When My Synagogue Closed

Danny Groner

The simplest answer to the basic, expected question for why my synagogue closed after a decade is that, post-pandemic, too many people wanted something different. Some physically moved away, some decided actively to attend much less often due to changing priorities, others drifted away from religious ritual, or they had discovered a better local option for how to spend their weekends, or something else entirely. Whatever the case may be, we lost much of our footing to a crisis we couldn’t seem to overcome.

I never tried to sway people who had left to come back, focusing instead on nurturing those who came once to return again another time. My aim was to rebuild momentum at the most granular, grassroots level, even when we had little to boast of in terms of numbers. Even if there were fewer of us, I told myself, the energy we imbued there could remain unmatched. While we didn’t offer the full range of programming throughout the week that other larger institutions could, what we did present we performed exceptionally well. We could triumph through curation and differentiation.

I was a mere congregant―never during the life of this shul did I have any active or official position. If someone offered a compliment, I was happy to receive it. If they came with a complaint or some sort of a helpful suggestion, I was never the right party for them to kvetch to. I called myself the most important minor-league player the shul had, taking my cues from the people making the bigger decisions, those who set the standard for what we were building and beholding. My prerogative was to fill in the gaps as only I could, helping to make it a welcoming environment like perhaps none of us had experienced elsewhere.

Much of the back-end work was handled by a rote committee, with the gabbaim handling the front-end side. In between, there’s plenty to go around that mostly goes neglected, and I was hoping each and every time I was in the building to be the face of what needs to get done, of what should be lifted.

My personal hope, always, is to leave that type of building better than I found it. It was my mission to capture and collect those who otherwise would have gone unnoticed, to reward them for joining us with a friendly hello and, if they stuck around, a longer conversation at kiddush. I greeted everyone with a joy and energy that is often absent from these types of institutions, pushing past simple pleasantries.

I am based in Riverdale, New York, where there are a dozen or more places to pray―no shortage of options. The difference between one and the next, both intellectually and spiritually, is negligible. We are playing in the margins. If all you want is a predictable minyan, you can find one within minutes of leaving home in Riverdale. But what has been lacking from my experience―in Riverdale and, really, everywhere else―is somewhere you could feel you belong, where you can contribute, where you emerge as more than you thought yourself capable.

Patrons at synagogues tend to stick to their own, speaking to nobody. It promotes and reinforces bad culture, even if they aren’t doing anything overtly unkind. Really, synagogues should be havens for kindness, harbors for those who seek a buoy at the close of a tough workweek. Yet that aspect of Judaism is often forgotten at synagogues, where the goal for many is to remain silent and isolated, fixed and set. They choose around the length of the sermon―or no sermon at all. They select based on whether there’s hot food at the kiddush that follows. They opt for something that feels familiar to them, never questioning whether they might be able to give more than they are used to.

The shul I envisioned would bridge those gaps, designed to be intergenerational―a group of like-minded peers and kindred spirits. You should want to get to know the others who have similarly made the decision to pray and participate where you are. These are no strangers but rather fellow congregants who likely tick how you do, whom you haven’t yet had the pleasure to meet.

People invoke all kinds of excuses to justify why synagogues aren’t living up to their conventional reputation for warmth; as long as they appear full, people assume they must be doing the job for some number of the congregants. I aspired to set the bar higher, to create a shul experience that lives up to its potential. I made sure of it by going over and introducing myself to everyone present each week, looking to bring a stronger sense of cohesion to spaces that are too commonly scattered.

The conventional talking points around synagogues need to be dropped in favor of the realities people have experienced for quite some time: How many people actually meet for the first time and make friends at synagogues? How many know the names of the congregants in the next row? I looked to jump-start positive change that would last.

While our sanctuary was impermanent―our Modern Orthodox congregation rented space in the basement of a Reform temple―it never felt temporary. This was a congregation designed to be lay-led from the outset, to rally those largely untapped at larger houses of worship to grow active in making somewhere new feel both sacred and familiar. The greatest resource wasted by synagogues that overlook their patrons is the skills and strengths of their own members.

I appointed myself the usher. I sat at the very front left of the room, where I could scan and process all of it and also identify those entering from the back who seemed less acquainted with the services and less attuned to our festivities. Until this synagogue formed and fostered what I had to give, I, too, was a back-of-the-room guy. I recall from those days and decades that if nobody greets you during prayers, you won’t stick around for the refreshments that follow. You assume that island is reserved for the invited few, sectioned off for known insiders.

When I was getting married in 2018, I didn’t have anywhere to host my aufruf. I would sooner have skipped it than hosted it at a shul to which I was unaccustomed, where I’d feel uncomfortable attending―and moreover being highlighted by a group of strangers in the name of a rite of passage.

My wife and I had already chosen to reside in Riverdale after we got married, so I reached out to the gabbaim at this still-budding shul to inquire if I could have my aufruf there, despite my not being a member. They not only permitted it but asked what I had in mind―and said they’d accommodate. I wound up planning an aufruf that wouldn’t have flown elsewhere in the area―my mother speaking after services, my father reading the haftarah―leaving me with fond memories from that weekend many years on. I didn’t know then that any of this was possible to curate and create. Days after my wedding, I joined the shul. The financial cost made no difference to me, as I had already seen the exponential value of calling that place my spiritual and social home going forward.

By reputation, houses of worship are widely called community centers. In my experience, though, they often fail to live up to that reputation. Most people enter and then exit without seeing much by way of community, even if the rooms they step into are indeed packed. The others who sit in the pews beside them are bodies that fill the room more than they are companions with whom to connect or collaborate.

I’ve come to realize that for a vast majority of synagogue-goers these spaces function more as amusement parks than community centers, places where they and their families participate in familiar rides and routines. It’s the individual experiences that they prize and will speak about glowingly soon enough. If others are nearby, waiting for the same rides as they covet, it would be a deviation from the day’s purpose to go over and make acquaintances. In fact, it’s hardly done to the point of it seeming weird. Besides, what if they had already met them once before and had forgotten? Imagine the embarrassment.

I watched a generation proud of the institutions and infrastructure they built, devoid of any recognition that they’d injected no joy or real sense of community into those spaces. I’ve long argued that for my generation―the Millennials―we are not instructed to be builders in the same capacity as those who preceded us; rather, we are expected to embed joy for the very first time in those same locations.

In a community our size―fewer than 100 member family units during our best years―it was easy, if you set out to make it a priority, to know all of the names and faces. I wrote short profiles in those early years that were featured in our weekly bulletin. At the very least, it provided the photo directory that some people asked for―family unit by family unit, one at a time. At most, it generated reasons for people who might not have approached others to express commonalities they possessed, based on what they’d read and could reference while seated or standing beside another, no longer beside ‘an other.’

Through that lens, it was somewhat effortless to spot the visitors among the crowd. Each week, as we marched the Torah back to the ark, I’d pace slowly through the men’s section and shake every single hand, calling out first names. Some labeled me as the mayor. For the ones I didn’t recognize, I’d linger with them for an extra half minute, inviting them to remain with us after services conclude so I can get to know them a bit better over some herring. This weekly ritual inspired me, someone who began as a back-of-the-room guy, to arrive early and stay all the way through to the end.

Ultimately, you can only bleed members for so long, overlooking missing faces and explaining empty seats. It’s not always the summer season when lots of people are away. There isn’t perpetually a celebration taking place nearby that yanked out some of your regulars. The future of the congregation was in question for much of this past year, and with no clear path forward for the congregation, the kindest conclusion emerged to announce our closure. The final meeting was set three weeks in advance for July 12. It allowed people to get resettled elsewhere ahead of the upcoming High Holy Day season.

When the closure came, I wasn’t torn up over the decision. I had mourned my shul last winter, many months ahead of the announcement. The board made the proper and dignified call: we no longer had the money or the manpower to remain afloat. We had drifted too far from what we were founded upon. There was no tide-turning plan in place to move ahead productively, to right this ship. Without a differentiator that defined what we were and would be, it was better to close up shop actively than to fade away passively.

Getting dressed that final Saturday morning, I donned a brown polyester jacket my friend Jesse had recently re-gifted me. Once a neighbor and always a champion of the self-work I’ve done, Jesse moved to the suburbs amid the pandemic. With that jacket I wanted to express something only I adorned: my past together with my present to form who I am today. That jacket doesn’t quite fit me, and it didn’t actually match or make my outfit on a summer day, but it acted as a security blanket in case I required one.

I arrived that morning even earlier than I typically would, desperate to take in any extra healing breaths while they were still available. An officiant came over to ask if I’d like to be called up to the Torah. I suggested that countless other men were more deserving of the honor ahead of me, presumably members of the board or past presidents who’d put far more hours into ruling and running the synagogue as it stood. He replied, “I was told to give you one.” In that case, I said, I’d be honored to accept. Which one did I want? I chose the seventh and final blessing―my bow.

I didn’t take a prayer book, choosing instead to scan the full room. Others prayed silently, together. A teenager walked in and went to his regular spot. I noticed that he had put on his sweater backward. I recalled the mild shame of such mistakes at that age―having it pointed out later in the day and sensing that everyone must have been laughing at your expense for hours without telling you.

I decided to cut off that false impression at the pass, to spare him the potential trauma of an incident that might plague him. I walked over and whispered that he might want to switch his sweater around in the bathroom, which he did. Many people wouldn’t have said anything, had they even noticed. But this institution has trained me and thus turned me into someone who nurtures others―who speaks up when he has something to say, who now knows how to approach these moments the correct, dignified way, via enough practice of modeling the pastoral care he had watched, recognized, and appreciated.

The teenager was startled by the suggestion, tugging at the front of his sweater for a bit before he stepped outside. His father was leading prayers at the time, and I got the distinct impression that he wanted to remain in the sanctuary for the duration of his father’s offering. Sure enough, as soon as his father returned to his seat, the kid exited for a brief stint. When he came back in, retaking his seat, the sweater was worn in its proper form.

I thought about another teenager whose father told me years ago that, during a yeshiva interview, his son cited me as a role model. I didn’t have anyone like that at his age, and my life’s mission―after the pandemic passed and permitted us to gather again―is to display good and moral decision-making for kids and adults alike. I wish to exhibit the enthusiasm I crave. Someone once told me that you have the company culture that you create. I have recentered myself―via a midlife reset that only a pandemic could deliver―by surrounding myself with those who live with intentionality first, spirituality second.

The type of people who formed and founded this shul are go-getters―kind and serious people. I recall walking home for a while after services each Friday night with someone I never had a Shabbat meal with in all his years in Riverdale. In the spring of 2021, he and his family moved to a nearby suburb. I was happy for them to get more space to stretch out, but I was sad that he left without a goodbye. Our kinship vanished when he left the neighborhood. Those small yet meaningful points of connection matter dearly. Find someone to walk with, to get to know them a bit better. Be a brother to them, never a bother to them.

At the close of prayers that final morning, a board member led a program that began with her own reflections. She called up others to reflect: first a woman―Chinese and a convert―to speak about finally finding a place where she belonged. A teenager followed, outlining how she had come of age at our youth groups and later graduated to provide guidance and commentary to the next generation as a proud counselor. In her remarks, she pointed out that it’s the Jewish way to evolve with unexpected change and to relocate to new places as well.

The appointed emcee read off a series of thank-yous for those who have contributed heavily, both in the front of the room and also behind the scenes. As she concluded, she encouraged all of us at the reception to meet and greet someone they didn’t already know. I was delighted that this would be the lasting message of this community, confirming that I’d chosen well and right. These are my people, who stay in motion.

Just then, to my surprise, she awarded me the final shout-out, labeling me as someone who encapsulated what this congregation and its community were all about. I was moved to tears by the mention. The crowd applauded me for my contributions. I never held any official title or responsibility, yet I had made my mark.

Memories at synagogues flow most often from individual meditation or personal family circumstances, not from communal camaraderie. For most, the truth is that their hope―in both their prayers and their purpose―is never to run into any grave issue that would require communal support. They have their friends, and that’s enough.

Perhaps because it’s so uncommon, I could tell from the several years of approaching strangers at my synagogue and asking their names that more were skeptical than accustomed to such behavior. They’d balk at the suggestion that any lay leader would come over. It was a novelty, an anomaly. And after a moment of hesitation, I’d see them loosen their shoulders and understand that the norm they were used to wasn’t actually all that normal. The message of one handshake and smile would penetrate: We were happy to have you among us. We saw you.

No shul should be loud. And no shul should be totally silent either. That nobody at other synagogues is doing this influential work perplexes me. It is the foundation of being a giving person: keeping your eyes open for opportunity, because you never know how ignored that person might feel―then and always. In truth, people should be kinder and gentler with one another overall. We live amid difficult times; it’s incumbent on us to add a little bit of ease where and when we can.

On my final Saturday walking through the crowd, I found four people I’ve never set eyes on before: Michael, John, Hector, and Etan. If I wind up reintroducing myself to one or more of them later at another local synagogue both call home, I’ll be fine with it. They can remind me that I’ve done it before, and I’ll remind them of the synagogue where, against all odds, I became a mentsch.