Decorating Our Sanctuary

Downsized. It describes our congregation and its people. Empty nesters comprise the bulk of our current membership. Retired people, many scientists downsized with fully vested pensions from their mega-corporations. Incomes downsized by voluntary retirement. Congregational membership downsized primarily by the predictive accuracy of actuarial tables. Few dramatic shifts. A dozen families a year coming off the membership rolls for any reason adds up over 25 years. Our members are professionals, PhDs in the sciences, MDs, teachers, a few attorneys, though none with partnerships in the mega-firms that would create for us a philanthropic nest egg. Dedicated Jewish people with high fractions of kashrut observance, adherence to Shabbat for candle lighting and special dinners if not shacharit attendance. We serve on committees, both for our congregation and communal Jewish agencies. Some of our children attended the local day school, others the congregational Hebrew school. All had Bar Mitzvah, some Bat Mitzvah depending on family custom.

None of us grew thriving businesses. We depended on our university achievements making us attractive to employers. We invested the same for our children, who did not disappoint us. More doctors, not as many scientists, a few tech mavens, and a favorite son on the Hollywood audition circuit. The cycle of personal prosperity through education transmitted successfully. Transmission of commitment to Jewish living also reasonably successful. With notable exceptions, all our children, most married, live in major metropolitan areas whose Jewish presence exceeds that of their hometown. We fared well as we harvest our collective closing years.

We have our share of generational shortcomings which parallel other American generations. As 70-somethings, people of prosperity, many of our congregants have memories of grandparents on the Lower East Side who advanced to a more middle-class Bronx, beneficiaries of stable employment and America’s economic expansion once the Great Depression dissipated. Their congregations, dotting blocks of immigrant tenements have been vacant for decades. Our parents’ Bar Mitzvah shuls, smaller ones in The Bronx or Brooklyn or Jewish sections of Philadelphia or Baltimore, have long since closed. Our own Bnai Mitzvah took place in the 1960s. My shul closed in 2006. A much smaller remnant, also aging, ekes by following mergers with neighboring synagogues of similarly declining membership, funded by lucrative sales of once proud structures that had become White Elephants. Replacing one generation with another in a culture more mobile than loyal has challenged all but the largest Jewish Cathedrals.

As our membership atrophy made our beloved building more valuable as market valuation than as space, we cashed out. Some congregants held a faux funeral for the building, cornerstone 1964. The purchasing Black Church will make good stewards, or really new owners. The land might have been developed as housing, a strip mall, or a health facility. Our structure did not experience the Big Steel Ball. Keeping our building sacred had its satisfaction, though any repurpose would fill our need for a large influx of cash for investment. In the absence of our building, we still had Torah scrolls, a salaried Rabbi, minyanim that assembled at least every Shabbat, a skilled membership that could lead services, daven, and serve each other through committees. Friendships that had endured an adult lifetime continue. With the sale of the building, our congregation, which had been declining, had the possibility of using the money to support our continuation. We needed our space, the right space. With prudent management of our newly boosted resources, and some diligence by dedicated members, we could find a rental home, one with a room to worship, a place for our Rabbi to keep his admired communal presence, and spaces for our cars. The town’s Jewish population had long since migrated north of the section where the three denominational synagogues had established themselves. Commuting to work, car pools to Hebrew School, and driving to worship had been the norm for more than half a century, with only the clergy and a few others purchasing houses within walking distance. That left considerable leeway in where to claim our new digs.

As a congregation of employees imported by our companies’ university recruitment programs, we knew that when new to town, rent a place for short-term occupancy that will not divert attention from the new job. As a newly unhoused congregation, the path of least resistance would involve finding space in another synagogue, one that has furnishings in the chapel and a kosher kitchen we can share as part of the lease, established public spaces, and security. We could show up when we needed to, the equivalent of a furnished apartment. Attractive environment. Yet, our congregation was incapable of attaining equal status as their members, who had made significant investments in transforming their building into a state-of-the-art multifunctional space. We needed a unique site that would carry the imprint of the people who sustain us as an independent collection of Jews with our own communal heritage, a place where people join and visit because of who we are and what we offer.

We secured from a local church rental of their unused parsonage, a house of stately exterior, with bedrooms converted to offices and a place for our visiting Cantor to stay on Shabbos. The reverend’s study, with its tasteful woodwork, becomes our library. Our book collection that survived moving giveaways and book sales needed relocation from storage currently being sorted and organized by a retired professional librarian member of our shul.

The Reverend’s living/room dining room became our nascent sanctuary, the only place that anyone frequently enters other than a small kitchen off from the former. We exerted effort in that sanctuary. From blank space, we installed an Ark custom built for a Women’s Tefillah Group at our old building. In front of that Ark, we set up a Shulchan with chairs arranged about five across and eight rows deep behind it. After a few months, some decor. Selected art works, photos of past presidents, a few plaques, framed news clippings and other memorabilia of our congregation’s more robust past became wall hangings around the perimeter. American and Israeli flags now grace the front. Our makeshift Ner Tamid, with a corded plug, gave way to the more ornate Ner Tamid harvested from our old sanctuary and professionally installed, as its weight would challenge a ceiling designed for a residence.

The perimeter visually attractive, now we make the best of our floor space. To make the sanctuary experience more Haimish, we moved the Shulchan to the middle of the space. By moving the chairs between the Ark and Shulchan to face each other, we created new aisles for the Torah processional. It feels with each weekly gathering for worship more like our sanctuary with each new furniture placement, and at negligible financial outlay.

Being virtually all homeowners with payed off mortgages, most of us have revised our home décor periodically. Time for some congregational brainstorming. Our Jewish tradition since Talmudic times. Position the chairs and assign someone to chant while placing listeners on each side of the now Central Table. Give feedback. Time a Torah processional. Do it a Shabbos or two and give an operational assessment. That’s how we would do it at work. But as at work, not all preferences carry equal weight. And so, a noble project designed to manage acoustics, establish walking paths, assure safety, create a Shabbat morning’s cohesion also exposes the congregational fractures. We have new space. We are not a new planting. Our synagogue is our state’s oldest, about to celebrate the 140th anniversary of its creation. Our cashed-out building had a cornerstone etched 1964, serving as an anchor for 55 years of activities. That’s three generations, if we had been able to retain our youngest generation. While few memberships predate that building, over its operation traditions develop, leaders emerge. People claim stewardship, but some also claim entitlement. We have creative people, talent not always welcome by Influencers. That cornerstone was placed in the era of USY Cliques. Alumni who hold titles on our Governance may be on Medicare, but they were groomed in that culture of United Synagogue’s Leadership Training Fellowship z”l. They were protoges of Federation VPs who appointed them to committees, and their authority can only be challenged at high risk. I’m a technical maven on the Bimah, an Architect by Enneagram, an INTJ by Meyer-Briggs, and a critic of the Beautiful People since my 1970s college era. Not to mention some proud years in the Show Me State of Missouri. So, blended with the technical elements of what looks and sounds good, what best imprints the experience of a Shabbos morning, we also generate frictions. Our Rabbi wants the sanctuary layout to be much different than the very traditional front placement of Ark and Shulchan that he inherited. But he’s barely one year into his contract. Our President also retired within the last few years after an adult lifetime at congregations on Long Island. Existing in a different location can inspire the idea of potential possibilities. It can also appear as a threat to stability which people who raised their families in our congregation have come to expect. So, while decisions are made based on outcome, Influencers of long standing also harbor some resentments while generating others.

We are fortunate not have any dedicated Conflict Entrepreneurs. In its place, we have formality. Feedback to the Chair of the Ritual Committee was invited. I sent my assessment. There would be a discussion. Mostly Influencers of long standing, though not exclusively so. Our Ark will remain in its traditional location at the front. Chairs, tables, bookcases, our tallit rack, all open for negotiation. Between two stints as Baal Shacharit a month apart, my objection to staring at a classroom format had resulted in a different chair format.

Much of this may prove moot. In our venerable old sanctuary, designed as a centerpiece by an experienced synagogue architect, people chose seats that they rarely changed. It did not take long in our new home for people to select their preferred seats. While chair shifting occurs only in front of the Shulchan, almost nobody has sampled both the front and the back, irrespective of the configurations. The number of men who chant from that Shulchan, wherever it is placed, number about a dozen. That leaves us we a few strong opinions, some from tinkerers like me who like to arrange new configurations, others who find anything to lie in an unexpected place disruptive. Some who claim authority, others who resist that authority. It’s as much about our people, our traditions, as it is about what form our new congregational home takes. And perhaps that is how it should be. The incentive to rent there was to restore our communal autonomy. Adjusting to our new space has validated that.