Installation talk
J. Hendler
I had an interesting experience a few months ago during one of the holidays. On the first day of the Chag I was asked to serve as Gabbai Gadol. The second day, Shelly was away and asked me to sit in her chair (I suspect she was hoping I’d like it up there, as it wasn’t that long after I was asked to be coPresident.) So on the first day, my job was to hand out the honors and help welcome people to the shul, On the second day, I sat up front to represent the board and to make the announcements. The first day I was involved with the congregation, schmoozing, welcoming people and saying hi to the many of you who’ve become my extended family over the past twenty years. The second day I was up on the bima and removed from the kahal. The first day, involved; the second day, aloof.
Although unintentional, this was an important lesson. It is too easy for the Synagogue Leadership to become removed from the Congregation while working to serve it. Dealing with the many details of making sure that things run smoothly in the shul, it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. From coordinating committee chairs to setting up High Holiday chairs, the leadership has to worry about many aspects of synagogue life and to make sure that most members don’t even need to know the work that goes into making things happen — the more the membership can believe this happens by “magic†the better off we are. But sometimes those of us who make it happen forget that magic – because the magician knows how much work went into making it look easy. It is important for leadership to remember not just what we are doing, but why we are doing it.
Similarly, in our efforts to build membership, sometimes we forget the need to reward our current members and to make sure that being a member of Tikvat Israel remains a value, not just a cost. We often run events and forget to offer member discounts in our effort to bring in more people. We go out of our way to welcome prospective members and new members to our congregation (and we will certainly continue to do so), but sometimes we forget to go to the same extent to make our current members welcome. We work hard to get publicity to continue to attract members, but sometimes forget to reflect that publicity back to our current members to remind them why they should be so proud of this special place that so many of us spend so much time at.
I realize there are many members for whom synagogue membership is primarily a “safety net,†there to make sure that there is someone to call in the event of a serious illness or (pooh pooh pooh) death. A year ago, I got to see what the synagogue can do for a member in these circumstances. When my father died, the Rabbi provided invaluable guidance, my shiva nights had well-attended minyans at my house, and during my year of mourning, it was great to be able to count on Tikvat Israel to provide the minyan needed for me to recite the mourner’s kaddish. And while it is great we offer these services in the sad circumstances when people need them, for many of our members we provide way more. Education for adults and children, both those who are in our Hebrew school and those who aren’t, a well run and growing youth and family program, social programs, Sisterhood and Israel programs, music, Toast Masters, and much much more. What we forget, however, is that we need to not only thank the many who help us run these programs, but also to make sure our membership is aware of these programs that their membership fees enable.
So, the offshoot of what I learned in those two days is that we must devote ourselves to not just outreach, but also to “inreach†— helping our members remember the value they get from their membership. I commit myself to working as actively for inreach as outreach, and to make sure our members understand the many things Tikvat Israel can provide for them. And to remind me and Jayme to remember this lesson, I have asked Susan Newman to put us both on the Gabbai Gadol list so that we won’t only be sitting remote representing the leadership, but in and among the Congregation reminding ourselves of what the role of the President is.
