January 2021 - Shul Politics

The Cure for Covid Condensed Congregations

Even before Covid, Shuls were downsizing due to Shtiebelization. Covid drove more downsizing, distancing and davening at dizzying speeds. A friend told me that he can get out of bed at 9:30 am, go to the next door davening tent, and be finished with Shabbos Morning davening by about 10:30 am, with a grab and go kiddush to boot. Perhaps there was a pent-up demand for such davening and Covid just paved the way.

Fortunately the famous Ramban at the end of Parsha Bo revealed the vaccine for this situation. He teaches us that the plagues showed the world that G-d is the source of all existence, who knows all, oversees all, is all powerful, shows favor to the Jews, and communicates to us through prophecy. The purpose of all the commandments is that we should believe in G-d and acknowledge to Him that He created us.

And the purpose of raising our voices in prayer and the purpose of Shuls and the merit of communal prayer is that people should have a place where they can gather and acknowledge that G-d created them and caused them to be and they can publicize this and declare before Him, “We are your creations”.

So the cure for Covid Condensed Congregations is to focus on the purpose of our Shuls and think about Hashem, our creator, as we pray and perform the many mitzvos of Shabbos morning. I think we’re all capable of thinking about Hashem a few times each Shabbos. As we succeed, the spiritual pleasure we experience surely exceeds the pleasure from a shortened faster davening.

Hashem provide the vaccine for spiritual malaise during Yetizias Mitzrayim. Shabbos morning we all have an appointment to get inoculated.

Passive and Active Spiritual Coaching

In the personal affairs market, life coaching has not reached it’s potential, but in the upper echelons of corporate America it is alive and kicking. In well run larger corporations, the higher level executives contribute greatly to the company’s success, so they invest in coaching for their top people. A friend who worked in a Fortune 50 company had a coach to help him improve in various areas of his life. It’s an extremely valuable service and it’s unfortunate that most of us don’t have access to such help.

There is one area where we do have coaches, in the spiritual dimension of our lives. In yeshivos and seminaries, the Rebbeim and teachers serve that role. When we leave those havens, our Shul Rebbeim serve as spiritual coaches through their drashos and their personal guidance. An underutilized avenue of valuable spiritual coaching is also available from our fellow Shul members. This coaching takes two forms passive and active.

Passive spiritual coaching occurs when someone sets a positive example for his friend or neighbor. In our Shul, certain members felt the local Yeshivos would be a better place to daven. My Rav felt that the effect members have on each other is important and often overlooked. The words and behavior of a Rav or a full time Yeshiva student are to some degree discounted, because they’re living more spiritually focused lives than the working person who spends much time in secular pursuits. However when a person sees a friend or neighbor in similar life circumstance, spending that extra 30 minutes learning, taking on another chesed or working on his davening, it makes a impact. Over time, these impacts foster growth.

Active spiritual coaching, although not as common, can take the form of a Mussar Vaad, or an agreement among friends to help one another. However, most people that I know are reticent to give direct spiritual advice to someone else. In a recent play-listed shiur, Rabbi Yosef Viener, Rav of Kehilas Shaar Shamayim, Monsey. states that we each have a continuing obligation to help our friends and neighbors grow. How we do that depends on the situation. In another shiur, Making Sense of the Final Exile – Part 1, Rabbi Viener related a story of a Shul member phoning his friend every morning for months at 5:30 am, to attend the pre-Shacharis Daf Yomi shiur. The called member was appreciative and hopeful that some day he would heed the call and wake up early to attend.

Individually and as a community, we benefit from peer-to-peer spiritual coaching. The forms that this takes will differ from Shul to Shul and member to member. As growth oriented Shuls continue to mature, we’ll hopefully see many more successful models.

Covid and The Problem of No-Frills Davening

With the rise of Covid, No-Frills Davening is becoming the norm. No-Frills davening the phenomena where people join and/or attend Shuls on Shabbos for davening alone. What could be wrong with that? Shuls are built as places to daven. To answer this question we have to take a step back to look at the goals of Judaism.

The goals of Judaism are to create three types of connection:
1) the connection of our body and soul
2) a connection to Hashem
3) connections of ourselves with other people

Body and soul connection is achieved by learning and following the Torah’s prescription of how to act, feel and think from a spiritual perspective as we navigate our lives in this physical world. Connection to Hashem is achieved through serving Him via the mitzvos and through prayer. Connection to others is achieved by diminishing and overcoming our self-centered perspective and helping, seeing the good, speaking well of, and giving honor to our fellow Jews.

Although the Shul is a place where we connect to Hashem via prayers, it is also a place where we connect to our fellow Jews. Connecting to people requires us to go beyond the comfort zone of our family and close friends, and dealing with people who are not such close friends, who have different views than us, who might sometimes rub us the wrong way. And it takes work because we have to put aside our self-centeredness to accommodate the perspectives, needs, and personalities of others. Many people don’t enjoy this and therefore seek a no-frills, no-conflict, no-accommodation-required environment. But if we are to grow as individuals and collectively as a community and a people we need to get our hands dirty and constructively deal with these differences and conflicts.

The world is becoming a much more polarized place and as inhabitants we are affected by this division. The Torah gives us the prescription to eliminate polarization and that is through connection. Hashgacha has placed us in Shuls where we have the challenge and opportunity to do the real work of creating connections and a true unity. No-Frills Davening is harmful because it keeps us in our comfort zone and prevents us from creating the connections which are a major component of our purpose in the world. When Covid makes a retreat, we must strive hard to get back to relationship building in our Shuls.