Standing Here This Day

Professor Jack Wertheimer is a person whom I admire and respect. Professor of American Jewish history and past provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary, author of more books and articles than I dare count, Wertheimer has shaped not just his particular field, but the thinking of thousands of rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, and professionals – myself included. Professor Wertheimer’s distinguished career has never been consigned to the ivory tower, he is deeply invested in the well-being of American Jewry. Most importantly, he holds the greatest calling card of them all – a shem-tov, a good name. From the classes I took with him at JTS to the gracious counsel he has extended to me over the years, and, above all, his abiding menschlichkeit – knowingly and unknowingly, he has had a profound influence on me for which I am grateful. Over the years he has spoken at Park Avenue Synagogue on many occasions, a relationship I hope continues into the future.

So when his latest article was published this week by Mosaic Magazine , I was eager to read it, as always. Timed to coincide with the arrival of the High Holy Days, Wertheimer’s article reflects his findings during dozens of interviews he conducted with rabbis of North American synagogues on the subject of High Holy Day services. Those interviewed were almost entirely non-Orthodox rabbis – Conservative, Reform, Renewal, and otherwise. In full disclosure, Wertheimer did reach out to me to participate in his study, but our schedules could not align, and we never did connect. Since reading his article, I have been left to wonder what I would have said had we had the opportunity to talk.

Wertheimer begins by noting the surge in worshippers at synagogues over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – in some communities, a ten- or twenty-fold increase over normal Shabbat attendance. The substance of his article is an inventory of the tactics employed by non-Orthodox rabbis (it is not clear if he interviewed any cantors) to engage these once- or twice-a-year Jews. No longer, he explains, do rabbis guilt or chastise their congregants for coming only once a year. Their focus rather is to have congregants feel good about their decision to come and to draw attention to themes such as self-reflection, self-improvement and spiritual renewal. Other efforts include email messages sent to congregants during the month of Elul as a means of spiritual preparation or the introduction of new mahzors with updated translations, transliterations, and contemporary commentaries. Squads of greeters are put to work to offer a warm welcome, and moments are created to acknowledge those people who, in the year gone by, have suffered a loss, welcomed a new baby, or experienced another lifecycle event. A buffet of service options is offered: alternative prayer experiences to serve families of all stripes and types – interfaith families, families with young children, children’s services, and more.

Within the service itself, Wertheimer notes a series of transformations. Congregants are invited to bow down with the clergy at the Aleinu prayer. The Yom Kippur catalogue of sins is updated to include contemporary human failings. Meditative Yizkor services are introduced to elicit “laughter and tears” regarding our deceased loved ones. Wertheimer makes much ado about the inability of American Jews to hold fast to a traditional concept of God, and the willingness of rabbis to create space for congregants with a range of beliefs – conventional, unconventional, or none at all. And then, of course, there is the music. Most Reform and Conservative synagogues have begun to substitute updated compositions for classical High Holy Day melodies, ranging from Shlomo Carlebach to songs from Jewish youth groups and summer camps, a Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah,” or even adaptations of Stevie Wonder or Elton John. Using musical instruments is standard practice, and enormous effort goes into what one rabbi calls “high production values.”

Reading Wertheimer’s list the week before High Holidays, I was struck by how many of his observations reflect our communal practice at Park Avenue Synagogue, including our efforts to be warm, engaging, and inclusive, to innovate musically and liturgically, and to make the service relevant and personal. From the person greeting you at the door to the message from the pulpit to the prayer book we use, we recognize that people are accessing Jewish life from a variety of vantage points, and you know what? You are all welcome! Not just on the holidays but really every Shabbat, we try to do everything with production excellence. It would simply blow your mind to know how much effort goes into making our High Holiday services as special as they are – especially from the music team under Cantor Schwartz’s leadership and the operations team led by our executive director Beryl Chernov.

Yet what quickly became clear is that, while there was something familiar and initially validating about reading the practices of my clergy colleagues, Wertheimer’s article was meant to be a searing critique, not a celebration of what he discovered. Synagogues have come to align themselves, he writes, with “vague but faddish nostrums, [like] hospitality, diversity, spirituality, creativity, non-judgmentalism, tikkun olam, [and] personalized religion.” In Wertheimer’s judgment, the uncomfortable reality of synagogue life is that American Jews are not at home in their tradition, in reading Hebrew, in their belief in God, and in the very basics of traditional prayer [davening]. In the words of one Conservative Rabbi interviewed: “I am a docent in a museum, as we wander through the galleries, I point out each exhibit and explain its content and meaning.” It is because of this Jewish cultural illiteracy that synagogues have been forced to “resort to every conceivable gimmick to help the initiated ‘relate’…” In such a telling, synagogues, in reimagining themselves to fit the “fashionable tropes of the day,” have become enablers for the least common denominator, as opposed to “embodiments of a tested, millennia-long tradition.” In Wertheimer’s own words: “In short, in the effort to work around their attendees’ lack of cultural literacy, synagogues are not only ratifying that lack but absorbing into Jewish life much that is inimical to Jewish life.”

It is quite an article. I have left copies outside the Sanctuary. I think part of the article’s power – and sting – is not just what it says but who is saying it. It is one thing for an Orthodox Jew to critique non-Orthodox Judaism, or an avowed secularist to critique organized religion. But in this case, you are reading the cutting reflections of a non-Orthodox American Jewish thought leader, one who, incidentally, has trained generations of American Jewish leadership. Reading Wertheimer feels a bit like reading a Phillip Roth novel as he unforgivingly pokes fun at shallow Jewish suburbanites that he knows only too well and of which he himself is an exemplar. You would like to say there is something untoward about him “muddying his own,” until you realize that your discomfort stems from the fact that his insider critique hits a bit too close to home. We all know, especially at this time of year, that criticism from people who know you stings far more than that of a stranger.

Wertheimer’s partisan critique is important because several of his observations are worth reflection and programmatic response. First, that so many Jews show up on Rosh Hashanah, having not entered a synagogue since the last Yom Kippur, and expect to connect to tradition is not just curious, but crazy! It would be the equivalent of someone thinking they want to take up jogging and then giving that thought expression by running the NY Marathon – cold – every year. The High Holy Day prayers are long, theologically and liturgically complex, and meant to serve as a capstone, not an onramp to Jewish prayer. Second, Wertheimer is right in that American Jews are alienated from the tradition – Hebraically, theologically, and functionally – the “how to’s” of Jewish prayer and observance. It is what Talmudic literature calls a tinok shenishba – an individual lacking in the basics of Jewish life and living. Any rabbi who has served American Jewry for ten minutes knows better than to assume a parishioner’s intimacy with Jewish practice on any given High Holiday or, for that matter, Shabbat morning. It is unfortunate that Wertheimer relays his observations with such bite, all the more so because he himself helped create that community, but that doesn’t mean his point is without merit. The crisis of American Jewry is the existence of a Jewry who may identify as Jews and even are proud of being Jewish, but are not quite sure what that means and how to give it expression. Finally, Wertheimer is correct in his caution that if a synagogue seeks to always “meet people where they are,” and “be all things to all people,” then at a certain point that synagogue will cease to stand for anything. Not every choice need find sanction within the Jewish community, not every liberal value is a Jewish value, and no synagogue, especially in NYC where there are so many choices, should seek to accommodate everybody. A good synagogue – and there are many good synagogues – must define its mission, which means setting boundaries, which by definition means it cannot be all things to all people.

These points, among others, are but some of the reasons why Wertheimer is right. Now let me tell you why he is wrong.

First and foremost, for a historian, Wertheimer’s argument is strikingly ahistorical. I honestly have no idea to what Wertheimer is referring to when he writes of “a tested, millennia-long tradition.” Jewish prayer, Jewish practice, Jewish theology, Jewish communal structure, Jewish everything has always been shaped by social and historical context. To propose that there has been some static set of Jewish beliefs from Moses to Moses Maimonides to Moses Mendelsohn is simply inaccurate. To suggest that the melodies of the High Holiday prayers have not developed over time reflecting the times and places of the Jewish community reciting those prayers does a disservice to the rich history of cantorial music. To submit that there is not a layered history to the High Holiday prayer book simply does not square with the evolutionary process that has always been part and parcel of our tradition. As another JTS history professor and past chancellor – the late Gerson Cohen – taught: Judaism has always assimilated elements from the non-Jewish world in which it functioned. Does liberal Judaism have the balance right – between tradition and change, between the healthy and unhealthy assimilation of non-Jewish influences? It is a fair conversation to have. But what is not a fair conversation is the suggestion that the definition of authentic rabbinical and cantorial leadership is a shields-up posture infused by some atavistic loyalty to a monolithic and ultimately arbitrary definition of what Judaism is.

The job of rabbinical leadership is to make Judaism come alive for every generation of Jews – defending tradition first and, as needed, making changes. To meet Jews where they are and inspire them to become the Jews they can be. It is not clear from Wertheimer’s criticism of synagogues whether his brief is with the Jews who attend them or the clergy that serve them. I am reminded of the old quip that “a leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk.” There is an aspect of Wertheimer’s argument that I just truly don’t understand because, if it is taken to its logical conclusion, he seems to be saying that forward-thinking clergy should chastise their High Holy Day Jews for failing to make regular a practice of observing a static Judaism that is entirely alien to them. And while I am no sociologist of religion, I cannot imagine that is the secret to a vibrant Jewish future.

As for his observations regarding the willingness of rabbis to create space for those Jews questioning their belief in God, I will only respond with the personal anecdote of a conversation I will never forget with my childhood rabbi when I told him that I had a lot of trouble, given the hurt and suffering I see in the world, believing in a God who takes out a book each year and determines who will live and who will die. You know what that rabbi said to me in response? “Elliot, I have a lot of trouble with that too.” And you know what I became: a rabbi. For a rabbi to show his or her humanity, for a rabbi to express doubts, for a rabbi to validate the theological struggles of a searching Jew – that is not a betrayal of the rabbinic calling, that is the most authentic expression of what it means to be a rabbi. There is a lot that is right in Wertheimer’s article and there is a lot that is wrong, and I have more to say.  All the same, his writing comes from a place of love of the Jewish people and Conservative Judaism and should serve, as always, to prompt a vibrant debate on directions for American Jewish life.

“You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God . . . to enter the covenant . . . Not with you alone, but with those who are standing here with us this day and with those who are not with us here this day.” Come tomorrow night for the start of the High Holy Days. The Erev Rosh Hashanah service is the one service at Park Avenue Synagogue for which no one needs a ticket. You are all welcome. We will meet you where you are, and we will lift you up to where you aspire to be. Come to hear the traditional melodies, come to hear new ones, and maybe you will even hear some Leonard Cohen or Stevie Wonder. As long as there has been a covenant, Jewish leadership has had an eye on those present, those who came before, and those who are not yet here. We serve them all, each and every day, in fact . . . the future of our covenant depends on it.