Archive for February, 2009

 

Synagogues, Though Feeling Distress, Provide Support

Posted on: February 27th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

I’m taking a brief break from writing about rabbis to report on how synagogues are coping in these stressful financial times. As I speak with colleagues across the country, I’m generally hearing the same story:

“Dues revenue is down, while we are providing more dues relief to congregants who can no longer afford to pay what they were paying”

“We’re freezing or reducing staff salaries”

“We’re moving some people from full-time to part-time, eliminating staff or not replacing staff when a staff member leaves”

“We’ve shortened our weekday hours and are having one day a week when the building is closed….”

Anecdotally, these are the kinds of stories that I’m hearing and I expect the situation to deteriorate during the summer, when cash flow in congregations is low. And, I wonder how many people will request dues relief before the High Holy Days or even drop synagogue membership because of feelings of embarrassed because of the inability to pay.

At the same time, many synagogues are doing an exceptional job of reaching out to members and the community. Here is a sampling of the kinds of creative efforts that congregations are making to support members:

These steps will help people make sure that they do not confuse their financial worth with their human value.

These efforts are clearly laudable but beg the question of how many congregations will be able to remain viable in the long term future. I’ll be writing more about that later. For now, please respond to these two questions:

  1. What is your congregation doing to support members in these times of need?
  2. What short-term measures is your congregation implementing to be sure that it steers clear of deep financial trouble?

If you have some insights to offer about these critical questions, please share them so that others in the community can benefit.

Thanks,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Are You Sleeping? Rabbis and the Art of Public Speaking

Posted on: February 20th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

When I was a congregational rabbi, after a few years, I started adhering to one rule rigorously when giving sermons: never speak long enough for people to fall asleep! There were a few other rules which I followed, too.  Giving a brilliant sermon every week was mission impossible for me.  However, it was always possible to find some new dimension of Torah in the broadest sense that would engage people with a new idea, a new way of framing an issue, advocating for a cause which was significant or helping people find personal relevance in Jewish practice. 

Equally important, regardless of the topic, I had the extremely good fortune of having several models of outstanding communicators from whom I learned the art of public speaking and a good friend in the congregation who generously volunteered his time to shred my words and reconstitute them in a way that would grab and hold people’s attention. In a prior life, he had been a journalist and helped me realize that communicating big ideas simply was essential to my rabbinate.

The Talmud (AZ 35b) asks, “To what is a scholar to be compared? To a vial of fragrant ointment. When its cover is removed, the fragrance of its ointment is diffused. When it is covered, its fragrance is concealed.” My experience with many rabbis when it comes to public speaking has been that they are like “the vial with the cover on.” They do have a lot of wisdom to share, but the way they publicly communicate gets in the way of their ideas. They develop bad speaking habits in rabbinical school and often don’t receive help once they are in the congregation.

This is really inexcusable.  People in the congregation, whether members or guests, will form opinions about Judaism based on what they hear during a rabbi’s sermon. Rabbis are given a unique opportunity: they can inspire involvement in Jewish life, or discourage it, by how they communicate their messages.

I’m going to recommend one book which I recently finished reading, entitled Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. They offer a six-point formula communicating ideas that can be extremely helpful for public speaking:

You’ll note that if you look at the first letter of each of these six points, they almost spell the word, success. There are many additional ways in which rabbis and become successful communicators of Jewish wisdom and tradition.  What I’d like to hear from you is your recommendations on how rabbis can communicate with greater impact, especially in an age when attention spans seem to have shortened.  And, if you are a rabbi and have your own story about how you learn to become a better communicator, please be sure to share that as well!

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Retooling Rabbis

Posted on: February 12th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

For the next several weeks, I’ll be writing about a new topic: rabbis. In keeping with the Tools for Shuls motif, I’m thinking of calling the chapter based on this series of posts Retooling Rabbis. Please read my posts with full awareness that some of my best friends are rabbis, (and that I realized my adolescent dream of becoming one in 1984!)  The tone that I’m striving for in my posts is to be lovingly critical about the rabbinate, for the rabbinate (or ministry for that matter) is one of those vocations where heeding the words of the ancient Jewish sage, Hillel (born before the destruction of the second Temple in 70 C.E.,) is a very wise idea. He said, don’t judge people until you’ve been in their situation (Avot 2:5.) Having been in that situation in different iterations, I hope that I will put enough love in the critique—and enough critique in the love.

Here’s where I really need your input. Imagine that you are the dean of a rabbinical school. You have the opportunity to modify the rabbinical school curriculum. Assuming that the fundamentals of the curriculum are sound and that subjects like Jewish history, Hebrew language and Jewish law will continue to be the foundation of your curriculum. What other topics do you believe are critical for contemporary rabbis to learn today—and think outside of the box (or book!)?

If you are a rabbi, draw upon your current experience and stage: what additional subjects you wish you had been exposed to before you completed school? Where did you feel some of the larger gaps in your curriculum? If you are a member of the synagogue reading this blog, give us your view from the pew, committee or board room. From your vantage point, what do you perceive to be missing from rabbinic education?

This is a discussion which really does require multiple views so I hope that even if you don’t regularly comment, you’ll chime in.

Thanks,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Photo from flickr.com lev_cap

Excellence or Perfection Paralysis?

Posted on: February 6th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great… Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for the good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good–and that is their main problem.

These are the opening, memorable words in the now classic business book by Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap….and Others Don’t. Collins reminds those of us in the non-profit world as well that we should never simply strive to be just good as an organization but always aspire to become great.  Always aspire toward greatness—is that realistic? I believe that it is—in fact, the answer should be a resounding “yes” in almost everything that happens in a non-profit organization, especially in a religious institution. After all, faith-based organizations rest on the belief that they can model a microcosm of a more ideal community.  Therefore, we should substitute the achievement of just good for great as our overall organizational benchmark. 

If you’re still not convinced of the merits of the aspiration toward greatness, think of it this way: in developing a funding request for an innovative program, would you strive to develop a good proposal or a great proposal?

However, there’s a big difference between reaching for greatness and waiting for perfection.  While people know that perfection is unattainable, they sometimes develop perfection paralysis–the need to polish every word and idea, the desire to anticipate every contingency related to change.  Understandably, individuals involved in nonprofit work need to be very diligent about wisely spending donor dollars and volunteer energy.  But much time can be wasted in trying to create a perfect change process.  Therefore, it is better to achieve 80% of your desired results with excellence than 100% of your desired outcomes with the impossible goal of perfection.  You will accomplish much more, sustain the energy of volunteers and staff and maintain the interest of funders. 

So here’s where I would especially like your opinion: assuming no additional funding, as greatness is an attitude and attribute that isn’t for sale, what would it take to turn your synagogue or organization from a really good one to a great one?

Rabbi Hayim Herring