Never Let Your
Congregants See You In Shorts:
Tips for Rabbis that Our
Teachers Never Told Us
I’ve been receiving
questions from rabbis asking for advice. I’ve boiled my 20 plus years of
congregational experience into this collection of 50 ideas. They are offered
here in sets of ten, and in no particular order. I offer them simply to respond
to my questioners. If you like what I say, please pass them on.
1. Numbers matter.
Attendance at Shabbat services is how you know whether or not you’re offering
something people want. If numbers are low, don’t survey the congregation to
find out what they want: what they want is not to attend services. Instead, offer
what you want. If no one comes, find another job.
2. Shrink your shul. If
your sanctuary is so big that you usually play to a largely empty room (religion
is play, theater, though all too often boring play and poorly produced theater),
install folding walls to limit seating and give attendees and yourself the
sense that the shul is full.
3. Talk about what
matters. What matters is how to make sense out of the senseless, impose
meaning on the meaningless, and navigate the madness, joy, and tragedy of life.
The problem is you never learned how to do any of this in rabbinical school.
The assumption there was that Judaism matters to Jews, or, if it doesn’t, you
can make it matter. It doesn’t and you can’t. Talk about what matters, and if
you can bring a little yiddishkeit
into the conversation, so much the better.
4. Never ever call
out a page number. You didn’t spend five years (or more) in rabbinical
school to tell people what page to turn to in the siddur. If your siddur is
so thick that you aren’t going to read every page, make it thinner. If you want
to call out numbers, work at a Bingo parlor.
5. Forget answers;
ask questions. People don’t come to you to learn what to do; they come to
have you excuse what they are already doing. If you won’t do that, they’ll find
a rabbi who will. Don’t be that rabbi. Be the rabbi who helps them question
what they are doing, and explore how they might do it differently.
6. Never eat at Oneg.
Most people won’t bother to make an appointment to talk with you in your
office. Most people will grab you during Oneg
Shabbat and expect you to answer the most pressing question in their
universe. You have to answer, but doing so with a mouth full of bagel is nasty.
7. Always drink at
Oneg. Water works as well as coffee: you aren’t carrying the cup because
you’re thirsty; it’s a prop. When people ask you to answer the most pressing
question in their universe, nod thoughtfully, and take a slow sip of whatever
it is you are carrying. This will provide you with the seconds you need to come
up with the right answer.
8. The right answer
is always the same: “What makes you ask that, [insert congregant’s name
here]?” While it appears that the questioner is looking for an answer, what she
really wants is an opportunity to connect with you, and that means she wants to
talk rather than listen. Of course if the congregant is a “he” rather than a
“she” he does want an answer, just not yours. No matter what you say he isn’t
really listening. If you sip your drink slowly enough, he will forget his
question and move on.
9. Try not to act
like a 12–year–old. Congregations hire rabbis who can “relate to the kids,”
but they don’t really know what that means. After all, “the kids” are their
kids and they can’t relate to them, so why expect that you can do better? What
kids want is someone to help them find the wisdom they need to get through
middle–school with the least amount of embarrassment and brutality. Sadly for
them, you were probably bullied in middle–school, and have no idea what to tell
them. Sadly for you, talking to them about this makes you relive the horror of
middle–school. Try and maintain your adulthood. If it helps, pretend you’re
Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker.
10. Refer, refer, and
refer again. When congregants come for advice regarding their collapsing
marriage (for example), they don’t want to hear about Sarah and Abraham sticking
it out for a lifetime despite his pimping her out to Pharaoh, her attempted
murder of Hagar and Ishmael, and his aborted homicide of Isaac. They don’t want
to hear anything Jewish at all. They want marriage counseling; they just don’t
want to pay a marriage counselor to get it. Listen attentively, nod
compassionately, and then refer them to a professional. This goes for every counseling
situation: if you aren’t licensed to give advice on a topic, keep your opinions
to yourself. After all you wouldn’t want a therapist to rule on whether or not
sheep’s intestines are kosher, would you?
1 comment:
This is going to my spouse, the Rabbi.
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