Tag: Congregations

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congregations Rabbis

Five Minutes

“Rabbi, Do You Have Five Minutes?”

I am asked this question all the time.  As I am walking out of the Oneg  Shabbat, as I am finishing preparations for a class, as I am setting up for Torah Tots, someone stops me and says “Rabbi, do you have five minutes?”   In the early days of my rabbinate, I always said ‘yes’.  Standing in the hallway, I waited for the question about the meeting agenda, a mitzvah project, or availability for an unveiling.

Those questions rarely surfaced.  In the requested five minutes I have heard a story about an abusive partner (a fellow temple member), a deceased mother who died young when hit by drunk driver, and a myriad of medical diagnoses.  Impending divorces seem to often be shared after the request for five minutes.  Needless to say, these were never just five minute conversations, and rarely appropriate for the hallway.

I have gone through many stages in my understanding of this request.  At first I took it at face value and found myself surprised over and over again. Then I learned to realize that the request for five minutes was like a code. I had cracked the code and wasn’t surprised when a much more significant conversation was needed.  Not surprised, but annoyed nonetheless.  “Why can’t she make an appointment when I can give her my full attention?”  “Why doesn’t he realize that this is not a five minute conversation?”  “Surely he realizes that I am about to teach/on my way home/in between meetings?”

Why is it that people use a phrase that minimizes what is often far from minimal – death, loss, disappointment, heartbreak?   I have two thoughts – one that focuses on those making the “five minute” request, and one that is about us as rabbis.  Making an appointment to talk to the rabbi adds weight and gravity to the subject at hand.  To actually schedule a time, come in to the office, and sit behind a closed door is to acknowledge a depth of need that many may not yet be able to confront.   Asking for “five minutes” may be a gentle entry into a difficult subject, a way for the individual to try to hold on to the notion that the crises they confront is not as challenging as they fear.  In granting the five minutes that is really 45 minutes, we may gently usher those we care for along their path of growth and understanding.

But I think there is something even more significant in this interaction about how we see our rabbinic work and the message we convey to others.   What does it mean when we say we are busy, that we have a lot to do? Many of us list meetings to attend, classes to prepare and teach, money to raise, boards to train.  We would all say that being present for our community, sharing in their joys and sorrows is also ‘what we do’.  But being present outside of formal life cycle events often can’t be scheduled in the same way as the planning meeting for mitzvah day, and is what gets lost in the crush of an overburdened schedule.

The turning point for me in understanding this was a conversation that I had with a women who had asked for five minutes.  After our non-five minute conversation I asked her why she hadn’t made an appointment.  She said, “Rabbi, you are always so busy and I know how much you have to do.  I didn’t want to add to that.”  I have thought about these words often, and with some shame.  I am busy and I do have a lot to do – and one of the most important of those things I have to do is to be fully present for people like her and all those others who only ask for five minutes. How many times, in my busy-ness, have I failed to convey this?

I have tried to shift my mindset, to make space for the meaningful interactions that happen as people walk in with their kids for tutoring or religious school or to prepare mailings or wait for a luncheon. Being available in all of the in-between times doesn’t interrupt my work, it is my work – holy and sacred work for which I am profoundly grateful.

 —

Betsy Torop is the CCAR Manager for Member Engagement and the Rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom, Brandon, Florida.

 

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congregations

Ten Common Missteps Congregations Make During Strategic Planning

Rabbis and lay leaders are rightfully anxious about the future viability of congregations due to a myriad of changes happening in American Jewry and beyond. Our Jewish institutions – particularly congregations — exist in an era that necessitates 1) the naming of obsolete ways of thinking and doing, 2) a willingness to experiment with fresh new approaches, and 3) the realization that the answers are probably as idiosyncratic as the community in which each congregation exists.

As process consultants we get to work with committed, creative, and forward-thinking lay leaders, clergy, and professional staff. We see the best of strategic visioning. We also see planning efforts that merely re-package the status quo.

Before we encourage a congregation to invest the time, money, and effort in strategic visioning, we ask leaders to consider whether they are truly ready for significant change. But even when this commitment exists, there are many ways to fail. Here are ten common mistakes that congregations make. How many of these look familiar?

 

  1. Look to the Meyvins: Don’t look for solutions from an outside expert. Your answers rest in the insight and aspirations of your people.

Tip: Design a process that enables all participants to become well versed regarding the congregation’s realities, challenges, and opportunities.

  1. Focus on Programs: Program innovation is an insufficient answer to creating a vibrant Jewish community, yet it often gets 80% of the attention and investment.

Tip: Look at innovations in structures (e.g., volunteer, dues, etc.), systems (e.g., education), and culture (e.g., welcome) as opportunities for real and sustainable change.

  1. Convene the Usual Suspects: Involving only the people who are already active and visible in congregational life will guarantee that you reproduce past thinking.

Tip: Bring together participants who represent the diverse make-up and aspirations of the congregation – people who represent the past, present, and the future

  1. Treat Congregants as Consumers: During strategy development the worst mistake you can make is to ask people what they need and want, and then end the conversation.

Tip: Instead ask: “What are you interested in helping to bring into being here?” Frame every conversation to encourage a “citizen” rather than consumer mindset.

  1. Emphasize Solutions to Urgent Gaps: Trying to solve short-term problems or Band Aid the most obvious challenges rather than deciding the future you want to create.

Tip: Focus on articulating a future that inspires people to invest their energy and resources instead of goals that emphasize the prevention of bad things from happening.

  1. Act from Scarcity: Avoid the assumption that whatever we want to accomplish in the future must be accomplished with today’s resources, infrastructure, staff, and volunteers.

Tip:  Avoid conflating the “what we aspire to become” conversation with the “how are we going to pay for it?” conversation.  Both matter but they need to happen separately.

  1. Set the Bar Low: Working to eliminate risk ensures achieving goals without meaning. If we always get it right, we are probably not taking enough creative risks.

Tip: Broaden the definition of “success” and be willing to view implementation as a series of pilots that reveal valuable lessons whether or not they get the desired results.

  1. Defend the Legacy of the Past: Focusing on how much better things are now than they use to be is a distraction. It may be true but does not foster a forward-thinking conversation.

Tip: Ask, what no longer serves our mission and what can we build upon to create the future we really want?

  1. Avoid Going First: Choose not to be the first in the community, the movement, or the country to do something that challenges conventional wisdom, boundaries, or rules.

Tip: Make a conscious decision to lead in small and big ways. Be prepared to disrupt the status quo, break with convention, and displease people who prefer things as they are.

  1. Take a Competitor Stance: Proceeding as if other congregations and institutions have interests that are separate, independent, and competing creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that ensures silos.

Tip: Look for ways to create a vibrant Jewish ecosystem in your community – one in you can play to your strengths while collaborating with others.

 

Although the act of going through a strategic planning exercise may feel reassuring and create the illusion that “we’re doing something,” it is insufficient to ensure a bright future for any organization.  The planning process itself must be a practice ground through which leaders change the kinds of limiting default habits described above.

—

Larry Dressler is a master process facilitator and trusted advisor to rabbis throughout the US.  Larry will be joining CCAR for an upcoming webinar, “Engagement 101 Are you a CEO – a Chief Engagement Officer?” and an upcoming in-person seminar titled, “Rabbi as (CEO) Chief Engagement Officer.“ 

Amy Rosenblum specializes in helping socially purposed organizations maximize their impact and ensure their sustainability. Both are based in Boulder, Colorado.

Categories
Rabbis

Transition: Two Years, Two Sides

I write on July 1, 2015, mindful that many colleagues begin new positions today, two years to the day after I commenced my tenure at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When I arrived, I found a transition-weary congregation, after eight months without a resident rabbi followed by a year with an outstanding interim rabbi. Staff and congregants had circled July 1, 2013, as the red-letter day when the “permanent” rabbi would arrive and transition would end.

I, though, was fresh from CCAR’s outstanding “First 100 Days” seminar for rabbis in transition. Steve Fox had told us that transition would continue at least for our first 18 months in our new positions, perhaps until our second contracts were signed. I emphasized to a receptive lay leadership that a new phase of transition was only beginning. I reminded everyone that even Rabbi Ira Sanders, z”l — whose tenure, including his emeritus service, had spanned six decades — wasn’t “permanent.” However, a key staff member had endured enough transition, giving notice only three weeks after I arrived. Another left after the fall holidays. At URJ’s terrific Shallat Seminar for rabbis and congregational presidents in transition, key lay leaders and I learned that our level of staff turnover or more was common and to be expected. Still, the loss of institutional memory in our office was often debilitating.

Our Transition Committee Chairs understood and would have been up to the challenge, but their committee had been constituted to fill in the gaps when the congregation didn’t have a resident rabbi. They were prepared to throw a party — several parties, actually, which were very helpful — once the new rabbi arrived. Then, though, the Transition Committee was determined to disband.

Much was awkward during the first year. In my twenty-third year as a congregational rabbi, I frequently felt like a novice. Lay partners and I often tripped over each other, with their deference to my rabbinic leadership often running counter to my eagerness to be true to the congregation’s traditions. I was new to certain roles that had been filled by others in a larger synagogue, and needed to develop new competencies. Often, services and programs felt like an uneasy mixture of my style and the congregation’s, not yet seamlessly meshed.

Complicating matters, the congregation wasn’t the only party going through a challenging transition. The loss of my previous position had been traumatic. Even though I had a year’s sabbatical before entering the new congregation, I was still reeling from losing my home of 21 years, where I expected to stay to the end of my career and beyond.

My own trauma was matched by my family’s dislocation. My wife and younger son adapted quickly and happily to Little Rock, but were giving up a great deal in the process. Our older son took longer, and that first year was rough. Meanwhile, my dad was nursing his dying wife in their home around the corner from where we had lived in our previous community. I was busy in Little Rock, but my mind was often directed to my father’s home and to grieving the loss of my step-mother of 29 years.

Personal adjustments were tough. Professional adaptation is more at the heart of this essay’s subject. During the first year, what may be called “post-traumatic stress” amplified my reaction to even the smallest and most limited criticism. Moreover, having done outstanding due diligence in the search process, my new lay leaders were well aware of my foibles and were understandably concerned when even faint hints of those issues arose.

What a difference the second year made!

In the second year, the less-new rabbi is no longer leading the congregation through any annual event for the first time. The congregation’s receptivity to what I had to offer was more easily combined with what I had learned about the congregation’s long-established patterns. Our staffing had stabilized, with a talented Administrator joining our team at the end of my first year.

At a personal level, I had begun — imperceptibly, at first — to let go of the traumas of the past. My family was now at home in Little Rock, including my father, in his own home on our very street.

Today, my wife and I are returning to Little Rock from a brief “kids at camp” getaway. By coincidence, we went to the same vacation spot three years ago at this season, shortly after I had resigned my previous pulpit. Perhaps “déjà vu” would be a better word than “coincidence:” During both of these trips, to a place we haven’t been any other time, others were moving me out of my office. The two moves couldn’t be more different. Three years ago, I was being moved out of an office I adored, where I had only three months earlier had every reason to believe I would spend the rest of my career. This summer, at my no-longer-new congregation, our offices are being remodeled for many reasons, not the least of them being to create a quieter and more private space for congregants to meet with me. Three years ago, at a retreat that was supposed to be relaxing, I was constantly on the phone, confronting compounding trauma. This week, even with a big move happening in the office, I didn’t make more than a handful of phone calls in four days, and none of them was frantic.

Ten days ago, at our congregation’s Annual Meeting, I was pleased to announce that I was ready to declare our mutual rabbinical transition complete. Yes, I was talking about a transition that many had imagined finished two years earlier. The truth is, though, that Steve Fox had been correct. Two years would be required for congregation and rabbi to feel fully at home with one another.

At that same meeting, the congregation approved the extension of my rabbinic term, for five years beyond the first three, in effect ratifying a contract already approved by the Board to take effect beginning next summer. Yes, after two years, transition is complete, for both rabbi and congregation.

___

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism

Month One: Thoughts from a New Rabbi

I have frequently been telling others that now that I am a rabbi, my dreams have become a reality.  Yet, I’m not quite sure how real this reality feels.  There are days in which I still feel like the student Rabbi who visits his pulpit for the weekend, or the rabbinic intern who has a myriad of responsibilities that exposes him to all aspects of congregational life.  I sometimes have to be reminded that when someone refers to someone as “rabbi,” they very well could be talking about me.   Even with the numerous signs in my synagogue that addresses me as “Rabbi P.J. Schwartz,” I still think I am in the dream and this is not my reality.

During my second unit of CPE, we spoke a lot about the power of a title such as rabbi.  I always asked, “Where does P.J. fit in all of this?”  I have learned that being a rabbi and being P.J. are not separate things, but two aspects of who I am that are inextricably linked together.  In some sense, my name has become my title, and my title as become my name.  Believe it or not, I know which rabbi my administrative assistant is referring to when she speaks about my Senior or I.  “P.J.” and “Rabbi” have become interchangeable terms and I’m getting used to the idea that maybe I am no longer visiting my student pulpit or no longer an intern.

Transitions are difficult, and I can’t deny the fact that transitioning from student to working professional or in my case rabbinical student to Rabbi has been overwhelming and exciting, scary and thrilling, and nerve-wracking and affirming.  As my eyes begin to open, the dream begins to fade, and the reality sinks in, I am constantly reminded of the fact that we are in the month of Elul.  We are supposed to reflect upon our transitions, our growth, and our lesser strengths.  We are supposed to think about what it means to have a support team, reexamining how we manage our time, and explore what we can do to renew ourselves for the year to come.  I’ve always looked at my Judaism as a road map for how I should live.  In this case, my Judaism is guiding me, one day at time, as I fully integrate myself into this new role.  My excitement only grows as we head to the kickoff events of the year and I start to meet more congregants.  Soon enough, the hallways will be filled with kids from the Early Childhood Center and Religious School, my days will be filled with planning meetings, programs, and kids hopefully will be calling me Rabbi P.J.! (which, of course, is my solution to the name and title dilemma).

May my reflections inspire you to reflect in this month of Elul, and may the year to come be as sweet as you want it to be, inspirational as you need it to be, and awe-filled as it can be.

Rabbi PJ Schwartz is Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel, in Westport, CT.