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Not By Tribe and Not By Market: After the Pew Survey

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If we hope to build a Jewish future in the face of our demographic challenges, then we must relearn a third language, the oldest Jewish language of all. It is the language of mitzvah, of calling and ultimate purpose.

by Michael Wasserman

When we react to demographic threats, such as those reported in the recent Pew survey, we generally do so in the two languages that we know best: the language of tribal solidarity and the language of the consumer marketplace. Both languages are deeply problematic and confuse our efforts.

We tend to formulate our questions tribalistically. We ask how we can push back against assimilation, how we can we increase the odds that our grandchildren will be Jewish.

What is tribalistic about those questions? They start from the premise that group survival is a self-evident good. For members of a tribe, the perpetuation of the group requires no justification. In fact, to ask why there should be a Jewish future would seem absurd. Continuity is an end in itself. The question is not why, but how.

The problem with formulating the question in that way – assuming the ends and asking only about the means – is that the premise that we take for granted is exactly the premise that we must not take for granted, because it is exactly the assumption that the people that we hope to reach do not share. For Jews whose tribal bonds have been loosened by ethnic assimilation, the value of group survival is far from self-evident. That is the essence of the challenge. If we ask the question in a way that assumes the very thing that we cannot afford to assume, then our vocabulary cuts us off from the people that we need to speak to.
Perhaps that is why, when it comes to answering the question, we typically switch languages. Having asked the question tribalistically, we attempt to answer it in a language that more people understand, the universal language of the marketplace, the language of American consumerism.

What do such answers – market-based answers to tribalistic questions – sound like? Here are some examples: “To build a brand that young Jews will be loyal to, we must do a better job of listening to the consumer.” “We must understand the spiritual marketplace and create innovative, exciting and user-friendly programs and services that young Jews will want to buy.” “We must model Jewish institutions on the most creative and successful companies, which excel at catering to their segments of the market.”

The language of the answers is as problematic as the language of the questions. Just as tribalistic questions cut us off from the people that we must learn to speak to, market-based answers are irrelevant to what they – and we – are really looking for. At a very basic level, the commercial template does not match the nature of the task.

The problem is not just that Jewish institutions cannot realistically compete with the retail and entertainment industries. It is that, even if they could realistically compete, success on that terrain would not be the success that we are hoping for. Even if we could imagine young Jews loving their JCC or their synagogue in the same way that they love their iPhone, it would not be the kind of love that we – or they – are really seeking. Loyalty to a brand is not like loyalty to a community. Yes, people will pay extra for a brand that they prefer, but that is not the same as sacrificing for a cause that they believe in, or giving of themselves out of a sense of calling or belonging. To apply the language of the marketplace to the human search for meaning is a fundamental category error. Meaning is not a product that one can sell.

We are fluent in two languages: the language of tribal solidarity and the language of the marketplace. But if we hope to build a Jewish future in the face of our demographic challenges, then we must relearn a third language, the oldest Jewish language of all. It is the language of mitzvah, of calling and ultimate purpose.

How would it sound to ask our questions in that language? Our questions would no longer be exclusively about the means of group survival, but about the purpose of group survival. We would no longer start by asking how we can ensure a Jewish future, but by asking why there ought to be Jewish future in the first place. Instead of asking how to make our institutions viable for another generation, we would start by asking what would make our institutions worthy of lasting for another generation. Instead of asking how to raise the odds that our grandchildren will be Jewish, we would start by asking what understanding of our Jewish calling, of our ethical and spiritual responsibilities, is so compelling to us that it might merit the attention of our grandchildren as well.

To be sure, asking the question in that language would put a greater burden on us to clarify what we ourselves believe in and are prepared to stand for. It would also make it possible for us to move toward answers that might earn the loyalty of those who will come after us.

Michael Wasserman is co-rabbi of The New Shul in Scottsdale Arizona.

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Comments

  1. I think you miss part of the point of the commercial model. It’s not that shuls are competing with business. It’s that they need to use contemporary models of marketing, and not rely on outdated models for outreach.

  2. Spot-on! I’d buy a ticket to the think tank that focused on Why Be Jewish if it had an agenda that reached beyond Faith and Choseness (compelling but not universally resonant). Beyond Jewish History (“don’t break the chain”). And beyond Nobel prizes (never could understand that one). Let’s invite disenfranchised Jews to the gathering, too, to keep the conversation real. After all, Judaism doesn’t have a monopoly on study, work/service, and acts of loving-kindness. Why be Jewish is a wonderful question. If we live (and discuss) the question as authentically as we can over the next ten years, who knows? The next Pew survey might reveal a very different picture of American Jewry.

  4. Michael – this is a very interesting and thoughtful piece of analysis. As if the Jewish left brain and right brain are not in sync. This has nothing to do with not using contemporary models of marketing – most Jewish institutions are part of the social media revolution with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. It has to do with the more profound and fundamental fact that many Jews are simply not interested in “buying” what the Jewish community is “selling.” Using synagogue membership as an example, people are not choosing to belong to one synagogue over another; they are choosing to not belong to a synagogue at all, period. The recent NY Federation synagogue study showed that most Jewish families view synagogue membership as part of their discretionary budget, not their mandatory budget. While people believe they can not live without a Smartphone (whether iPhone or Android), they believe they can live without synagogue membership, and they do. It’s not something they “can’t live without.” For synagogues, and other Jewish institutions, to address the challenges of the Pew Study, they need to re-examine the VALUE of what they are and what they offer and emerge from this re-examination as an enterprise that people have to have (like a Smartphone) and can’t live without.

  5. Due to its limited scope, the Pew study ignores an important element of Jewish history: in any generation, from Greek to Spanish, from Hungarian to American, only 10% of Jews remain committed, observant Jews. However, it is from that 10% of 10%, etc. that we who identify as Jews are descended. Lesson: our commitment to Jewish life is far more important to our survival than our numbers.

    Tribal survival and mitzvah can’t really be separated from each other. Without mitzvoth, the Jewish people cannot survive (nor should they, frankly), and without the Jewish People, there is no concept of mitzvah. Rabbi Wasserman is right that mitzvoth are the key; I just wish he had stressed that mitzvah begins in the home, and not in a public institution. It is only in a Jewish home that children truly learn who they are, what is expected of them and what the rewards of Jewish living are.

  6. Like the Wise Son at the Passover Seder, Rabbi Wasserman asks the essential question, the one that changes the conversation. Why should our children remain Jews – in essence, not just in their ethnic labeling? This is an unsettling and courageous question that could not be answered easily. Rather, it calls for an open discussion across the spectrum of observance-levels and denominational affiliations. It would be a difficult process, but isn’t Judaism, in its essence, a faith founded by those who dared to ask unsettling and courageous questions?

  7. Thank you Rabbi Wasserman for elegantly stating what has bothered me about much of the reaction to the Pew study that I couldn’t quite put into words. Yes. As someone who grew up with a nefarious sense of Jewish cultural identity, and was fortunate enough to be introduced to a meaningful mitzvah-centered life, I know well how little Jewish marriage or continuity meant to me, yet how much it can mean. How to give people the opportunity to taste a bit of the vibrancy and the deep sense of purpose that Jewish study, practice, and values can offer? One that can’t be purchased by putting a synagogue membership on their AmEx, but that can only be acquired with sacrifice and dedication, but that pays such rich dividends. Without purpose and calling, the numbers, whether higher or lower, aren’t much more than an empty shell.

  8. Rabbi Wasserman adds a unique voice to the shrill responses to the Pew findings. He hit the nail right on the head when he focused on the uniqueness of the Jewish people, the language of mitzvah and I add, the language of Torah. What is the “value added” of the Jewish contribution to the world, to our families and our individual life? Mitzvah, the sense that our life is a response to God’s beneficence, His concern and guidance.

    Frankly, that is what was missing from the reports of the recent United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Convention and their response to the Pew study. No amount of marketing will replace the absence of message. Thankfully, Rabbi Wasserman captures the message.