Month: October 2014

Three Business Types and How They Get Shul Things Done

A small business owner, a lawyer, and a manager walk into a social hall and see that Shalosh Seudos has not been cleaned up…

The small business owner knows that the buck stops here, so he makes a public request for volunteers, and when few show up, he does it himself.

The lawyer calls for a membership meeting to propose that all members are required to help in Shul chores.

The manager goes to a few members, explains the problem and asks them to make a small time commitment to help clean up.

Although each of these means may be successful in the effort to get shul things done, the manager has accomplished much more. The members who do volunteer are doing a chesed for the Shul as opposed to a requirement in the lawyer’s scenario, or often not doing anything in the case of the small business owner. In addition, when people contribute their time to the Shul they feel more connected, and as a result get much more out of their Shul experience.

The difficulty with recruiting volunteers is that you have to make the time to ask people, come up with the appropriate pitch, deal with rejection, and sometimes perform chesed-based arm-twisting. A motivation to get over these hurdles is to know that when you meet with success, you will have performed a much greater deed.

Improving Our Shul Maps By Choosing Connection Over Estrangement

The father of general semantics, Alford Korzybski stated, “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness”. What this means is that our perception of reality is not reality itself but our own version of it, or our “map”.

This message was brought home last week in a short introductory speech at our Shul’s Simcha Beis HaShoeva. I made a positive statement about the Shul, and a friend questioned that statement. I explained that my statement reflected my experience, and I was sorry that his differed and he didn’t share my positive views regarding this issue.

Later in the week, I re-read a piece that I had seen a number of times by Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe z”tl about connection and estrangement. Here is an excerpt from Sara Yocheved Rigler’s take on the topic:

According to Rabbi Wolbe, there are two parallel universes: the World of Connection and the World of Estrangement. These are two completely separate worlds. The World of Connection is characterized by love, joy, tranquility, optimism, harmony, generosity, faith in God, etc., while the World of Estrangement is characterized by animosity, anger, resentment, anxiety, sadness, criticism, worry, fear, etc. When we are feeling critical, we cannot feel love.

Although a person can flip from one world to the other very quickly, no one can be in both worlds at the same time, just as when looking at a Rubin vase, one can see either the white vase or the two black profiles facing each other, but not both simultaneously. Human beings are neurologically wired so that we cannot see the vase and the profiles at the same time. Human beings are spiritually wired so that we cannot be in the World of Connection and the World of Estrangement at the same time. When we are feeling joy, we cannot feel fear. When we are feeling critical, we cannot feel love. When we are feeling resentful, we cannot feel tranquil.

Making worthwhile changes to a Shul takes time and effort, but we can change our individual Shul experience at each moment by choosing connection over estrangement. We enter the world of estrangement by criticizing, getting angry, speaking loshon hora or judging negatively. However, we can choose to enter the world of connection by giving a smile, giving a hug, giving a compliment, giving emotional support, giving thanks, giving the benefit of the doubt, or forgiving.

This does not mean that we take a Pollyanna position and ignore things that need attention. Nor does it discount the difficulty when we are wronged. But the more we internalize the benefits of choosing connection over estrangement, the more we will improve our experience of both the Shul and its members.

The Hoshanos Conundrum

I’ve written in the past on the joyous celebration of Succos in our Shuls. Our Shul does however have one ongoing problem on Succos, and that is the Hoshanos Conundrum.

As you know there is a custom to circle around the Shul bimah on the days of Succos, except for Shabbos. During the circle a different Hoshana prayer is read with the congregation repeating after the Baal Tefillah. It is preferred that a full circle is made. Our problem is that because of the number of people in Shul on the Yom Tov days, we’ve run out of prayer, before we have completed the circle.

These are some of the solutions we have tried:
-Coaching people on the need to keep walking.
-Making two concentric circles.
-Splitting the Shul into two groups, each taking a turn.

Although Shul logistic problems are usually solvable, none of the solutions have worked very well. In truth it’s a relatively harmless problem and it gives us a safe place to direct our kibbutizing energy. So although I’ll follow the Gabbai’s new instructions this year, it won’t be so bad if we don’t solve the Hoshanos Conundrum this year.