Managing Expectations

As I write this, I'm circling on a small plane somewhere above the New York metropolitan area. We've been delayed because of air traffic concerns and weather.

How do I know this? The pilot has used the PA system several times and done a pretty decent job of communicating with us. He had shared with us the timeline and updated us with new information each time a deadline has passed.

Now this is in stark contrast to my experience earlier this morning when I was waiting for my original flight. The information was slow to come from the gate crew about the delay, its cause, and the impact. Information on the many LCD screens on the airport was not current, not was the airline's website.

When I fly, and I've done a lot of it recently, I expect and understand that there will be delays with security, boarding, take off, and landing. I recognize that flying involves working with a complex system and that things can go wrong.

Today, they clearly have and I'm ok with that. The problem is not that there are problems; there will be. The problem is that in attempting to manage our expectations of the flight, the airline has done little to communicate that we as passengers have value and instead relies on our captivity to this system.

When you fall short of expectations that you have set for yourself and shared with others, you have to actively manage that failure. This means more than just working to fix the problem; it means communicating with others that you understand the problems that you are causing for them. It means displaying empathy.

Sometimes empathy can be relayed verbally and that may be enough. For bigger problems, you may need to tangibly show how you value others. Depending upon the type of organization you run, this demonstration of empathy may vary. For the airline, a little empathy could mean simply sending the drink cart firm the aisle again. You can even demonstrate empathy by simply following up after the problem and sore your customs that they have value to you by asking them about their experience.

Empathy is how we show each other that we matter. And we do.

Why?

The largest challenge facing the North American Jewish community may be summed up by the most challenging question that my almost five year old has ever asked, “Why?” This question is difficult because she is not satisfied by the stock answer of “because I said so” or “because it’s the rule.” She is trying to make sense of the world around her and she really wants to the know the answer to her question because she is on a constant quest to create meaning and relevance.

The North American Jewish community has found itself in a similar position. The marketplace of ideas and opportunities are overflowing with options and we are not making a compelling case to our youth (or even adults in many cases) that Jewish life is rich and vibrant, and most importantly, meaningful and relevant. There are a myriad of Jewish opportunities available from youth groups to day school to gap year programs. Are they truly having the impact that we desire?

During my senior year of college, I conducted research looking at what factors enhanced Jewish identity in college students. My results were disheartening. Despite a reasonable sample size and a focus groups to help interpret the qualitative data, the only tangible result that I could present was that supplementary school experiences had a negative impact. No other result presented as statistically significant in either direction.

As a product of a combination of religious school, youth group, Jewish summer camp, Hillel, and an observant home life, this data continues to haunt me. I wonder why so many of my peers have not chosen to live Jewishly engaged lives. In my role as a day school administrator, I worry that we are working with a model that reaches to too few. At the same time, while day school education has been shown to create leaders in the Jewish community, I encounter many who left their day school experience turned off from Judaism.

As a leader in the Jewish community, I clearly see the need for us to embrace the challenge of relevance and meaning. Judaism is an incredible product whose multi-faceted nature has the ability to reach out to a diverse number of Jews. As an educational leader, I want to be in the trenches working to create the experiences that will bring relevance and meaning. I want to be working expand on the successes of successful models of engagement while trying to understand while other models have failed and learn from those failures. We need to create partnerships and synergies that allow us meld together the most effective interventions and programs and I want to be part of solutions that change the landscape of Jewish education and engagement.

Within the day school world, we need to become exemplars of educational practices for both general and Jewish studies. While minimally engaged families may not be initially attracted by the Jewish studies program, we need to make the case for the deeper skills, such as empathy, critical reading, and problem solving, that Jewish studies build and how they enhance, not just general studies, but the entire child. We need to learn from the success of youth groups and camps that build a love of Judaism through their affective programming that does not over intellectualize Judaism.

I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention that even the most meaningful and relevant experiences are useless if they are not accessible. Building towards this grand vision of learning environments that create engaged Jews is useless if we cannot tackle the affordability question. Without a doubt, Jewish life as it is currently construed in North America is an expensive proposition and in a world with some many competing demands for our dollars, we need to make sure that the experiences that we create are worthy of the financial support of our constituents. While creating a compelling product will not solve the affordability question, it will go a long way towards creating the demand and desire that will impact the financial issues.

We simply need to answer the question, “Why?”

A Vanished Leader

It is usually an honor to be asked to deliver a d’var torah at a meeting, so when asked recently to give one for a committee meeting I naturally accepted. Feeling somewhat flattered (the committee is filled with rabbis and others who have more Jewish knowledge than I), I sat down to read the weekly Torah portion and figure out what I was going to say.

It was at this point that I realized that I should have looked before I leaped. This past Shabbat’s parshah seemed to be completely lacking in anything that I could use to deliver a short d’var torah. There was no fascinating narrative to unwrap and no confusing laws to clarify. Instead, Tetzaveh with its descriptions of the interior of the Tabernacle seemed better suited by HGTV than being part of the Torah.

My “ah hah” moment arrived after reading a commentary that shared what was missing from the text, rather than trying to explain what was in it. Moses is a pretty popular guy during the last four books of the Torah. His name appears in every single parshah at least once, except for this one.

The focus in Tetzaveh is on instructions for preparing Aaron and his sons to become priests and Moses was not going to be a priest. However, the text does not even include the line "And God said to Moses" which usually comes before sets of instructions to the people.

Is this absence a mere coincidence or does it signal something deeper? Some commentators felt that Moses was being a nice guy and letting his brother have the spotlight for a change. Others see an interesting combination of events. Tetzaveh is always read during the week which the 7th of Adar falls (next Friday) which is traditionally held to be the date of Moses' death. Is this just a coincidence that Moses is absent from the parshah during the week of his death's anniversary? Some commentators respond that this is part of the active effort to avoid creating a cult around Moses which is the same reason why his name found only once in the Haggadah.

To me, there seems to be another message present. Moses is a critical figure in the establishment of the Israelites as a nation. He is the conduit through which laws are established and provides them with guidance throughout their journey in the wilderness. Yet, his absence here indicates that things can go on without Moses and that there are elements of Israelite life that he is not significant in. Perhaps, most importantly, this text foreshadows that the Israelites can go on without Moses.

This made me wonder about the projects that so many of us undertake and feel that we are such a critical element that they could not go on without us. But, could they? Do we truly bring something so unique that the project would crumble without us?

While our egos may feel good about being the keystone for some many things in our organizations, we may be failing as leaders. Perhaps the true sign of a good leader is that we can make things work without being a critical cog in the wheel. If we establish strong processes that support those that we work with, then life (or a project) can go on when we step back. Maybe this is the lesson that Moses was trying to teach by vanishing from Tetzaveh.