Worshippers at Congregation Beth Torah’s Rosh Hashanah morning service heard Rabbi Mark Levin make a tongue-in-cheek “genius suggestion.”
On that day just about six months ago, the Reform rabbi suggested that congregants make it a habit to “stop in at Beth Torah” every single Friday night. Note that he said stop in, not attend.
Rabbi Levin wasn’t and isn’t asking members to devote 90 minutes or so every Friday night to worship. He is asking them to just come to the synagogue sometime between 6 and 8 p.m.
“I am not telling you you have to come in to pray, although you may want to. I am not telling you what time to arrive or leave. I am saying that a Jewish community, to be a community, must show up weekly together at the same time and place, and Shabbat is that time and Beth Torah is that place,” he announced in his sermon.
“You will see friends, and spend 15 minutes talking, and perhaps then leave. Or maybe you’ll just come late for Kaddish, or to stand with a friend saying Kaddish, and then go to dinner. Maybe you’ll walk through the front doors at 6:15, eat a little something, and head off for a movie. Maybe you show up for the oneg and conversation. I don’t care,” he continued.
Citizen or consumer?
Rabbi Levin’s erev Rosh Hashanah sermon explained the difference between being a Jewish citizen and a Jewish consumer. He explained consumers make decisions that benefit themselves. Citizens act for mutual gain.
“Citizenship often involves short-term sacrifice for long-term gain, like interrupting your schedule for Kaddish or coming together for Rosh Hashanah worship. If I do this for you today, I am hopeful you will reciprocate when I need you tomorrow,” he proclaimed.
He asked the congregation, “Are you a citizen of the Jewish world, or are you a consumer.”
Rabbi Levin wants members of Beth Torah to be citizens of the congregation and citizens of the Jewish world. In that way they will be able to reciprocate when they need someone to talk to or laugh with or grieve with. Citizens, he believes, form communities.
Citizens build community
From its beginnings in 1988, Rabbi Levin said Beth Torah has always strived to bring modern American Reform Judaism to Johnson County. But things have changed a lot in the last 20 years. While Beth Torah is as large as it’s ever been, with approximately 660 member families, that’s not a trend that other congregations in this city, or across the nation, are experiencing.
“The Jewish population of Kansas City is clearly changing rapidly. Anyone who works in the communal field will tell you that,” he said in a recent interview. “There are clearly fewer families that are affiliated citywide. The youth population is down, I would guess, 30 to 40 percent in the last 20 years. The city is clearly aging.”
Something has to be done, as he pointed out in his sermon, if we are to have a Jewish community with Jewish communal services in 20 years. He really believes that means acting as a community. He credits the ideas he is putting into practice now with what he read two decades ago in a book written by Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, “The Art of Public Prayer,” in which Rabbi Hoffman points out there no problems of liturgy, there are only problems of community.
“A lot of people are throwing a lot of money at this. The truth of the matter is we are the community we need. If you will just be the community, then we have the community we need,” Rabbi Levin said.
“We just have to show up at the same place at the same time and it’s there. It doesn’t have to be manufactured. It’s there. I know everybody’s got their own schedules but everybody has 15 minutes every Friday night,” he continued.
As he said in his sermon, “You may even stay for worship! You are the solution to the problem of community. Entering Beth Torah you’ll meet someone, or join a conversation, shmooze, nosh — all those good Yiddish words — then if you want to take off, you may. And you will know that you have done your part to preserve Judaism and the Jewish community of Kansas City. You know why? Because you will have a good time. There’s an extraordinary energy here when there are hundreds of people milling around, praying, eating, shmoozing. Come Sunday morning and you’ll see! You will in short order look forward to the people. You may say the Shema, you may not. But you will see and enjoy the people; and you will be glad to be creating community for yourself and for others."
Being the community
Rabbi Levin explained the old model Beth Torah used was “we had worship because we’re a synagogue. That’s what synagogues do. We have religious school because we’re a synagogue. That’s what synagogue’s do.”
Because that’s what synagogues do, Beth Torah will still have worship, and religious school and adult education and social justice projects. But through conversations and surveys over the last year he has learned that what people need and want from the synagogue is relationships with other people and a place where they will feel welcome and secure.
So, Rabbi Levin said everything Beth Torah does from here on out — including the new come as you are, come when you can and leave when it’s convenient attitude for Friday night — will be designed from the perspective of bringing people into a relationship with one another.
“In terms of the Friday night worship … if folks don’t have a relationship, they are not going to come to worship. I hear it all the time. Mark, I come but I don’t know anyone anymore. So I said, no, it’s about checking into the community. Just come,” he said.
The community today
So far, Rabbi Levin’s genius idea has changed Beth Torah’s program life. He said attendance at worship has gone up 50 to 60 percent.
“There are times it’s been up two or three times. On Sukkot we had twice as many people as we’ve ever had,” he said.
“Currently I believe that during the school year between Friday night and Sunday morning we have upwards of 30 percent of the congregation participating in activities over any given weekend,” he continued.
He compared the success Beth Torah is having to evangelical churches.
“They claim 42 percent attendance. Studies about them claim 28 percent, so we are rivaling the institutions that claim a high percentage of their members show up on the Sabbath,” he said.
He said the energy in the sanctuary at worship has changed enormously since this plan was instituted. The average Friday night attendance has grown to around 170 to 180 people.
“When you have 180 instead of 100, there’s a much greater energy in the room. People have commented very seriously on feeling really vibrant in a way that wasn’t necessarily the case before. We’ve always had Shabbatot that 250 people attended. When the choir sings Sermon in Song we would get 200, 250. Now we get 325. So far we’ve had four or five Shabbatot that were special events where we’ve had over 300 people,” he said.
Rabbi Levin is happy to hear that people are becoming more comfortable just showing up regardless of the time or the clothes they are wearing.
“A number of people are coming early, eating and shmoozing. A number of people are staying after until about 8:20 or 8:30. We have more children come. They go into babysitting and come in for the Torah service,” he said.
But he would love to see even more people come and leave and “not feel bad about it.”
“I want people to stay for 15 minutes. It really is about community. You come. Eat the food, visit with the people and go home. If they think ‘I have to stay, it would be rude to leave,’ it won’t work.”