The honest truth is: in many communities, Friday night Shabbat services are the part of the week in which the congregation is least engaged in the synagogue. At Temple Beth Shalom (450 households; likely 1200+ people), if we are not having a special event, we are likely to see only around 15 people. I understand the argument that “the service was meaningful to those who attended.” But 15 people out of 1200+ is not robust synagogue engagement.
Instead of weekly Friday night Shabbat services, I’d propose:
(1) Weekly 20-minute Kaddish ritual. Most of the people who come (to TBS, at least) on any given Friday evening are there to say Kaddish. Given this, we should do it as well as we can! Instead of 57 minutes of Shabbat, and 3 minutes of Kaddish, what if we built a brief, focused, weekly Kaddish ritual. Mourners would continue to get a personalized invitation when their loved one’s yahrzeit is approaching. We’d stand in a semicircle in front of the ark. We’d read poems, sing songs, have each person say the name of their loved one and share a brief remembrance, and offer the Mourner’s Kaddish together. If we did it well, my guess is that we’d see even higher participation among mourners than we currently do – knowing that the experience has been designed specifically with them in mind.
(2) Monthly, home-based, small-group Shabbat dinners. If we had only a 20-minute Kaddish ritual each week instead of a full service, this would free up resources to engage a wider swath of the congregation on Friday evenings. Imagine if every household in the congregation was invited to be part of a cohort with 5-10 other families. Each cohort would meet once a month in one another’s homes for Shabbat dinner and lively conversation. Meals would be potluck. Each month, a collection of short articles, essays, stories, and poems would be compiled and circulated to all the cohorts, as food-for-thought for the dinner table conversation. We could train congregants to be conversation facilitators. If we staggered the dinners so that they don’t all fall on the same week, the clergy could rotate among them from week to week. The meal would be ritualized – with Shabbat blessings, and with each family invited to share one thing that is happening in their lives. Over the course of the year(s), members of each cohort would feel a deep sense of belonging with one another.
(3) Monthly, community-wide Shabbat service. Once a month, all of the cohorts would come together at the synagogue for a celebratory, community-wide Shabbat service. Because it is happening only once a month, this service would be more intentionally and artfully crafted than a typical weekly service: with uplifting music, a smart and beautiful sermon, and roles for congregants to speak, sing, and chant Torah.
Doing this would allow us to: broaden engagement; deepen belonging; and do things well, not right.
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