Joint Meditation Project Hopes to Bring Peace to More Congregational Homes
Human nature being what it is, it is inevitable that at times a synagogue’s clergy and its lay leaders will find it difficult to work together.
Sometimes, despite a careful search by a synagogue, painstaking research by the rabbi or cantor, and great goodwill on all sides, the klei kodesh, spiritual leader, and the institution just don’t mesh.
Frustrations can grow, and at times, unfortunately, the relationship can’t be saved. But quite often it can be, if the intervention can be made soon enough.
That’s where the dispute resolution mechanism of the Committee on Congregational Standards comes in. Its mandate is to promote shalom bayit – peace in the congregational home.
Although the committee formally is under United Synagogue’s aegis, representatives of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Cantors Assembly, the Jewish Educators Assembly, and the North American Association of Synagogue Administrators all are voting members. In fact, the committee defies all the Conservative movement’s internal boundaries; it is supported as well by the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs.
When it is asked to intervene, the committee provides dispute resolution services to congregations, day schools, and other Conservative institutions; it intervenes in disputes between clergy and lay leaders, educators, parents, or other interested parties. It has been doing so for the last 60 years.
Generally, an intervention begins when one side requests it; the next step is to engage the other side. Once that happens, a mediator meets with both sides and negotiates toward a resolution. Many disputes involve money, and they are resolved at this point, but some do not and are not. Then both sides appoint an arbitrator, the two arbitrators pick a neutral third, and the dispute is submitted to binding arbitration.
Last year, United Synagogue and the RA decided to bring mediators from across North America together to examine the underlying assumptions that undergird the process. As they studied the dynamics of the relationships between clergy and congregations and the procedures that often backfire, ending in conflict, and took into consideration as well the applicability of halakha, Jewish law, to dispute resolutions, they created the Jewish Mediation Project, a new approach to that old problem. The project’s goal is to stop disputes before they harden. The hope is that early intervention can stop the need for binding arbitration, which always means that relationships have gone irretrievably bad.
As the program began in October, United Synagogue and the RA brought 15 mediators from across North America to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York for an intense course where they reviewed procedures, examined cases, and engaged in role-playing exercises. Serious text study kept them grounded in the Jewish sources that feed their work. It was a rare opportunity for the mediators – all of them attorneys with experience in mediation and arbitration, many with extensive experience as mediators, and several professors of alternative dispute resolution – to meet, listen to each other’s experiences, and study and daven together. I am based on the West Coast, so although I’ve been involved in the Conservative movement for more than 30 years, it was my first visit to the seminary. As I strolled through the building I looked at the pictures on the wall, featuring the movement’s luminaries with such people as Golda Meir, Harry Truman, and Nelson Rockefeller and enjoyed that extra treat.
Before we arrived in New York, we had been sent a 54-page booklet of materials assembled by Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the RA’s director of rabbinic development, and by Rabbi Moshe Edelman of United Synagogue, who directs the standards committee. The booklet included a host of information on relevant matters developed by United Synagogue and the RA, both jointly and separately. Once the meetings began, we also had the benefit of the wisdom and experience of many rabbis and movement leaders, including Rabbi Joel Meyers, the RA’s executive vice president, Rabbi Elliot Salo Schoenberg, its associate executive director, who also directs the Joint Placement Commission; Rabbi Jerome Epstein, United Synagogue’s executive vice president, joined us for one of the days. Many lay leaders were there as well.
At the opening session, we learned about the unique stresses that affect someone as he or she makes the transition from congregant to rabbinical student to rabbi, and how the rabbi’s family also has unusual problems because it can be so visible and is expected to serve as role model. Although there is some attention paid to practical matters, most of a rabbinical student’s studies involves sacred texts, so the responsibilities of a synagogue may overwhelm a new rabbi, who immediately becomes the community’s sole authority on religious matters.
A newly ordained rabbi therefore is urged to seek a senior rabbi to serve as a mentor, to find study partners for ongoing learning, and to make use of the RA’s resources as he or she becomes a role model in the community.
There are three mandatory standards to which all RA rabbis must adhere. All have to do with religious status – an RA rabbi may not officiate at a wedding of a Jew to a non-Jew, must ensure that a divorcing women is given a get, and must hold strictly to matrilineal descent. Any violation of these standards is grounds for expulsion from the RA.
That afternoon, four panelists – two rabbis, Perry Rank and Gerry Skolnik; a synagogue president, Glenn Unterberg, and a synagogue-president-turned-United-Synagogue- regional-director, Lew Grafman, explored whether a rabbi is a congregation’s chief of staff, and if the rabbi isn’t, who else might be. The question led to a discussion of the importance of a rabbi’s vision, the place of the executive director, and how and when a rabbi should exert authority. An ongoing question each rabbi and congregation faces is how much a rabbi should be CEO and much his or role is as director of spirituality.
A related question is what happens when there are differences between a rabbi and the synagogue board of ritual committee on religious matters; there is a fine line between Jewish law and Jewish custom and feeling, the panelists said.
The discussion of the rabbi as religious authority explored what happens when there are differences between a rabbi and the synagogue board or ritual committee. The panelists said there is a fine line between Jewish law and Jewish tone. Another often vexed question is how to resolve disputes between a rabbi and a hazzan or other professionals. The hazzan generally will recognize the rabbi’s role as mara d’atra, decisor of Jewish law; still, it is best for the rabbi not to be positioned as the hazzan’s supervisor, the panel advised.
And, of course, ego is always an important part of many disputes between people, although it is rarely acknowledged openly. A rabbi, who by definition is a leader, always will attract a certain amount of dissent.
In another session, we reviewed the role of the Joint Placement Commission, which helps match rabbis looking for pulpits with congregations looking for rabbis. The commission tries hard not to take votes but instead to decide by consensus; part of its role to make sure that the rabbis and congregations with which it works follow the rules.
The search for a rabbi starts when a congregation – which must be in good standing with United Synagogue – fills out a questionnaire and then is placed on alist. Rabbis in good standing with the RA who are eligible for placement – that depends on his or her status with another congregation and other special circumstances – may apply for the position. Severance provisions should be part of a rabbi’s contract, we were told.
To add Jewish grounding, we studied text from the gemora that had to do with mediation and arbitration with Rabbi Mayer Rabinowitz, chair of the Joint Bet Din of the Conservative movement and an associate professor of Talmud at JTS.
During a role-playing session based on a real dispute drawn from committee files, each group reached or felt it was well on the way to reaching a negotiated settlement. In real life, though, the case did not end in a settlement. Instead, the rabbi and the congregation went to arbitration, and the rabbi lost.
As the program ended, the negotiators reviewed the dispute resolution mechanisms available to congregations, clergy, and other synagogue professionals.
Luckily, synagogue disputes that require mediation and arbitration are infrequent, but unfortunately they are not infrequent enough. All the negotiators at this workshop, along with its teachers and creators, very much hope that it will give the standards committee, and negotiators, and the Conservative movement as a whole important new resources in the eternal struggle to promote peace in our congregations.
Alan R. Rothstein is an attorney-mediator-arbitrator in the San Francisco area, a member of Congregration Beth Sholom in San Francisco, of United Synagogue’s board of directors, and on its Committee on Congregational Standards. Two years ago,he chaired a small subcommittee that revised the mediation-arbitration procedures.
