The Historical Confusion - Counting the Omer and Shavuot (Part 5)

In the previous post, I discussed the textual confusion about the date of the omer-counting and Shavuot. The historical record is similarly muddled. Let's start with what the Torah says about the date of the giving of the Ten Commandments and then see how early Jewish communities understood this

The Torah never states the date of the giving of the revelation at Mount Sinai. The Torah explains that the Exodus from Egypt took place on the 14th day of the first month. (Exod. 12:17-18.) After crossing the Reed Sea, the Israelites went to Elim (Exod. 15:27), then to the "wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month." (Exod. 16:1.) ("Sin" is a Hebrew word, not the English word.) After an indeterminate stay, they then went to Rephadim. (Exod 17:1.)

Exodus 19:1 then states, "In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai." It is not clear what "the same day" of a month means, although it arguably means the first day of the third month (later called Sivan). They then camped before Mount Sinai for some indeterminate amount of time (Exod. 19:2). Moses speaks with God (Exod. 19:3), then speaks with the people (Exod. 19:7-8), and then speaks with God again (Exod. 19:9-11). God tells Moses to tell the people to ready and on the third day, he will come down. (Exod. 19:11.) It is not clear from the text how much time this camping, and speaking took, but in any case the people do what they are told, and God appears on the third day. (Exod. 19:16.)

The rabbinic tradition is that the revelation on Mount Sinai occurred on Shavuot, which was 50 days after the second day of Passover, or (after some arithmetic, left as an exercise for the interested reader) on the 6th of Sivan. But as noted in earlier posts, this does not directly follow from the text. Shavuot in the Torah is an agricultural holiday and (unlike Passover) is not linked at all to the revelation on Mount Sinai (0r anything else, for that matter), and in fact its date---seven weeks and one day after "the shabbat"---is also not clearly specified.

Given this, it is not surprising that there were early alternative traditions as to this date and the dating of Shavuot. The book of Jubilees was probably written in the second century BCE. It begins, "And it came to pass in the first year of the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the third month, on the sixteenth day of the month" that God tells Moses to come up to Mount Sinai. The book later put Shavuot in the middle of the third month (and states that Isaac was born on this day): "And she [Sarah] bare a son in the third month, and in the middle of the month, at the time of which the Lord had spoken to Abraham, on the festival of the first fruits of the harvest, Isaac was born." This puts Shavuot 10 days later than the traditional rabbinic account, and thus the counting of the omer began 10 days after the traditional day, or on the 25th of the first month. Apparently, the author of Jubilees used a solar calendar where days fell on the same day of the week, and the 25th of the first month was the Sunday after the last day of Passover.

The later Christians adopted a similar understanding, putting the holiday of Pentecost at 50 days after Easter. Counting Easter Sunday as the first day, that put Pentecost on a Sunday, seven weeks later. But in the conventional account, the first Easter was the Sunday after the first day of Passover which was on Thursday night / Friday day, not the Sunday after the last day of the 7-day Passover week, as suggested by Jubilees.

The Talmud contains a debate regarding this issue. In Menachot 65a-66a, the Mishnah describes an elaborate procedure for the barley offering, and then asks why this procedure was necessary. "Because of the Boethusians who maintained that the reaping of the omer was not to take place at the conclusion of the [first day of the] festival." (The Boethusians were a sect that was related in some way to the Sadducees.) Thus, the Boethusians, like the Christians, placed the beginning of the omer counting on the Sunday after the first day of Passover, not the day after the second day of Passover.

The Gemara then picks up on this debate. One foolish old Boethusian (described that way in the Talmud) offers a silly argument for Shavuot being on a Sunday (and thus "the shabbat" being on Saturday), and R. Yochanan ben Zakkai responds by calling him a "fool" and offering a weak but possibly sarcastically made argument. The Gemara then offers four other arguments for "the shabbat" being the second day of Passover, none of which are very persuasive.

The obvious dispositive counter-argument is that if Shavuot had in fact commemorated the revelation at Mount Sinai, then it would be on whatever day the revelation at Mount Sinai occurred. If that was on the sixth of Sivan, then that's when it was. But no one in the Gemara makes this argument, presumably because the Boethusians either (1) did not believe that Shavuot commemorated the giving of the Ten Commandments, or (2) did not believe that the date was the sixth of Sivan.

In Louis Finkelstein's book "The Pharisees", he picks up on this debate. (Chapter VII.B, pp. 115-118.) He notes that "nothing could be more trivial than such a debate" and correctly explains that "[t]he Biblical verses in Leviticus which give the provisions of the law are concededly ambiguous." He then notes that the Pharisees linked Shavuot to the revelation at Sinai. They were more separated from agriculture than the Sadducees and more interested in history and the Law. The Sadducees, on the other hand, did not believe the holiday had any historical significance, and they were more attuned to the agricultural aspect of the holiday.

The historical upshot is this. Neither the fixing of the beginning of the omer counting (and equivalently, the date of Shavuot) or the link between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai are based on the text of the Torah. Both were the subject of considerable debate in the period before the Talmud was written.

One can certainly believe that there was a reliable unbroken oral traditional going back to Sinai that established both the relevant dating and the link between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai. But if one does not believe this, then it the holiday must have evolved in the thousand years before the Talmud was written. The holiday initially began as an agricultural festival, vaguely set at 50 days after an initial barley offering. The omer counting was either just a way of establishing this date or perhaps required actual counting. But over time, the date became fixed, the actual counting of days became required, and this agricultural holiday was linked to the revelation at Sinai.

In future posts, I will look at how Jews have created more layers of meaning attached to the counting of the omer, including most importantly the mystical sefirot.

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The Textual Confusion - Counting the Omer and Shavuot (Part 4)

As noted in earlier posts, the Torah itself indicates that Shavuot is an agricultural holiday commemorating the wheat harvest and involving a grain offering. However, the later rabbinic literature links the holiday to the giving of the Ten Commandments (or perhaps the whole Torah) on Mount Sinai. This claim is found nowhere in the Torah or any early literature, and the precise date of this event was disputed from an early period. Let's review the facts and then figure out what to make of them.

As noted in the second post in this series, Shavuot is 50 days after the day after "the shabbat" after the barley offering. One key question is what does "the shabbat" mean here. The answer gives us the date of Shavuot, or if we know the date of Shavuot, reasoning backwards will give us the date of "the shabbat."

"Shabbat" usually means the seventh day, sundown Friday night through sundown Saturday night. But in some contexts, it means a generic day of rest. For example, later in Leviticus 23 (the chapter mentioning the counting of the omer and Shavuot), the Torah calls Yom Kippur a "shabbat shabbaton" or a "sabbath of complete rest." (Lev. 23:32.) Similarly, Leviticus 25 discusses the sabbatical year, where no planting or sowing is permitted and the land is to rest. God commands that the land will keep a "sabbath" (Lev. 25:2) and calls it a "shabbat shabbaton".

Back in Leviticus 23, there are three holidays mentioned before the omer-counting passages. The first holiday listed is shabbat, and it is decreed to be a "shabbat shabbaton." (Lev. 23:3). The second holiday is Passover, and it is decreed to be a "mikrah kodesh" (or holy convocation) and no work is permitted. (Lev 23:7.) Importantly, even though no work is permitted, the day is note called a "shabbat." The third holiday is the seventh day after Passover, and this too is called a "mikrah kodesh," no work is permitted, and is not specifically called a "shabbat." (Lev 23:8.) Then the counting of the omer and Shavuot passages noted earlier occur (Lev 23:9 ff), and this counting is to start the day after "the shabbat". Which one?

There are three possibilities: (1) the normal Friday/Saturday shabbat, (2) Passover, and (3) the seventh day of Passover.

As a simple matter of textual interpretation, the first argument seems the strongest. After all, shabbat is the only day that is specifically called "shabbat." The second best argument is the third one. The holiday where no work is permitted that immediately precedes the omer counting command is the seventh day of Passover. The one the rabbis went with, Passover itself, is the weakest argument, at least as a purely textual matter. But of course there is a lot more to understanding the meaning of this passage than simply interpreting an ambiguous passage, and the historical tradition is quite important. I will look at that next.

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Creating Authentic and Relevant Meaning

In re-reading the last two posts, I realized that I never explained my basic point. Here it is.

The (simplistic) Orthodox world view is that God wrote the Torah and commanded the commandments. Our job is simply to decode the text, follow the oral law, and do the mitzvot. We might have some discretion in borderline or ambiguous cases, and there may be some complexity in the particulars of tough cases. But for the most part, the general approach is all very straightforward.

But that is not the way it actually works in practice, or the way is has worked in history. The act of not only figuring out exactly what a mitzvah entails but figuring out how it is meaningful and important involves a lot of judgment and discretion, and often a lot of creativity. We have several thousand years of people creating these idea, acts, interpretations, and discussions, and then reacting to others. It is a rich tradition.

Authenticity involves learning about this tradition, then doing mitzvot (or even sometimes changing mitzvot) in light of this tradition. That type of authenticity is equally available to Orthodox Jews and non-Orthodox Jews.

Relevancy involves an evaluation of mitzvot or texts in light of that tradition. This requires some flexibility and even playfulness with the texts, the mitzvot themselves, and even the ideas behind the texts. This is not some wacky left-wing New Age idea --- it is exactly the approach taken by the Talmud, the midrash, the kabbalists, and even contemporary Orthodox rabbis.

So far, I have claimed a lot more than I have proven. But rather than discussing all this in very general terms, I thought I would discuss it in light of a particular mitzvah, counting the omer. So stay tuned ....

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Inauthenticity, Irrelevancy, and Counting the Omer: The Basics

In the first post on this topic, I laid out two basic problems that liberal Judaism seems to have. Jewish practice either seems to be irrelevant (or insignificant or unimportant), in that there does not seem to be much benefit in doing it. Jewish practice also seems to be inauthentic, in that we do not take seriously the traditional claim that God literally commanded us to do these things by speaking commandments on a mountain 3,400 years ago. That leaves non-Orthodox Jews in an intellectual mess, to say the least, and the result is what we often see in non-Orthodox synagogues: low levels of observance, knowledge, practice, and most of all enthusiasm.

I claimed in the first post that there is at least one way out, and I would use an odd and under-appreciated (and under-practiced) mitzvah---counting the omer---to illustrate this. In this post, I would like to explain the basics of counting the omer and its Torah origins. I will discuss the historical evolution of both the mitzvah itself and ways of understanding its significance in later posts.

The mitzvah of counting the omer is straightforward. After reciting a short single-sentence blessing ("Blessed are you, Lord our God, who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to count the omer"), Jews count the days and weeks, from the second day of Passover to the day before Shavuot. For example, on the second day of Passover, we recite the blessing then say "Today is the first day of the omer." The next day, "Today is the second day of the omer." On the seventh day, "Today is the seventh day of the omer, which is one week of the omer." On the 23rd day, "Today is the 23rd day of the omer, which is three weeks and two days of the omer." We continue until we reach 49 days. The next day is Shavuot.

Not very complicated. Here are a few additional rules. We should count the omer at night. Someone who forgets to count the omer at night can say it without a blessing the next day, and remains on track. But if someone forgets to count for a full day (that is, skips one day of counting completely), that person can continue to count, but without saying the blessing.

Aish HaTorah's website has a good page on the basics of this mitzvah.

This mitzvah is not complicated, and can be done each night in about 15 seconds. Non-Orthodox Jews cannot claim that the mitzvah is too difficult or complicated or onerous to do. The problem is that it seems silly.

Before jumping into the problem of significance, let's take a careful look at the historical origins of the mitzvah. And this requires a little bit of elaboration about Shavuot.

The mitzvah of counting the omer comes from the Torah. In Leviticus 23, God tells Moses to tell the children of Israel about several biblical holidays. After Shabbat and Passover (on which Jews are commanded to do no work), God then explains that when the Children of Israel enter the land of Israel, they should bring an "omer" of the first reapings to the priest as an offering. (Lev. 23:9-10.) (An omer is a unit of measure of grain.) After some instructions about this (Lev. 23:11-14), the Torah then explains the counting:

"And you shall count unto you from the day after the shabbat [ha-shabbat], from the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete; even to the day after the seventh week shall you number fifty days; and you shall present a new meal-offering to the Lord." (Lev 23:15-16).

Deuteronomy contains a similar description of the counting, and explicitly identifies this second holiday as Shavuot. After discussing Passover (Deut. 16:1-8), Deuteronomy explains:

"Seven weeks shalt thou number to yourself; from the time the sickle is first put to the standing corn you shall begin to number seven weeks. And you shall keep the feast of weeks [hag shavuot] to the Lord your God after the measure of the freewill-offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as the Lord your God blesses you." (Deut. 16:9-10.)

Just to clarify: the word "shavuot" literally means "weeks" and is related to the Hebrew worked "sheva" which means "seven." So Hag HaShavuot literally means the Festival or Holiday of Weeks, and this comes from the fact that it occurs seven weeks after, . . . well, something.

These two passages from the Torah raise (at least!) two important questions. First, what day does the counting start? Leviticus says it is on "the shabbat". Does this mean a regular Friday evening and Saturday day Shabbat, or does it mean more generally a day of rest? And if so, which day of rest? And Deuteronomy says from the time the sickle is first used, but what day exactly is this? Second, once we figure out when it starts, do people have to literally count (that is, say "one", "two", "three", etc., on each day) or is this instruction (count 49 days) just an elaborate way of setting the date of Shavuot as 49 days after the starting point. I will cover those next.

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The Two Foundational Problems With Liberal Judaism (And the Solution)

Liberal Judaism is stuck between two foundational intellectual problems: inauthenticity and irrelevancy. They usually manifest themselves in an attack from the right and an attack from the left. I do not think the problems are intractable. But rather than arguing in generalities, I will take a ritual that is easily subject to both of these attacks---counting the omer--- and see if we can not only defend against the attacks but show how counting the omer can be meaningful and important, regardless of its historical origins.

Here's the basic problem. Liberal Judaism generally accepts the conclusion of modern Bible scholarship that the Torah was written well after Moses and by multiple authors. In doing so, it rejects the traditional historical claim that the Torah was literally written by God. It adopts a more flexible approach to halacha and rituals, and in doing so runs into two quite serious foundational problems.

The religious right argues this type of Judaism must be inauthentic. If liberal Jews do not believe in the literal historical truth of the foundational story of Judaism---God gave the Torah to the Jews on Mt. Sinai---then nothing solid remains of Judaism. Under that view, the Torah is just a bunch of stories and laws written by ordinary people a long time ago. There is no compelling reason to do any of it. Sure, it might contain some wisdom or good ideas here and there, but Jews cannot take it too seriously if they do not believe that God told us to do these things.

The non-religious left makes the opposite argument. Jews should do certainly do the parts of Judaism that are "good" ideas, like don't steal, be nice, and give charity. But one should do them because they are good ideas, not because Judaism says to do them. And there is no reason to do the "bad" ideas, or the "neutral" ideas, or most rituals. That knocks out things like keeping kosher, fasting on Yom Kippur, and putting on tefillin. And once a Jew does the good practices because they are good, and avoids doing the other practices because there is no reason to do so, there is nothing left of Judaism. Thus, the non-religious left argues that Judaism is irrelevant.

This is the scylla and charybdis of liberal Judaism: inauthenticity and irrelevancy. And these two manifests themselves in much of liberal Judaism. I attend a Conservative synagogue, and I certainly see both of them. Many Jews my age (mid 40s) simply opt out of many traditional Jewish practices. They do not keep kosher, attend synagogue, celebrate many holidays, daven, wear tefillin, etc. The attitude of many of my friends is simply that it seems irrelevant, sort of silly, and a little strange to do these things. After all, God did not literally said to do these things, and there just does not seem to be a good reason to do so. And when they do do these things (for whatever reason), it lacks authenticity. So someone might to go synagogue (say, for a bar-mitzvah), but will not feel elevated by the davening, does not know what the Torah parsha says, and does not expect these things. They feel a little like a religious tourist, watching and even going through the motions without really participating.

The result is what we see in the Conservative movement. Synagogue membership is declining, and adults who were raised Conservative become less religious and unaffiliated with a synagogue (in lots of cases) and Orthodox (in a handful of cases).

The solution to the twin problems of inauthenticity and irrelevancy is (not surprisingly, and, in fact, definitionally) authenticity and relevancy. The issue is how to achieve these.

For liberal Judaism to be relevant, Jewish practices and beliefs must reflect divinity (however understood), elevate us spiritually, help Jews live much deeper and richer lives, and contain some insights into life that are not generally available in secular culture. And to be authentic, it must not be dependent on the historical origins of the Torah, but on how it has evolved and been interpreted for the past 3000 years, regardless of its historical origins. Jews must be able to feel fully engaged when doing these things.

I think that Judaism for the most part meets these challenges. The problem, as I see it, is that most liberal Jews lack even the most basic education about what Judaism is, and this ignorance is too often (but fortunately, not always) fostered by ineffective religious schools. The problem is not inherent in liberal Judaism itself.

I have detailed some general thoughts on these ideas in many other blog posts. But rather than arguing from a general level, I thought I would take a particular example of a simple mitzvah and show this works in practice. My example is counting the omer. In the next few blog posts, I will explain the mitzvah itself, it biblical and historical origins, and its subsequent history. In doing so, I hope to show how this seemingly odd mitzvah is highly relevant to life and how liberal Jews can authentically count the omer.

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Fun With Google Stats

The online comic strip xkcd sometimes includes funny charts and graphs showing the number of google hits for variations of a phrase or sentence. For example, "x bottles of beer on the wall" shows a spike at x=100. I figured I would try a few Jewish themed ones just for fun.

Here is the chart for "When is x" where x is a Jewish holiday. (This might vary by time of year, which would explain the current Purim spike.)



"n branched menorah"



"Jewish x" for different family roles and occupations.

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Egalitarian Weddings and Evolutionary Halacha

Ben Z at Mah Rabu has an interesting five-part series of posts on his egalitarian wedding (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.) In short, he took three things quite seriously: the traditional Jewish ideas and rituals of marriage, contemporary gender and sexual-orientation egalitarianism, and pragmatic reality. He then reshaped some of the rituals and ceremonies and ideas of the traditional marriage.

This is an important project for several reasons. If a contemporary and more liberal view of halacha is to evolve and emerge, some people have to take it seriously. Perhaps some of these innovations will become widely accepted, perhaps they will be rejected outright, and perhaps they will be modified or supplanted in some way. But this on-going dynamic process is itself important to keep traditions relevant and meaningful in light of serious contemporary challenges.

I am not a fan of change for change's sake. But marriage might be a good place where some change is warranted. The traditional Jewish non-egalitarian view of marriage is not the way most Jews view their marriage or live it. Ben Z. has taken an important and thoughtful step here, and it is worth reading.

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Problems With Orthodox Attitudes Towards Tradition and Authority

Orthodox thinking is often characterized by a strong reliance on the authority of tradition. In contrast, more liberal Jewish thinking is often characterized by undervaluing the importance of tradition. Both can be problematic. But two posts at Cross-Currents on two very different issues show, albeit in an unintentional way, the problem with the Orthodox world view.

In the first post, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein discusses a recent denunciation of Kupat Ha'ir's solicitation methods as theft. I had never heard of Kupat Ha'ir or its solicitation methods, and checking out the links reveals that this organization apparently solicits funds for charitable purposes, but in doing so suggests or claims in some way that giving such tzedakah will help the donor solve various personal problems: obtain a spouse, recover from illness, earn more money, etc. Apparently many devout Orthodox Jews have given money with this expectation and then were bitterly disappointed when the spouse or recovery or financial security never showed up.

My initial reaction was to roll my eyes, and note that this is sad, and somewhat pathetic, on several levels. I realized that this type of problem is simply non-existent among the the Conservative and Reform Jews that I know. (To be fair, it is also apparently non-existent among the Orthodox Jews that I know, but it is a problem in some segments of the Orthodox world.) I wondered why. Reform and Conservative Jews are not smarter or less foolish, on average, than Orthodox Jews. They may have less of an absolute faith that God will solve their problems if they pray or give tzedakah, but why do these beliefs differ.

I think the answer, or at least part of the answer, is that more liberal Jews, embracing modern skepticism, simply tend not to believe such supernatural claims. The reaction of virtually every Jew that I know to such a solicitation would range from amusement to anger, but no one would think that giving such tzedakah would be effective. But apparently there is at least a segment of the Orthodox world where this is not true. Rabbi Adlerstein bluntly notes, "I can think of few regular, familiar features of Orthodox life that bring more disgrace to Torah life than the KH brochures and ads. They proclaim to the public that Torah is the province of worshippers of miracle-rabbis." I think the problem, simply put, is that many Orthodox Jews tend to be less skeptical, and tend not to critically examine claims put forth by established and respected rabbis or institutions.

The same problems revealed itself in a very different way in the second Cross-Currents post entitled I Thought The Greeks Lost by R. Dovid Landesman. The article is about the conflict between Greek (or more generally Western) values and Jewish values, including science. R. Landesman notes that science, although not strictly part of traditional Jewish learning, is built on observation, anyone could do it with enough time and effort, and is not antithetical to Judaism. He explains, "These fields of knowledge do not depend upon Divinely revealed wisdom accessible only through Torah; they are a byproduct of the Divine gifts of intelligence and creativity with which all mankind was imbued and which everyone can develop to the extent that his potential allows." He argues for teaching subjects of general knowledge.

All that is fine as far as it goes. But it reflects a much deeper problem. The scientific approach is emphatically not based on a respect for tradition. To the contrary, it is based on doubting and questioning the received wisdom at every turn. This approach to thinking cannot be easily reconciled with the Orthodox approach.

I am not sure Rabbi Landesman realizes where this path will take him. Students (and adults for that matter) who approach scientific problems using the scientific method will then start to apply it to traditional Jewish teachings. They will not accept on faith that God exists, that the Torah is a divine book, that the oral law did not evolve, or that a rabbi should be listened to and obeyed when he says something doubtful.

There are two approaches the Orthodox community can take here: they can separate themselves from Western ideas or they can try to balance between Western ideas and tradition. The former might work to some degree, but it tends to be repressive, xenophobic, and ultimately separates such communities from the real benefits of things like science, technology, literature, music, and even plain old critical thinking and skepticism itself. The latter approach probably makes more sense, but it runs the risk of undermining traditional Judaism.

To take perhaps the clearest example, when critical principles are used to examine the Torah itself, a remarkable consensus has emerged over the past 150 years or so among scholars of all faiths and of no faith that the Torah is a composite documents written well after Moses's time. There is a huge debate about exactly when and where and how these documents were written, but there is unanimity in the basic rejection of a unified document written by Moses. Nothing that the Orthodox world has come up with the in past 150 years has even dented this consensus, and in fact the paucity and in some cases dishonesty of the Orthodox response to Bible criticism has underscored the real problems with a traditional understanding of the Torah.

My claim is that you cannot teach students to use critical scientific methods to learn about biology and physics and history, noting how powerful such methods are for discovering truth and weeding out falsehood, but tell them not to use them the same methods towards Judaism itself.

Incidentally, the solution to this problem by more liberal forms of Judaism is not without its costs. By embracing science and skepticism, Reform and Conservative Judaism has knocked down some outdated or incorrect or problematic beliefs in Judaism. But it has not been as successful in building Judaism, either in some new form or as a modified form of traditional Judaism. But all that might be part of an on-going evolving process.

In short, the problem is that the Western, skeptical, scientific worldview that doubts tradition and authority and the traditional Jewish worldview that respects religious tradition and authority are fundamentally at odds. This problem can be smoothed over in some areas, but it ultimately cannot be ignored.

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Old Haloscan Comments Imported!

I have now imported all of the old Haloscan comments.

About a year ago, our old commenting system Haloscan changed over to a paying system. We switched to Disqus (which is a much better commenting system in any case). I was able to download all the old comments from Haloscan to my hard drive, but was unable to upload them to Disqus. Disqus has now modified and fixed its importing system, and after a little programming, I was able to convert the old Haloscan comments into an XML format that Disqus recognized.

The bottom line is that all of the old comments to this blog (about 1000 of them) have now been successfully uploaded.

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Saturday Morning Conservative and Reform Shabbat Services

Our Conservative synagogue has one critical problem with its Saturday morning shabbat services. I know other people, synagogues, and minyanim have the same problem, and I was wondering how others have addressed this.

The services themselves are fine. We have a regular service that is fairly well-attended. The rabbis are good, the cantor, choir, and music are good. The sermons involve some audience discussion, which is interesting and works out well. We also have a more traditional library minyan that meets twice a month, and that service is also fine. It is well-run by competent lay leaders.

So what's the problem? Younger people do not attend services. Families are virtually absent, and people under 50 are virtually absent. The people who do attend tend to be older, and often much older. Virtually everyone who attends the regular service and library minyan is over 50, and the median age is considerably higher than that.

I am certainly not objecting to older people attending services; to the contrary, I celebrate that. But I am concerned about younger people not attending. The religious school has been running a "family shabbat service" for families with younger kids, and—despite the size of the religious school and the day school—virtually no one attends.

The result is problematic for several obvious reasons. We lack a community; the families do not regularly see each other at synagogue. We are not teaching our kids by example that services are important. We are not teaching our kids the basic skills necessary to be a competent Jewish adult. And we are missing out on shabbat services.

The problem is not the synagogue itself. To the contrary: if any synagogue could be expected to have services where younger people show up, it is ours. We have extremely intelligent, articulate, and well-liked rabbis. The synagogue is doing fine financially; we could afford anything reasonable that would help solve the problem. The synagogue is large, and we have both a day school and a religious school. But neither the parents there nor the kids show up at services.

The problem was even more serious several years ago at my father's (then) Reform synagogue. The synagogue did not have a Saturday morning service if there was not a bar- or bat-mitzvah. My dad showed up on Saturday morning all the doors were locked. (He has since switched synagogues.)

I see several causes of the problem, and several potential solutions.

1. Adults Do Not Think The Service Is Meaningful Or Interesting. This is the most basic problem. I think most adults in their 30s and 40s at suburban Conservative and Reform synagogues have a negative view of prayer itself. Bluntly put, they view it as all about sucking up to a supernatural Being that they do not believe in. Given that, it is silly and meaningless, and they just do not want to go.

The solution to this problem is to help parents reformulate their understanding of prayer and the Saturday morning Shabbat service. There's much to be said about the details of this, including whether it is even possible. And it obviously takes a time commitment. But this is basically an intellectual or educational problem. If adults learn about prayer and the Shabbat service and think differently about them, they might be more inclined to show up. (Or at least not to not show up because they think it is not meaningful or interesting.)

This was actually my primary problem for years. I did not attend services. I had belonged to our synagogue for several years, and someone asked me something about the shabbat service. I had no idea of the answer; I had never attended. But in the last year or two, I have been attending sporadically, but more regularly.

BTW, there is a new book called "Making Prayer Real" by Rabbi Mike Comins. I'm about halfway through it, and he (and about 50 other rabbis and educators) address some of these issues. I intend to blog about it at some point.

2. Adults Do Not Know The Details Of The Service. It is quite frustrating to most adults not to be able to follow the service and read the Hebrew. It is even more frustrating to get lost and not even know what page everyone else is on. This is especially true for people who competent or even excellent in all the activities in the rest of their lives. A Shabbat service can be a long experience of incompetence and frustration.

The solution here is to teach adults the service. There are lots of ways to do this: a teaching service, a class, podcasts. But again, it takes a time commitment and willingness or interest in doing this.

By the way, this problem was absent for people who grew up in a more traditional background and then wanted a traditional but non-Orthodox shul. The Conservative movement rode this demographic wave up in the 1940s - 1970s. During that time, Conservative synagogues could assume that most members were knowledgeable and competent with regard to practices like a Shabbat service. But most Conservative and Reform synagogues today have to assume the opposite, at least with regard to most younger members. And them means today's Conservative synagogues must be educating synagogues.

3. Kids Sports. They are on Saturday. Not much can be said here. But it is worth noting that there are some Saturdays when the kids don't play, or play later or earlier than the service.

4. Younger Kids and Child Care. Younger kids have a hard time sitting through a long service, especially one with lots of Hebrew. Most synagogues where parents with younger kids regularly attend services offer some sort of child care. (I blogged about this problem before.) I spoke to my rabbi about this several years ago, and he told me that the synagogue used to offer child care but no one showed up. He told me that if I let him know ahead of time that I was coming to services, he could arrange child care. But the problem is not that I personally need a babysitter. It is a collective action problem. I would like lots of people to want to come to services, and if child care helps everyone (not just me) then it should be worth doing.

This is actually a serious problem. I went to the library minyan at our synagogue yesterday, and last might my wife asked if I planned to regularly leave the rest of the family on Shabbat and go to services. She has a good point. It does seem odd that a shabbat service should be the thing that divides a family on shabbat.

* * *

Some hopeful signs.

There are st least four hopeful signs that I have seen for this problem.

First, there are the independent minyanim. In short, these minyamin are mostly in urban areas and mostly attract younger single people (20s and 30s). They are vibrant and dynamic, and full of Jews who take prayer seriously and are knowledgeable and competent. (Ben Z. over at Mah Rabu is one of the leaders of this movement; his latest post is here.) These members often get married, get older, and move to the suburbs. Established suburban congregations should welcome them and their energy; they could help revitalize the synagogue service for younger people.

Second, Camp Ramah. Some appreciable number of (mostly) Conservative kids to go Camp Ramah and come back liking shabbat services. This proves that the problem is not intractable. If some of Camp Ramah's energy and enthusiasm could work its way into the regular shabbat service, it would also help.

Third, Modern Orthodox synagogues. An appreciable number of Conservative Jews who want a active shabbat-observant community find it lacking in Conservative synagogues and end up at Modern Orthodox synagogues. They are not Orthodox in their beliefs. They are often egalitarian, accepting of gays and lesbians, and not completely shomer-mitzvot. But they are willing to tolerate joining an Orthodox synagogue so that they can have the benefits of shabbat. But if Conservative synagogues would offer this, they would feel more at home there.

Fourth, churches. Many churches have families who regularly attend on Sundays. If they can do it, we can too.

* * *

In short, I think this is a huge collective action problem. Adults in their 30s and 40s with young kids do not attend services for lots of reasons, including the fact that other adults in their 30s and 40s with young kids do not attend. If lots of people would start attending at the same time, they might just find that they would like to attend because lots of other people are attending. The question is how to jumpstart this.

Comments and suggestions are obviously welcome, and I would be especially interested in hearing from people who do not attend shabbat services about why they do not attend.

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