If you’re so nice, where are your Ethics?

I’m a Jew and proud of it…Let me go one step further: I’m a REFORM American Jew and proud of it. I believe with all my soul that the Jews have a special place in the world, and that place is fueled by our vision of living on the ethical high ground. Historically, we are the victims and the target of the world’s anger, self-loathing and hate. We hold ourselves, as does the world, to a higher standard. (Remember the commercials for HEBREW NATIONAL Kosher hot dogs? “We answer to a higher authority”?)

So if we feel so special and so “good”, why is it OK for synagogues, under the umbrella of organized religion, in the name of expediency and finance to adapt the definition of a profession at will? Why have a good number of synagogues succumbed to the fiscal shenanigans and political expediency of many secular “businesses”?

I am a Cantor, a Chazzan, an educated graduate of a formal seminary, (Hebrew Union College –Jewish Institute of Religion, School of Sacred Music, in New York). I spent years in study perfecting a craft that goes back centuries. I made a choice to spend a lifetime learning old and new visions of Jewish music, living a Jewish life, and producing ways for current communities to combine the old and the new in semi-equal measure.

Reaching that goal takes what my student colleagues and I understood as a one-word answer: commitment. We temporarily separated ourselves from the rest of our generation to seek out our roots and connect the old with the new. We made the choice to serve our faith and Jewish community at large. AND, after our commitment, how has our community received us? Invested Cantors, in many circumstances, have been minimized by those looking for expediency and the all too powerful “fiscal reduction.” We have become the ideal commodity defined by congregational inexpensivity. (Yup-I’ve said it… I also invented the word)

Soloists are soloists. I know many of them and their place in communal Jewish prayer as committed Jews, teachers and lay leaders only helps to make the community stronger. But, our community has now taken the title, MY title, and given it to anyone who can sing and will take the position regardless of his or her ability, commitment or education. Impersonations of a physician or lawyer, and practice of those professions without a license, are offenses for which one can incur prison time. A pleasing voice, the ability to read Hebrew, even the skills to chant Torah or lead a service, doesn’t make you a Cantor. Being a Cantor is a skilled, trained profession, and the academic and spiritual journey required for ordination or investiture is a lifetime commitment that begins with a formulized course of study. Self study to fill in the gaps of knowledge does not a curriculum make, and simply ignoring the normative flow chart of: 1.) decision to become one, 2.) the requisite study to become a knowledgeable one, etc. To usurp the title without the requisite work diminishes both Cantors and soloists alike – Cantors, because the false claimant did not do the work necessary to reach the destination, it’s a matter of achievement; and soloists, because their genuine efforts to contribute their talents to the Jewish community as volunteer or paid lay leaders and/or teachers are often misinterpreted, especially for those who do NOT claim or want the title. To assume the title “Cantor” or “Hazzan” when you have not fulfilled the requirements, either by study at a seminary or smicha by a recognized accrediting body, doesn’t make you a Cantor. Yet much of those people are the same ones who most vocally insist on being called what they are not.

For individuals who have been using the title for years and have years of “experience” they claim to justify their title, their time in the chair is irrelevant. To top it off, it’s not even their fault! Whether it’s economic crisis, reduction of overhead, or a power grab by other clergy, our community has decided that soloists and songleaders should take on the responsibility of the Cantor because they are cheaper and easier to find. (There’s nothing like dropping an unprepared person into a job way over their head!) The value that a Cantor can offer to a synagogue goes far beyond music, especially for a large congregation. Our community has justified mimicry under the guise of “fiscal responsibility.”

And yet that same community complains that traditions are being diluted, wonders why attendance is at an all time low, and can’t understand that, in a society as liquid as ours, where people have more choices of things to do than time in which to do it, we are searching for ethics and honesty. We preach ethical living, yet we are so easily led astray from our ethical barometer by placing the undereducated and untrained into mock clergy positions with no respect for either history, position or reality. We then wonder why a generation is walking away.

Look at the numbers: 80% of US Jews are not affiliated with a synagogue or any formal Jewish institution. Now consider the 18-20% that ARE affiliated and look at the strength of that support. Many remain on the periphery through the Bar Mitzvah and leave, as if Bar Mitzvah is reaching Mount Sinai and, looking out over the heights of Jewish life, they have come to the end of their journey. They believe that they have reached the pinnacle of needed knowledge…the end of the spiritual Yellow Brick Road. It has to make you stop and wonder why….

If we want Judaism to thrive and survive, we better take note today, because it won’t be long before it will no longer be relevant. Respect is free - it doesn’t cost a dime. Your dues payment doesn’t cover it. But the cost of letting it disappear is consequential. It will cost you much more than your yearly dues. On the other hand, respect isn’t free. It takes energy; it takes the strength of purpose and resolve that sometimes respect requires a rigorous adherence to that, which can be a tad painful - commitment to something that might actually cost you more than your community can feel truly comfortable with. That would create a two-sided approach to success and honesty.

So what do we do? First, let’s call a spade a spade. There should be no embarrassment in being called a Cantorial soloist. It is also a position of honor within a community. But the ethics of using a misnomer lowers the bar to an unacceptable level, suggests that the Jewish community holds to no ethical boundaries, and would then, by it’s own demarcation, be seen as redefining the edges of ethics at will.

Being a Jew was never all that easy. There were 12 Jews in my High School. Being a Jew forces us to reach further, live according to that “higher” standard. Taking shortcuts, trying to fool congregants into believing they are paying for a commodity they are not getting, and minimizing our clergy by intimating that their role is purely “musical,” leads our community down a dark and dangerous path to the obsolete. Let’s get it right: Call a spade a spade, a Cantor a Cantor, a soloist a soloist, and value each for their unique role in Judaism and our traditions.

On the other hand: HHHmmmmnnnnn- I read Hebrew, I read English, I can give a speech and call it a sermon- Hey!! Wait a minute! So -now I can be- NO! I AM a Ra…

Oh heck--Anyone need a Rabbi?? Give me a call… א–ב–ג….