Changing Tines

Reality check: You aren't in the closet any more.

For those of my age and older we straddled two universes: one of them was living a cloaked existence.  People of this generation did not name their kids Aaron, Miriam, or Benjamin.  Instead, we chose or were given "pareve" names that would “pass.”  Judaism was a weight that could confine us and restrict our movements.

Mordecai Kaplan wrote in 1937, the "average Jew today is conscious of his Judaism as one is conscious of a diseased organ that gives notice of its existence by causing pain."

It was a time of quiet suffering.  Quotas were in place limiting Jews into universities.  Virtually everywhere across the United States, neighborhoods were restricted or limited.  No Jews allowed or only a few were tolerated. Compare that with contemporary times:

·     Nowadays the JCC not only stands out, but advertises on public billboards. 

·     Two republicans in the south were recently called on their anti-Semitic comments roundly, especially by leading Senator Lurie of South Carolina. 

·     It is not infrequent to see yarmulkes bobbing in the aisles of Piggly Wiggly. 

·     The Synagogue maintains a very public web site along with a Face Book account.  We are out there. 

All these things would have been unthinkable one generation back.

For the old timers: would you have ever thought we would have a Jewish Studies Department at University of South Carolina?  If this public university scheduled parent's day on Yom Kippur who would care?  Who would have spoken against it?  Who could have ever imagined that the Jewish community would rise up and demand that the University pay more attention to our religious sensibilities?  Yet, that has just happened.

Did you know that Hebrew is now offered as a choice for students in many charter schools across the nation?

What does all this mean? It means that we compete for Jewish souls in many fields nowadays.  People do not just come to the synagogue for their dose of Judaism.  They get it in the marketplace as well. 

In some ways little has changed in four thousand years and in other ways much has changed in the past few decades.

Over past few years there have been parlor meetings in synagogues, mission statements crafted, and vision statements honed.   We are ready to take these words, make them official, and then make them reality.  We will need to look outward and inward to address the shifting landscape of American Jewry.  It is a significantly different place than it used to be and calls for a different approach.

Now is the moment to look around, gauge where we are, and plot the course for where we want to end up.  We have already started the process of reimagining our spiritual home.  Services are being made to be more user-friendly, uplifting and meaningful.  Yet there is much more to be done.

I invite your opinions and am even happier to invite your participation as we look at new ways to strengthen our faith.  It is with our commitment and investment that we will guarantee not just our continuity but our ability to thrive.