On a typical Friday night, between 25 and 45 people attend services at San Francisco’s Congregation Or Shalom. For High Holy Day evening services, that number leaps to 500.
And this year, Rabbi Pam Frydman Baugh expects a record number.
For small congregations like Or Shalom, a Jewish Renewal synagogue, it’s time for the annual move to larger quarters — in this case, to St. Mary’s Cathedral. Elsewhere in the city, worshippers at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav will hear the shofar sound at the Herbst Theatre.
Even the large synagogues grapple with the surge in attendance. San Francisco’s Congregation Sherith Israel will double up on services and also lead congregants in worship at Newman Hall, which adjoins the Reform synagogue.
For a multitude of synagogues, the wandering will continue as long as the annual crowd swells.
“There are always going to be people who only come once a year,” said Lea Salem, president of the Reform Sha’ar Zahav. “That’s the reality.”
Is it ever. Rabbi Roberto Graetz, spiritual leader of Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Lafayette, burst out laughing when asked if there was much of a gap between the weekly and the High Holy Day crowd.
“Give me a break,” he said. “For weekly services — about 150. For the High Holy Days — about 2,500.” The congregation not only books double services, but holds a more informal, family-style “community service” at the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, films it and shows the film on cable access television for those who cannot attend services.
But rabbis and administrators contacted by the Jewish Bulletin waxed philosophic about the cyclical ebb and flow in synagogue attendance.
That fact of life is both a hurdle and an opportunity, according to Rabbi Ted Alexander of San Francisco’s Congregation B’nai Emunah. Every year, the Conservative congregation moves to a larger building, a church, to accommodate its overflow crowd.
“This is the way it’s been for 32 years,” he said. “I don’t expect most people to go to synagogue every week. Is it OK? No. It is an opportunity to pull them into Jewish peoplehood. But it is a tremendous responsibility the rabbi and cantor have in High Holy Day services, to communicate to them the spiritual importance of soul-searching. And I get scores of letters every year from people telling me it took days for them to come down from their high. [But] I’m not so naive as to believe they will suddenly begin attending regularly.”
Costs and codes being what they are, congregations with a massive number of annual worshippers are unlikely to build a site large enough to hold them all.
“I don’t think we could have found and built a site that could accommodate the people that come to High Holy Days services — we couldn’t afford it,” said Sha’ar Zahav’s Salem. “Big congregations like Emanu-El and Sherith Israel have smaller chapels for worship services and they hold double services. It’s rare to find any synagogue that can accommodate everyone that would show up to High Holy Day services.”
But a heavy turnout doesn’t send every congregation scurrying for more expansive quarters. In San Jose, Congregation Ahavas Yisroel, an Orthodox Lubavitch shul, will meet in the same place, although roughly 40 percent more congregants show up for High Holy Day services than for regular services.
“We take everything out of the room but the bimah,” said Rabbi Yosef Levin. “We pack as many chairs in as we can.”
Likewise, the Palo Alto Orthodox Minyan won’t be moving. “It’s pretty tight, but we stay here,” a volunteer said.
But Or Shalom, which rents office, classroom and meeting space from a Congregational church, regularly outgrows its facilities.
“We don’t have a sanctuary,” Baugh said. “It’s living-room style here. Eighty to 150 people show up for a Saturday morning service when there is a bar or bat mitzvah. Our people rent spaces for those occasions. I’m used to having to move 20 to 30 Shabbatot each year.”
Even though the High Holy Day crowd is substantially larger than usual, however, it’s a mistake to assume that most attendees are outsiders.
“When you say, ‘Where are these congregants all year?’ I say, ‘I see them all, at different times. I see them when they’re picking up pieces,'” Baugh said.
“We try to hold onto them [those who are not affiliated],” Salem said. “The people for whom it’s, ‘Oh, my friend brought me to High Holy Day services and now I’d like to get involved.’ But the thing is, many already are involved. They may come once a month, but different months, not all at the same time.” Many attend a handful of services, but work on committees, or volunteer at the synagogue offices.
“Going to services is only one way to express your Judaism,” Baugh said. “There are many ways to be involved as a member: tikkun olam [healing the world], social action, education. We would look very different as a community if everyone came to services all the time.”
Many in the Bay area, far away from their families, seek this feeling of inclusion.
The most intense rush to join is just before the High Holy Days.
Rabbi H. David Teitelbaum, executive director of the Northern California Board of Rabbis. “It’s ‘I don’t want to be alone at the holidays.'”
Salem said: “In any case, we’re here. We try to be as accessible as possible to all people.”