Encore Archive

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Farewell to Jewish Bureaucracy

By Balfour Brickner (Sh'ma 11/207, February 6, 1981)

A number of my colleagues in the national Jewish organizational "bureaucrat club" were surprised when they heard the news. " After nearly 20 years, why would he want to leave?" "He had a good job - and with tenure." "And for what? To go back to congregational life, with its endless committee meetings, Bar/Bat Mitzvot, weddings, funerals, weekly services, preaching, hospital visits, parents, kids - and no weekends?" "He did that once. Once should have been enough. Mashuga!" "Besides, look what he gave up. Travel, domestic and international, opportunities to speak all over the country, fascinating experiences, radio, TV, being a national Jewish leader, involvement in the decision-making processes of at least some sectors of the American Jewish Community."

It had its advantages and I loved it. Don't knock national Jewish life. It provided me with enormous opportunities and great satisfactions. Moreover, I thought then, and think now, that it was important. Despite what one rabbinical friend wrote when he learned that I had gone back to the congregation, it was about time that I got off my --- and went back to work. American Jewry could not survive without national Jewish organizational life and structure. It alone creates an effective program to save and settle Soviet Jews. It carves out our fantastic youth movements, our camps, our educational materials and systems. It gives us voice and presence as we struggle to preserve the freedoms, the civil rights and liberties so precious to us as Americans, as Jews, as Jewish Americans. It mobilizes our support for, defense of and, yes even our criticism of the state of Israel. Through media it projects the essence of Judaism to the larger society and it is through our national Jewish structures that we and our interests are represented and interpreted to the larger Christian community. I've been there. I know. No individual group of Jews, no matter how well organized or intentioned, can fulfill any of these functions with half the proficiency or effectiveness of our national Jewish bureaucracy. Certainly, there is waste and foolish competition. The criticism of the old MacIver report (so valid that it was dismissed out of hand by those who commissioned it) still obtain. The competitive behavior to protect turf and preserve image frequently beggars the imagination. The jockeying for power often leaves one breathless with outraged astonishment. These, however, are petty when compared to the positive effects created by our cadre of national Jewish organizations and their devoted Jewish civil servants.

The Need to Teach Takes Precedence

Won't I miss all that? Yes, a little. So, why did I leave? Because it is also true that American Jewry can't survive without American Jews. The bulk of these Jews if they are to be found anywhere at all, they are to be found first and foremost in the synagogue. I went back because it is in those much maligned synagogues I can best teach young people and adults what, after nearly 30 years, I have finally begun to understand Judaism is all about. I went back because after years scattering my ideas all over the country, I'd like see if they can really root and grow in some place where I will be tomorrow. I went back because American Jews and especially young American Jews, are spiritually hungry and searching. The best of them want more and better self-understanding in religious not just social action terms. If those in the synagogue try very hard, if they teach honestly and preach courageously, if the synagogue is open and experimental, if it becomes serious about child education, if it stops being stuffy and starts to being emotionally evocative, if it takes itself seriously without losing its sense of humor, it just might attract a few those young, searching, hungry Jews. If it does it will be the anvil on which is forged a new and bright Jewish future for a diaspora to which I am totally committed. It is because I now want those values for American Jewry even more than I now want national reputation or all the other goodies and glories that national Jewish organizational life can bestow that could have gone back to the one congregation in this country that could entice me: The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. It stands for, and is committed to, everything I hold valuable for American Jewry. Its building is old and in need of much overhaul. Its budget leaves much to be desired. Its spirit, its senior Rabbi and its members (to the degree that I know them) delight me. Is it harder work than the kind I have been doing? No, just different. If you have a fat ego, you drive yourself no matter what you are doing.

I could not have gone back to a congregation a decade ago. As I needed ten years of congregational experience ready me for the experience of national organizational life, so did I need the twenty subsequent years with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations to enable me to be content with my new situation. There, I lived through the best and the worst of times: the sixties and seventies.

It might not work out. I might be too optimistic. I may be misreading the scene. Besides, an urban congregation, in the middle of Manhattan, is nothing like the suburban setting I remember, from Washington, D.C. days. If so, I'll try something else. But for now, I love it.

Excuse me. I have to stop writing. Ms. Adams (she's the wife of a of a convert) just walked in with her 11 year old who hates religious school. I promised I'd talk with him "Come in, Brett. Now, let's see if we can….." The call from Washington will have to wait.