolyn and I had been together for a few years I bought Dr. John Gottman’s The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. She saw the book and asked, “Isn’t it a little late for advice?”  Now I was able to use some Jewish aikido to turn her around. I told her that I had done the self-assessment for couples. She is so competitive she wanted to know, “How are we were doing?”

When I told friends that we were doing a wedding in New York, one friend from Ohio said, “A real wedding? A reception, music- the whole deal in New York?  Isn’t it a little late for all that? You didn’t consider just going to a rabbi’s study and having a cocktail party later?” We stand before you as a living proof that it isn’t too late. I believe that it’s never too late to learn something new. That’s what motivates me to teach synagogue board members who sometimes think they “know it all by now.”

Respect: I See You

Dr. Gottman said that one of the best signs of a promising couple is mutual respect. The word respect comes from the Latin world- specere- to look. We chose to ritualize this by walking around each other three times so we could look at each other as individuals before we entered the chuppa together. Like the trees in our Ketuba, we are different but entwined.  The sages say that if you repeat something three times it begins to become a habit. Three times around. We hope to make our mutual respect a habit.

I have the greatest respect for Carolyn. She never stopped learning. As a self-made career woman she has never stopped hustling. Tenacity was a core value of my family’s business too.

Carolyn’s work requires compassion. We share a compassion for troubled souls. She advocates for the rights of the mentally ill who are often hidden. Advocating for them is often an uphill battle. I advocate for the importance of synagogues and how they ritualize what is most important in a world that is often perplexing. Today, the benefits and blessings of Jewish living are often hidden to many. Making the case is an uphill battle. We share a respect for tenacity. We don’t give up in our work. We have not given up on each other. Here we are!

Fond Memory

Dr. Gottman suggests that couples who do well hold on to fond memories of their early years together.  They have the capacity to have a palpable connection to when their love was  fresh and strong. The Torah expresses this sentiment between God and the Jewish people (in Jeremiah 2:2):

I remember for thee the affection of thy youth, the love of thy espousals, how thou wentest after me in the Wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

We have put photographic mementos on your tables of the last four glorious years we have shared together. When we face challenges, we hope you will remind us of the promise of our early years.

Loving Witness

Dr. Gottman suggests it is important to have a ceremony where you are surrounded by well-wishers. Just as we were wrapped in the talit, so all of you who have attended have wrapped us in your love and helped make this day sacred and special. Those are not small things. It is never too late to gain love and support for the road ahead. Thank you for coming!

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.

To Survive, To Strive, and To Thrive

As I prepared for a workshop recently with Shir Chadash, a Conservative congregation in New Orleans, I watched Spike Lee’s HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke.” The people interviewed loved New Orleans – its history, its music, its food, its families. Many have had a multi-generational commitment to the city. I came away from the film with a powerful sense of what was lost.

When I arrived at Shir Chadash, I learned that over 25% of their members left after the flood. Older members decided not to rebuild. Some moved near their children. Many members had to leave when their companies relocated.

A few years ago, I heard Rabbi Harold Kushner speak about his book on Job. He told a story about discussing his book in post-Katrina New Orleans. He was asked where God was in the storm. He replied that God was not in the storm. Storms are governed by the laws of nature. God was in the hearts of the first responders. Religious faith and practice is not an amulet that provides protection from the world but it does provide a framework for building a purposeful life the day after.

Megillah reading at Shir Chadash - Purim 5775

So as I traveled to Shir Chadash, I was looking for how Jewish life was being built “the day after.” I wanted to see what it looked like to survive – and thrive – as a synagogue in the 21st century.

I asked some of the leaders of Shir Chadash to complete a new assessment we created called “18 Characteristics of a Thriving Congregation.” The assessment looks into how a congregation’s clergy and lay leadership create a shared mission, a welcoming culture, meaningful Jewish learning, prayer, and connected community. I had some initial, interesting responses from the Shir Chadash team.  But I was most struck by what I noticed informally over the weekend, which were clear examples of what I call “sightings of thriving.”

•  Spirited Singing: At the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, I was impressed by the spirited singing of the rabbi and prayer leader. Not everyone was able to sing with such abandon but overall the room was lifted up by enthusiasm.
• Welcoming Guests: The kehilla leaders took it upon themselves to hold a Shabbat dinner for me with the board. Everyone wore name tags and were great about coming up to me. We played Jewish geography and got to know each other. On Saturday morning I was given an Aliyah. I thought, I thought, “This is what welcoming looks like.”
• Connecting Torah to the Modern World: I walked away from this service with two divrei Torah that boldly and creatively took traditional Torah values and “made the connection” to our times:
• The rabbi gave a very creative sermon about the dangers of Jews criticizing each other for having multiple allegiances. He reminded us that throughout history governments have tried to give Jews a litmus test to prove their loyalty. There is nothing wrong, he argued, with having multiple allegiances. The rabbi showed how he might make the connection between Jewish history to a burning issue of the day. 
•  Next I heard a d’var Torah by the bat mitzvah. While we had just listened to a Torah reading about animal sacrifices, she helped us look at the text in a new way. In Biblical times, she noted, sacrificing an animal was a huge economic sacrifice. Paying for an animal would not be such a big deal for us today. Today our most valuable asset is our time. She asked us to consider what time commitments we are willing to make for our Jewish community. WOW. The issue of how we carve out sacred time is one of the pillars of the Sulam for Emerging Leaders program. I often have to work hard to help rabbis make this point with their participants. This 13 year old girl “nailed it.” She had learned to make the connection.
• Building Relationships: At Kiddush lunch people came up to me and introduced themselves.  Rabbi Linden took the initiative to introduce me to the Membership Chair, “I think he would like to talk to you,” he said. Rabbi Linden was helping us to connect.
• Welcoming Young Families: I sat with several young couples and was surrounded by babies in high chairs and kids zigging and zagging around us. One of the young couples told me that this is a place that welcomes young families. I could see that the generations really enjoy each other.
• Taking Care of the Little Things: When I arrived at the conference room the executive director was there early, making sure that everything was in order.  I in turn was able to focus on my pre-workshop preparation knowing that all of the logistics were taken care of. This is what it looks like to care for and honor a guest. Why do I make such a big deal about such mundane details?  Judaism emphasizes the importance of practicing the little things that build a covenantal and caring community. I learned a great deal about a leadership culture by observing how they treated me.
• Leaders with a Shared Commitment: On Sunday we conducted a leadership development workshop for the board. They have around 30 members. Usual attendance is about 60%. In some dysfunctional cultures it can be less than a third. On Sunday we had over 85%. This is what shared commitment looks like. 
• Going Beyond the Synagogue Walls: I learned that the congregation holds Friday services in a member’s home in the uptown neighborhood where many members live.  Shir Chadash has a vision of a portable mishkan that can move out to the people. This is what you see when leaders  strive to meet people “where they are.”

Shir Chadash:  A New Song

Ten years after Katrina, Shir Chadash certainly has a new song. They have added a net of about 20 new members a year for the last 5 years. They have been able to create a narrative of growth in a community with memories of devastation and loss. These members have been welcomed into a community that seems committed to weaving new meaning between their Torah and the lives of their members. They have had the chance to participate in a caring, connected community clearly united in striving for continuous learning and improvement. That is more than surviving, I thought. “This is what thriving looks like.”

Accountable for Building Sacred Community

I have always wondered about the narrative that precedes and follows the incident of the Golden Calf.  In Parashiot Terumah and Tetzaveh we find all of these instructions about how to build the ritual objects of the tabernacle. In modern terms, we are building the hardware for the system.  We learn about the crafting of the Menorah. We hear rich detail about the cloth and the bells around the hem of the priest’s garments. 

In Parashat Ki Tissa we learn that Moses has gone up to the mountain to get the law that will help provide the ethical software to bring the holy space to life. At the base of the mountain, however, the people are falling apart. They are unraveling. The people get anxious when Moses is gone for 40 days. Moses’ brother, Aaron, wants harmony. He is a people pleaser. He wants to quell their unrest. He agrees to make a golden calf to provide a tangible object of their lost leader (God and/or Moses). Aaron creates a mold to hold the outpouring of their gifts of fear. They react to his gesture by throwing their gold into the fire.

Moses reacts as well. When he hears the singing and sees the dancing around the calf he breaks the tablets of the law. The people are rebuked. Moses and God step back from the precipice and process the event.

When confronted by Moses, Aaron tries to remove his fingerprints from the crime scene.  On the retelling of the story, Aaron says that the people just threw their gold into the fire and “out came the calf.” He does not admit that he framed the situation, used his craft and made the mold.

God assures Moses that he will temper his anger. He will be “compassionate, gracious and slow to anger” (Ex 34:6). He commits that he will “go in their midst,” despite this betrayal, as long as they uphold the covenant (34:10-11). Good news!

Then, surprisingly, in the next parasha after Ki Tissa (Vayakhel), we pick up more details about the building of the tabernacle. “Why the bookend parashiot about building the tabernacle?” I wonder. My rabbi suggested, that as often happens, the texts may not be linear. He explains how the twelfth-century French biblical commentator Rashi argued for a different timeline:

Rashi’s Timeline

• The people mold a Golden Calf in Ki Tissa.
• God chooses to be compassionate. The people were weak and got poor direction.
• Now God provides detailed instructions for the structure in Parashiot T’rumah and Tetzaveh.
• In Parashat Vayakhel, God calls on the talents and gifts of the people.
• God chooses gifted leaders like Betzalel to build the tabernacle according to a plan.
• We hear about how the clothing of priests were constructed and how the tabernacle is built. We learn how the plan was completed.

The Sulam Accountability Plan

This now makes sense to me. In our Sulam Accountability Plan we follow a similar timeline from reflection to action:

Reflection

• We make an honest assessment about the ways we have failed to be a team with shared values, covenants and agreements. In the past we may have operated with unclear roles and expectations (like the Israelites in the story) which may have led to conflict. In the past, when things went badly leaders may have thrown up their hands and said, “We don’t know how our board became so contentious and dysfunctional” (i.e. “Out came the calf.”)

Action

• We design a set of structures that will help us move toward sacred team work.
• We call upon the gifts of all of those at the table to comment on what they expect from themselves and each other.
• We create a board expectations guide and then put these principles into action.  
• We conduct a self-assessment about how leaders are addressing these expectations.
• We make the expectations a living covenant by referring to them throughout the year.
• We provide them to the nominating committee so that we can ensure that new leaders are also committing to the covenantal board values.

Molding Sacred Teams

Sulam leaders take responsibility to mold their leaders into a team through reflection and action. In this series of stories we can contrast the leadership of Aaron and Betzalel. When the people complain, Aaron just reacts and gives in. Like many of our leaders, he enables the people. He buys some peace for a few hours. The cost for the people and their mission is high. In Rashi’s reading, Betzalel gets a chance to harness the gifts of the people and put them to work in an intentional step-by-step process. This process will allow them to contribute to the creation of sacred space for a committed leadership - a place God will dwell.

Leaders Help Teams Learn to Count on Each Other

In his recent book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek uses examples from the armed services where leaders learn to build trust by putting the welfare of others first. This high level of trust is critical for their ability to operate in stressful combat situations. Soldiers need to count on each other.  You can listen to his Ted talk on the book here: 

In his book, The 17 Laws of Teamwork, world famous management consultant, John Maxwell, lists the Law of Countability (p. 117). “Teammates must be able to count on each other. In order for me to count on you I have to know what I can expect from you and trust that you will meet those expectations consistently.”

Unfortunately many synagogues’ boards lack up-to-date board expectations that really relate to the work they do. According to United Synagogue’s Succession Survey (2012), even those synagogues that have board expectations often fail to hold people accountable for those expectations.

Many synagogues are going through challenging and stressful times. A team with a strong shared vision, values and expectations can create a circle of trust and security for leaders to be their best. According to Sinek, when people get stressed out, they produce cortisol, which impairs their health.  When leaders create communities (circles) of trust, they produce healthy chemicals. So for Sinek, team chemistry really matters. In our Sulam leadership process, we take these team-building expectations seriously.

Our Sulam Team-Building Process: Shared Expectations

• Shared Ownership: Involve the board in the creation of expectations. Expectations should be realistic. Board members are not realistically going to commit to go to daily minyan. Expectations should be fair. Each board member engages in board service in different ways. Some may be very active in social justice, others in volunteerism and some in ritual. Expectations should honor these different paths to service.
• Relevant Values: All leaders need to know what values driven leadership looks like. Leaders often talk in generalities (respectful and accountable) but do little to show what these values mean in practice.  Effective boards use their board expectations throughout the board year. When the president is recruiting people to be on the bimah or to solicit for the annual campaign, they should do it with this board covenant in hand. This is what some call “The Teachable Moment.”
• Reflective Leadership: Board members should take a self-assessment that helps them reflect on how they have progressed during the year. This will prepare them to talk to the nominating committee about their desire to continue for the next board term.
• Accountable Culture: Nominating Committees can use these categories to reflect on the performance of board members. Leaders are shaped by what they focus on. In terms of Sulam Leadership strategies, it is inconceivable that the nominating committee would not have board expectations in hand when they recruit leaders on the way in or at moments of assessment.
• Supportive Colleagues: Teammates help one another. Some synagogues train mentors to help develop new members to be more effective teammates.

The Sulam of Service

In Sulam Leadership we often say that we seek to be “steady in purpose, but flexible in strategy and tactics.”  We have some core values which we bring to the table and we expect kehillot to engage them:

• We expect each congregation to come up with their own board expectations. We are not neutral on the importance of expectations. We expect them to be created.
• We are open as to how the board engages with their expectations. We are not neutral on the need to engage with them. We expect an on-going process.
• We are open on the many different places people begin when they join the board. We are not neutral on the direction. We expect growth.

“Sulam” is Hebrew for “ladder”. A leader may come into leadership at different rungs of the ladder. What is important for us is that a leader role models a commitment to continuous improvement. It doesn’t matter if a leader has the same Torah study practice as I do. It is important that they have some aspiration to learn more. John Maxwell argues that effective business team members need a personal growth plan. If this in true in business, how much more relevant is a personal growth plan for leaders of a synagogue?

In our Sulam for Emerging Leaders program we end the 6 session program by helping emerging leaders create a Sulam Personal Growth Plan. If this is important for emerging leaders, how much more important is it for leaders at the top of the organization? Judaism argues that the higher your authority, the greater your responsibility. In our Sulam for Strategic Planners survey, we found that approximately 17% of the respondents strongly agreed that they would like support in order to increase their level of Jewish learning. When a board creates the expectations that they will be a learning and growing team, they send a powerful message to emerging leaders and aspiring members. We are all committed to growth.

Synagogue leaders can learn valuable lesson from high functioning teams. Board expectations provide one example of shared values. We encourage leaders to learn about the personality preference and management styles of their teammates.  We encourage leaders to have Briefing Books on key facts they need to know. They should understand the vision and strategies for the congregation. While just one element of a successful team, board expectations lay the foundation for other steps along the way to a cohesive and accountable team.