Kids' Area

A beautiful Bar Mitzvah was celebrated in shul this past shabbos. Great family, great kid, great laining, great food. One additional advantage--the kids' area (the "stage" at the east end of the kiddush room) was curtained off.

This was terrific! Fran and the kids had a partitioned area to play in. Wouldn't it be nice to have it like that every shabbos? There have been plans to build a wall to separate the play area for a year now--what's going on? It took nine months to build a new house near me...and it's taking a year for the shul just to figure out how to build a wall?

Philosophy Priorities

Another quote from the shul website:

The warm atmosphere of The Roslyn Synagogue reflects the philosophy that the viability of our congregation, and of American Judaism, is dependent on the enjoyment of observance by current and future generations.

That's a very interesting philosophy. I didn't know that the key to American Jewish survival was enjoying observance. So if only people liked keeping kosher, the majority of American Jews would keep kosher? If only people liked walking to shul on Shabbos, the majority of American Jews would keep Shabbos?

This seems very unlikely. Jews who live their lives according to halacha do so because they are convinced it is important, because they believe that that is what Hashem wants us to do. Certain aspects of observance may or may not be enjoyable, but that's not why people are religious. If we are going to rely on the enjoyment factor to get people to be observant then we are not likely to succeed, because there will always be something more enjoyable coming around the bend that will supersede Judaism in that regard. Jews need to understand the necessity and importance of being observant, and have enough faith in Hashem and His Torah to make that commitment; relying on the entertainment value of religion isn't going to cut it.

Building Priorities

A quote from the shul website:

The Roslyn Synagogue is currently undergoing an expansion. Recently completed, the newly redesigned kitchen is beautifully upgraded. An enlarged children’s area is currently in the planning stages.

This is a great example of a shul whose priorities are all wrong.

1. The first things upgraded were the kitchen and mens room. Now, the kitchen is used by, at most, 10% of the membership (how many people actually go into the kitchen?) Not a wise way to spend a limited amount of funds.
2. The mens room was not redone properly. In a small bathroom, there isn't room for two stalls; at most a stall plus a urinal. If the door to the bathroom can't be closed, then clearly the bathroom was remodeled incorrectly. In fact, already the door to one of the stalls doesn't even close or lock.
3. Not only wasn't the mens room done up wrong, it shouldn't have been remodeled at this point at all. The ladies room should've had a much higher priority. Let's face it, if a couple is visiting the shul, and the guy has to use an old bathroom, he's not going to care much either way. But when his wife has to use the poor excuse we have for a ladies room, I guarantee they're not coming back for a long time.
4. See the quote above: the kitchen (irrelevant) has been redone already, but the children's area (most important) is only in the planning stages. So our liquor is taken care of well, but our children are kept in a gross room with no walls, conducive to wilding and injury but not to learning and proper behavior.

Back to Business?

Yes, there have been no comments for a while. I wish I could say that that's because everything is hunky-dory. But rather, it's because there's so much to comment on, and nothing changes, it's easy to get pessimistic about accomplishing anything.

It's kind of like when you read a newspaper that always has mistakes--if you write a letter to the editor every time you catch an error, you'd be writing letters every day.

But I'm back to being optimistic again. Or at least, I've got the guts again to fight the good fight.