The Human Spirit: Checkbook Stock-taking
Sept 05, 2005
The ram's horn bests my electronic alarm clock these mornings. I enjoy being literally awakened by the shofar, the ultimate instrument of spiritual awakening. The horn blowing begins at first light with the slihot repentance prayers from the nearby Sephardi synagogue heralding Elul, the Hebrew month that is our traditional season of personal stocktaking.
This is when we're supposed to root out sloth and mendacity, hypocrisy and gossip mongering in the hope of improving our personality and behavior. But even such serious character introspection isn't sufficient. Taking inventory and making corrections isn't solely an internal course. We act in this world not only as individual players, but as part of communal activities.
We also need to examine the organizations and institutions that we belong to and support. Where we go to synagogue, what organizations we volunteer for, where we send our children to school and to whom we give our money are all aspects of who we are.
Fortunately, most organizations with which we are associated get in touch around this time of year to extend both New Year wishes and make fund-raising requests. That gives us a chance to review and rethink our affiliations.
Half a million Israelis rely on daily food hand-outs, and many worthy long-established and start-up organizations care for the emotionally, spiritually and physically needy. Through communal organizations we have the potential to accomplish far more than as individual social activists.
But do the specific organizations we supported last year still represent our current thinking and values? While the institutions we back don't have to reflect every permutation of our complex personal ideological positions, blind support can also be deleterious. For example, before I wrote a check to a hesder yeshiva this year, I would want to know which were the two of the still unnamed yeshivot in which the rabbis called on their students to refuse orders during the disengagement.
Regardless of which side of the withdrawal trauma we may have championed, disobeying direct orders from our national defense force is not a luxury we can afford, being surrounded by hostile neighbors. How counterproductive it would be to support an institution that violates and undermines the principles of such a worthy system as hesder, which has produced good Torah-educated citizens as well as good soldiers. The refusal to name the offending rabbis is the opposite of the visibility that non-profit organizations owe their supporters.
I'D ALSO cut support for the high school that cavalierly encouraged its pupils to spend their summer vacation obstructing traffic in opposition to disengagement. It's better to give a donation to the organizers of the innovative day-camp program in Karnei Shomron. In a tense, hot summer, large numbers of teenagers � some estranged from the community � were pulled back into constructive community service by being employed as camp counselors who kept the younger kids gainfully busy, too.
Synagogues also require our scrutiny. A synagogue is more than a place to pray. "Where do you daven?" is among the first questions an observant Jew asks new acquaintances.
In these pages not long ago, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin decried the acceptance committees that served as gatekeepers for the settlements. But de-facto equivalents of these committees exist in congregations where newcomers are treated with suspicion. While we might feel more comfortable praying among old friends, the High Holy Day liturgy isn't about increasing our comfort levels. No newcomers seek seats in your synagogue? Then the old adage applies: if there's no one knocking at your door, there's something wrong with your door.
That won't be corrected by donations to renovate the synagogue and buying nicer furniture and accoutrements if there's no active hospitality program.
Likewise, in a country suffering from dangerous social fissures, how has your congregation or club promoted dialogue on difficult issues? On Tisha Be'av this year, I was privileged to hear a lecture by American Rabbanit Rivka Haut, a venerated pioneer in aguna activism and the director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance's Agunah Advocacy Project, speak at the Yedidya Synagogue in Jerusalem.
The talk was sponsored by a new teaching organization started by a young woman in memory of her Torah-loving grandmother, called Torat Reva Yerushalayim. The lecture and a subsequent study session had been scheduled at more centrally located Orthodox synagogue but when Rabbanit Haut was announced as the guest speaker, the purported host synagogue refused to have her speak. If I were a member of that synagogue, I would want an explanation of why Rabbanit Haut was rejected before I made my annual contribution.
Ironically, the title of the talk came from Lamentations, Al Eleh Ani Bochiya "For These Do I Weep."
One word of caution. Investigation, like personal stock-taking, can't be superficial. What you see isn't always what you get. The head of a major yeshiva tells of a fund-raising evening when an enthusiastic donor, as part of his donation, slipped a Rolex onto the rabbi's wrist. Almost immediately, another donor expressed his intention to cut his contribution. Who would want to support a yeshiva so wealthy that the head rabbi wears such an expensive watch?
