why are we failing?

/OpEd in the Jewish Week: "Needed: An End to Ho-Hum Conservative
> Services"/
>
> by Brett Cohen
> Special to the Jewish Week
>
> We need a deeply engaged, committed, non-fundamentalist Jewish
> center. The tragedy of Conservative Jewish decline is not that
> we've stopped needing Conservative Judaism, but that Conservative
> Judaism has failed to live up to its mission.
>
> I challenge a spiritually serious Jew to go to pray at your
> friendly neighborhood Conservative shul and not to come away with
> the impression that something has gone very wrong. Empty
> McMansion sanctuaries, graying membership, declining ranks,
> stultifying services. . .
>
> Why don't younger, committed folks want to show up on Saturday
> morning? Because the services are rote, hum-drum. You go to a
> religious service to hope for spiritual connection, however
> uncertain and fleeting. You have more chance of finding that
> meditatingor hiking than coming to a shul where
>
> they don't really pray. But the rare egalitarian service where the
> intensity bolts around the room, that service can speak to a whole
> swath of us who want to touch something holy in our lives. A
> Conservative service that works is a spiritual on-ramp for those
> many of us who walked out of the twice a year suburban Judaism,
> vowing not to return. But without meaningful services (and here I
> am focused primarily on Shabbat services), all you have is a
> community center with a Torah in it. If you want Conservative
> Judaism to work, you need Conservative services to work.
>
> To that end, here's some of what I think you need to have a good
> synagogue service:
>
>
> - Heavy participation in the singing. Find me a service with a
> cantor wailing away operatically and I'll show you a bad service.
> If you're being prayed to or sung to at a service, you are not
> praying or singing. To all the cantors who are at shuls - keep it
> simple and beautiful. Song is a central route to devotion; you
> should try to impress the shul with the congregation's singing,
> not yours.
>
> - Lay leadership of the davening. It's hard for anyone to keep the
> energy level up if he is running all levels of the service week
> after week. Let the congregants run parts of the service. Rabbis -
> this is a statement of strength, not weakness. The best way to
> have a vibrant congregation is to have a congregation made up of a
> strong core who can lead the praying.
>
> - A focus on the eternal, not the topical. Synagogue is not a talk
> show, and it should not be a political town meeting. We're reading
> and praying from texts that are thousands of years old. If we are
> going to grapple with topics at shul, why can't we grapple with
> topics from the text, instead of the latest editorial from the New
> York Times? If your talk is ripped from today's headlines, you are
> short-changing the tradition. Worse than that, you're signaling
> that the text is not as interesting or visceral as the latest
> heated political debate. Be timeless, not timely.
>
> - Young people. Get the idealistic college kids. Get the singles
> looking to hook up. Make it easy for the young families with their
> babies "destroying" services. Think of it like this: I tell you
> there's your usual Friday night Shabbat service at your shul. Now
> I tell you that 40 Jewish kids from the nearby college are staying
> at your synagogue and they'll run Kabalat Shabbat. Which service
> will have more earnestness, more vitality, more light? No young
> folks at services means your shul is dying.
>
> -A service run amongst the congregation, not at a distance. The
> large majority of shuls have a large raised bimah from which the
> clergy talk down to the congregation. Tear it down and replace it
> with something small and in the center of the congregation. If you
> can't tear it down, walk right into the middle of the seats and
> run the service from a small bimah there, from the same level as
> the congregants. Think of nearly any time you've prayed in a group
> meaningfully and felt moved (at the Kotel, at a chavurah in
> college, at a small service in one of the side rooms in the
> synagogue where everyone sits in a circle on chairs). The worship
> is happening all around you.
>
> You will not have been craning up at clergy on a huge stage while
> you sat below. The physical structure of most synagogues
> reinforces the vicious cycle of clergy praying for congregants,
> congregants zoning out, and then clergy needing to pray for
> congregants because congregants no longer know what to do. Get
> down from there. Sit amongst the congregation while you are
> praying. There is nothing more ridiculous than those high seats at
> the back of the massive bimahs for the clergy and officers to sit
> on as though you were Supreme Court Justices.
>
> Ever wonder why your congregants don't feel connected? Reduce the
> distance between you and the congregants, and between the text and
> the congregants. Put the heart of the service right where they are.
>
> -Fidelity to the language in your Siddur. While melodic innovation
> (so long as it's singable by the lay person) can be great, messing
> with the text so that your synagogue has a unique way of praying
> is not so great. If your synagogue lightly changes and rearranges
> the text from the prayer book, congregants from other places may
> not feel comfortable at your shul, and congregants from your
> synagogue may not have the ability to comfortably pray elsewhere.
> Stick with the siddur as much as possible.
>
> -More silence. Most conservative and reform synagogues either
> gloss over the silent Amidah (making the vast majority of it
> communal rather than personal) or skip it altogether. Nearly all
> synagogues rush it. Even if you don't believe in having a
> traditional silent Amidah (and I believe very strongly in it, for
> me it is the lynchpin of the service), then at least have quiet
> time for people to silently pray or meditate. Why should people
> come to pray at synagogue? It's not primarily to hear others talk,
> or to eat kiddush, or to socialize, or even to learn.
>
> It is to talk to God. Most shuls are afraid of quiet, silent
> prayer. "People will get bored. They won't know what to do." Let
> go. Create quiet time for the quiet voice of the soul to be heard.
>