Finding room for all under the Conservative tent

Recent decisions by some Toronto synagogues to leave the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) have been news in this paper for several weeks, and obviously the issues have been brewing for much longer than that.

This columnist can make no comments about those actions. They clearly have resulted from a long process of declining relationships between the congregations and the USCJ. It saddens me to see major, significant members of our denomination pull away from a central body – but whatever the causes, I’m sure the decisions were not taken lightly.

However, I would like to think out loud about denominational affiliations and what I think a viable relationship among members of a denomination could be.

Let me start with us ordinary folk, the members of a synagogue. What do we expect? Many of us expect that our synagogue and clergy will be there for us for our significant life-cycle events: brit milahs, baby namings, bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, shivahs and unveilings. in other words, birth-to-death ceremonies.

We also expect that three times a year – on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – we will spend hours in shul listening, and maybe even participating in, long and complex services. We expect, at all these events, a sermon that will uplift us and guide us (at least until we leave the sanctuary). I should add that we usually expect beautiful cantorial and choir music.

We also want our children to have a good Jewish education. Perhaps that takes place at a day school rather than a synagogue school, but we want a synagogue school to provide the best in Jewish learning. We expect a youth group to shepherd our teens through the temptations of high school.

(What the klei kodesh expect from us in return I can only guess.)

What does our synagogue then expect from its umbrella organization? This is less clear. Certainly, from a body like the USCJ we can expect its guidance when we seek to employ a rabbi and cantor. That’s been my shul’s immediate need in the past few years, and I’m happy to report that we received excellent candidates and have made what I believe are excellent choices who will grow our congregation and serve us well, whatever demands we make on them, for many years to come.

However, I realize that for many congregations, decisions regarding our denominational stances on matters of women’s roles and the ordination of gays and lesbians, among other things – in other words ideological matters – have caused divisions. Some individual congregations don’t subscribe to the same interpretations that the central bodies now accept.

As a synagogue board member, I hereby submit my wish list for central movement bodies.

First, provide proof that we get value for our dues. This would include providing major speakers from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) – free of charge, please – who would come on a regular basis to hear us and be heard on issues confronting our denomination, and indeed all Jews, in the 21st century.

Second, and perhaps more importantly for the long-term health of our movement, provide a way – this is the 21st century, after all – to communicate with lay members of our congregation in meaningful ways. For example, I get the weekly JTS Torah study via e-mail. Are there not other ways to educate us on what we are about, rather than just knowing that the other denominations either scorn our leftish ways or think we are too conservative?

Finally, and most importantly, give us the spiritual nourishment that we need to survive and thrive as a movement. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote most luminously about the ways that we human beings can begin to think about concepts of holiness, about the relationship between the divine and the mundane, about the care that the Creator gives to this creation, and about the need of the Creator for that creation – ourselves.

Think of the schools of Hillel and Shammai. While they came to opposite conclusions about many halachic issues, they still married each other’s children and ate at each other’s tables. Surely under the umbrella of the Conservative movement, we can eat at each other’s ideological tables and share our commonalities and our commitment to Halachah, while at the same time agreeing to disagree under the same tent.

Or would that be too miraculous?