Kumare: The Allure of Otherness

April 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I watched the documentary Kumare this weekend and I was struck by its portrayal of the development of a religious community and the search of people for meaning and fulfillment in their own lives. The movie follows the filmmaker as he morphs into an Indian Guru and plants himself in Phoenix, Arizona where he develops a coherent belief system and attracts followers. Throughout the movie he attempts to convey to his followers that they actually do not need a Guru and they can be their own spiritual teachers. I found myself waiting at the edge of my seat to see if and how he would reveal himself to his followers and if they would understand the message he was trying to teach them.

A particular aspect of the movie stood out to me and that is what I call the allure of otherness. A man with a long beard, exotic accent, flowing robes and a staff enters the mainstream American culture of Phoenix and becomes a beacon for the most assimilated people in the city. It is as if his otherness transmits an aura of authenticity, spiritual profundity and religious truth. One wonders how successful he would have been if he did not adopt the beard and robes and maintained his native New Jersey accent. His message would have remained the same but the external appearance around the message would have perhaps been too ‘normal’ to make the same impact.

I believe this phenomenon of the allure of otherness finds expression in faith communities throughout the spectrum. In the Jewish community I often wonder about the masses of assimilated Jews who support philanthropically and gravitate to the outreach organizations set up by the far right-wing segment of the Orthodox community. Kumare has made me pause and wonder what the effect of those heavily starched white shirts, black suits and wide brimmed black hats have on the success of their outreach efforts. Do the most assimilated and acculturated of the Jewish community find authenticity and the appearance of religious truth and validation by association with the otherness projected by the distinct counter-cultural dress of the organizers of those outreach fronts?

What does this allure of otherness say about the ability of the more culturally integrated segments of a religious community? Will the Modern Orthodox community ever be able to project the same aura of religious truth and spiritual profundity to the deeply assimilated members of the Jewish community? Will a religious message of living a life that is a conversation between tradition and the modern world ever be as attractive to the masses as the image of a world apart put forth by the otherness of the wide-brimmed black hat?

Kumare suggests there is an intoxicating power to otherness but the question remains as to its ability to maintain long term transformation and change in the lives of the people it impacts. To me the verdict is still out.

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The Complaint

April 9, 2013 By 2 Comments

Houses of Worship are unique organizations in many ways. The House of Worship, regardless of faith, functions as a spiritual home for individuals to commune with their God, their traditions and their people. For many the House of Worship is an anchor in an ever-changing fluid world. A place of stability. A rock of peace and serenity. A haven from the tumultous currents of the outside world.

However, Houses of Worship also have a lot in common with every other mission-directed people-focused non-profit organization. In fact, Synagogues, Churches, Mosques and Temples have more in common with the rest of the non-profit world than most are ready still to admit. There are infrastructure issues, staffing issues, budget planning, fundraising, volunteer leadership cultivation and many other dimensions that link a religious institution with their secular non-profit cousins.

One of the most important areas any non-profit must come to terms with is “the complaint.” Anytime people are involved — stakeholders, participants, volunteers, etc. — there will be complaints. A complaint is one way frustrated individuals get across their grievance to people they hope can rectify it. Complaints, when understood and handled well, are excellent sources of information to improve and refine the work of the organization. The key though is to create guidelines and rules for properly interpreting complaints and developing successful filters because without these complaints also have the ability to excessively drain time, resources and patience from the organization and to create a negative environment, not just for the staff but for everyone.

Through my work in a variety of religious non-profit settings I have found the following tips very helpful in navigating the world of complaints:

  • De-escalate and Deflate: In order to fully understand the issue one often has to calmly walk the aggrieved person back from the cliff of hyper-inflation and emotional volatility. Offer some water to the person or a private place to sit and have the conversation. Name the emotions you are experiencing from them (e.g. “I can see this means a lot to you” or “This is obviously quite personal for you and I appreciate how much you are invested in this”).
  • Recognize exaggeration: Anytime a person begins with “I and many people” or “people are upset” recognize that more often than not this is a tactic to make a personal grievance or a grievance of a few seem more pronounced than it is. Sometimes there are many people with the same concern and that’s why it’s important to probe and determine if the “people” is the person standing in front of you alone or if there truly are others.
  • Ask, ask and ask: It seems like more times than not when people begin describing their complaint it begins with a general declaration that the entire organization is doomed or that the organization is deficient completely in a particular area. People tend to complain when something personal has happened to them. Try and determine what the root personal issue is and avoid the hype. Internal audits and organizational evaluations are crucial to long-term success but this is typically not the format or the place for it.
  • Location is important: The last five minutes of an adult education workshop. The middle of a large recception. Upset people don’t always choose the right venue to address their complaint. Do not hesitate to suggest moving the conversation somewhere more private or even, if that time is just not the right time, suggesting to make an appointment for a later date. Validate the person’s feelings and explain that because you respect what they have to say you want to give them your full attention in a focused and private meeting.
  • Resist making it personal: This can be the hardest thing to do. The complaint often is formulated in “you” statements and as someone who is deeply invested in the success of the organization, it is natural to take both compliments and complaints personally. This is one of the most dangerous things to do. You will end up in an emotional rollercoaster, riding the highs of the praise and the lows of the complaints everyday. Divest your emotions as much as possible from the situation at hand.
These tips have worked for me and I have found them useful. They are certainly not the end of the conversation and I’d be curious to hear what works for others in how to successfully implement structure for complaints so that the complaint can be addressed properly and the integrity of yourself and the organization can be maintained.

 

Filed Under: Communication, Community, Decision Making, Featured, Psychology 2 Comments

Chayei Sarah, Elections and Community

November 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This sermon was delivered at BMH-BJ: The Denver Synagogue on Shabbat morning, November 10, 2012.

Most of the country this past Tuesday found themselves glued to their television sets throughout the evening. We tried every way possible to avoid the nearly 73,000 commercials these past few months. We turned off all of our lights when we saw a campaign volunteer approach our front door. We sifted through the mountains of mailings that flooded our mailbox. Yet, on Tuesday night, for so many of us, there was nowhere else we would have rather been than watching the results and the accompanying commentary on our favorite network news channel.

It was around 11 PM or so that the season that had cost some $6 billion dollars was over. Some of us cried. Some of us rejoiced. Some of us were just left plain confused.

We as a nation have witnessed so much vitriol, negativity, slander and disrespect in these months. This extended far beyond the confines of the national stage. I heard a news report about family members disowning family members; parents kicking their children out of the house, even Senate hopeful Josh Mandel in Ohio faced the scorn of family who disagreed with his politics splashed on the front page of a newspaper for all to see.

There has been so much hurt on both sides of the political aisle. As a rabbi in the community I have heard from people from both sides express so much bewilderment, frustration, anger and pain.

In this week’s Torah portion of Chayei Sarah we also find pain and hurt albeit in a different sort of fashion. In one Parsha, at the two bookends of the Parsha, we encounter the death of both of our founding parents, Abraham and Sarah. The patriarch and the matriarch of our Jewish family, the trailblazers that set the stage for the 4,000 year journey of our people pass away.

Abraham and Sarah were and continue to be models for us on how to impact humanity with a message of godliness, ethics and holiness. They reflected the best of the human potential. They set forth a never-ending dialogue between God and us, His creation, that continues to this very day.

Yet, Abraham and Sarah also had some difficult times in their family lives. They only bore a child together late in life. Before the birth of Yitzchak they grappled with profound questions of continuity and transmission: Who would take the mantle once they were no longer here? How would the revolution that they had begun continue without a next generation?

Those questions brought forth a radical idea. Hagar assumes the role of surrogate mother and bears a child with Abraham. This child was meant to become their child, Abraham and Sarah’s child. The realities of family dynamics, the complexity of competing mother identities and other factors only become exacerbated when Sarah does at last bear a child with Abraham and now that first born child, Ishmael, faces competition for the primacy of intimacy and the selection of heir from his younger half-brother. Sibling rivalry becomes sibling insult and disrespect.

Ishmael and his mother Hagar are sent away from the family. A schism of mother vs. mother, brother vs. brother occurs and the family is torn asunder.

It is only near the very end of our Parsha, chapter 25, verse 9 that we find a move towards reconciliation: “And Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the Cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron the son of Tzohar the Hittite, which faces Mamre…”

For this final act of honor bestowed to their father, both of his sons, with the bitter and acrimonious history between them, put aside their past, and for the sake of the present found peace.

The Midrash teaches that “milamed sheh’oseh Yishmael teshuva,” that we understand that Ishmael performed teshuva, repented, from their act of reunion. The Hebrew word teshuva does not only mean repentance – the framework of approaching past deeds with contrition and recognition of past failures and the work towards rectifying it for the future – but it also means to return; to come back.

The death of their father was too big of an event, too monumental of a moment for the two brothers to not come back to each other; to not return as a family. Their history was bitter, their past was harsh, their present for sure was not so simple, but they committed to building a more positive future.

As a country, what unites us is and must be more than what divides us. The American story is too big; the American dream is too monumental to not return to each other.

Isaac and Ishmael set a standard for us in how to bring harmony where there was only discord; peace where there was hatred and unity where there was only disunity. They understood that the time beckoned for a new approach and a new way. The past was behind them, the future was not yet laid out but the present was theirs to determine and to shape.

This too is our responsibility and our task. The acrimony, in-fighting and disrespect of yesterday can and must be behind us. The future is yet to be seen but right now in this very place we have the real chance to chart a new path, to restore the bonds that form the social capital of our community and to begin to learn to disagree without disowning; to diverge in political and philosophical approaches without devaluing and to embrace intellectual diversity without discord and personal division and derision.

Let us learn from the example set forth for us by our ancestor Isaac and his older half-brother Ishmael and let us actualize their remarkable coming together in our own lives and in our own community.

Filed Under: Communication, Community, Featured, Midrash, Tanach, Torah study Leave a Comment
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