You know what Twitter’s like – now known as X – the idea is say what you want to say in the most pithy and even possibly insulting way in order to get a reaction – and that starts the debate. Our Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue has an X account @the_EHRS. A little while ago we received the following tweet from someone calling themselves NeilfromNWLondon. It went like this: ‘Visit a Catholic church 365 days of the year £0 +any voluntary donation. Visit a Masjid (Mosque) 365 days of the year £0 +any voluntary donation. To attend Edgware Reform every day £510.’
OK – well from this it was clear that NeilfromNWLondon knew the membership contribution that we ask at EHRS from an individual members. Perhaps he was a member of the Synagogue, I had my suspicions but I never found out. Yes clearly Neil was intending to provoke a reaction and so I returned a tweet.
‘Hi Neil – I wrote – visitors are always welcome at EHRS services and classes for free. Members join at the rate you quote because they believe this Jewish community must be well resourced for now and the future. We vary the fee for anyone who can’t afford it. Please Direct Message us to discuss anytime.’
Was that enough of a response? Well for Neil clearly no. He came back with this tweet. ‘Members don’t join at that fee because they fell the Synagogue needs to be properly resourced but because only members can attend High Holy Days services and you charge that for membership. Churches and Mosques don’t force people to pay hundreds to attend Xmas, Easter or Ramadan services.’
Should I have replied? Well perhaps I shouldn’t have but NeilfromNWLondon did get me a bit riled – and besides actually the cost of a High Holidays ticket is not hundreds of pounds if you are a guest or wish to only contribute for those days. Its much less.
So I did reply. ‘Neil please contact any of our Rabbis so that you can learn how this and other Synagogues work and what they do throughout the years in worship, learning, community care, social action and more. Come and visit us and inform your opinions. We will welcome you free of charge of course.’
I didn’t get a reply to that one. Maybe we had agreed to disagree or maybe Neil was persuaded. I will probably never know and Neil is a common name so I would not want to try to guess who I had been tweeting to – there was no hint on his X profile.
What might have been more constructive would have been if I had just referred Neil to our Torah portion this Shabbat. The message is even shorter than the 280 characters allowable for a standard tweet on X. ‘God spoke to Moses saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for me from every person whose heart so moves him….And let them make Me a Sanctuary that I may dwell amongst them (Exodus 25:1,2,8).’ 212 characters in fact.
To make a sanctuary – a Synagogue community needs us to bring to it what we can. Every person is needed to help and if we all do it together it is as if God lives amongst us. We need willing hearts, everyone’s talents, everyone’s resources, everyone’s abilities. Every one of the Jewish people counts.
Now what Neil then could have done would be to say back to me, what you have missed Rabbi Mark is that it clearly says that only those with a willing heart need to give. And I, Neil, don’t have a willing heart, or if I did I certainly would not be giving £510 per year to make this Synagogue thrive.
My next tweet would have been ready. I would have directed him to our third Torah portion this morning Shabbat Shekalim. Could I have done it in fewer than 280 characters?
(Exodus 30:11-16) This is what everyone who is enrolled in the records shall pay – a half shekel by the sanctuary weight – a half shekel offering to God. Everyone who is entered in the records, from the age of twenty years up, shall give God’s offering. The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel when giving God’s offering. You shall take this money from the Israelites and assign it to the service of the Tent of Meeting. (ah actually that’s 440 characters – and the character count is not the only inflation clearly our £510 per member is more than half a shekel – but that’s the result of 3200 years of financial inflation.)
The principle though is the same. The reason why the Catholic Church does not have to charge its members directly is because of more than a millennium of accumulating land, properly and investments worldwide into the Vatican coffers which pays much of the cost of their being functioning communities. The reason why most mosques don’t need to charge is because they are often endowed by wealthy benefactors or even foreign governments and their Imams are generally not employed but rather function as volunteers with other occupations.
Jewish communities, basing ourselves in Torah, do not normally aim to be supported by a few wealthy individuals. We are a kingdom of priests, as it said a couple of Shabbatot ago. Our Torah principle is not only that everyone should contribute but that if possible we should contribute equally to making a sanctuary worthy of God’s presence – where worship, learning, community care and effective social action is also available to all. We are not meant to expect others to pay for us.
Nevertheless those who can give above and beyond to make sure that Judaism and our communities continue from generation to generation are fairly admired and appreciated. At the EHRS Whisky tasting together group on Thursday night we heard form Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz of Boston, about I W Bernheim, the founder of the I W Harper brand of Bourbon Whiskey, a penniless German immigrant to the USA at the end of the Nineteenth Century who amassed a fortune. Bernheim endowed not only the library of Hebrew Union College for the Reform Movement in America, but also the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the Jewish counterpart to the YMCA, and among many other philanthropic efforts sponsored over 100 refugees from the Shoah to come to America, saving their lives.
But as well as not expecting others to pay for us to have well functioning Jewish communities we are also, based in our Torah, not meant to expect others to give all their time for us. Rather, whether or not we are able to commit financial resources, a Jewish community, from the time of the Exodus from Egypt up until today and into the future, is great because of the time and talents that its’ members dedicate to it.
Sometimes people thank members of EHRS for ‘giving up their time’ to volunteer. I am sorry but that is the wrong language for Jewish communities. We offer or we dedicate our time to volunteer, just as the Israelites did, led by the artists Bezalel and Ohaliab, to build the Mishcan, this desert sanctuary which Noah read about. We are not ‘giving up’ anything.
There is a beautiful Midrash in the Tanchumah collection which illustrates this beautifully and is possibly the best response to Neil:
It begins with the words from our portion: Take for Me an offering (Exod. 25:2). It then goes onto the verse we use as we return the Torah to the ark every Shabbat: For I give you good doctrine; do not forsake My teaching (Prov. 4:2). R. Simeon the son of Lakish explained this verse as follows: Once there were two merchants who were traveling together. One of them held a bolt of silk material in his hand, while the other held some spices. They said to each other: “Let us exchange our merchandise.” One took the spices and the other took the silk. What one of them had previously owned was no longer his, and that which the other had owned was, likewise, no longer his.
With the Torah, however, this is not so. If one man studies Tractate Ze’raim inf the Talmud, and another Tractate Mo’ed, and they instruct each other, each possesses knowledge of both. Truly, is there any merchandise more valuable than this? Therefore, For I give you good doctrine; do not forsake My teaching. (Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah, Siman 2)
If we give our time or our resources to the Jewish community it’s stays part of our heritage. Every donation or legacy to a Synagogue, every membership contribution, every hour of service given to our homeless shelter, every lending of expertise to our Synagogue council – remains part of the Jewish heritage of the person who offered it.
Being a member of a Synagogue is not a transaction like buying something in a shop. It is a sacred relationship, a sacred offering that every one of us,equally can make. Then we will truly build a sanctuary that God can dwell in. As it says about my head ‘Da Lifnei Mi Atah Omed’, know before whom you stand’. God is present because this community was built with the contributions and time of thousands of Jews before you, and hopefully built on your contributions too.
