Transition Documents
I am leery of sounding laughably self-important by branding this idea crucial, critical, or otherwise a Really Big Deal.
So having suitably disclaimed self-importance, I say this: Shuls could help themselves and their leadership immensely by maintaining a basic Transition Document. This is the most important piece of original administrative advice I could give a shul. I wish I had possessed such a document when entering each of my new shuls; it would have made my life much easier.
And yet: A thorough Google search ("transition document" "synagogue") turns up precisely 1 (one) temple that has such a document - and that doesn't appear to be for the synagogue as a whole, but rather for individual committees.
What is a Transition Document?
To my mind, a Transition Document is the cornerstone of institutional memory. It should include information like:
Minhagim: Hallel on Yom haAtzmaut. X number of Sifrei Torah are held for Kol Nidrei. Shofar at what point in kaddish at the end of Yom Kippur. Tachanun on the 14th of Shevat at minchah. Hoshanos after Hallel or Musaf.
Halachah: Status of Kosher/Pasul Sifrei Torah. How we calculate Zmanim. Contacts for Kashrus Commission, Eruv, Mikvah, Chevra Kadisha. Who purchases our Chametz before Pesach, and how much we pay him when we buy it back.
House issues: How timers are set for the lights and heat on Shabbos. Instructions for non-Jewish Shabbos employees. Tallitot cleaning arrangements. Who orders Yom Tov flowers.
Community contacts: Contact people for the Community Calendar, Federation grants, JCC scheduling, BJE, School Board, Newspapers and TV, etc.
Publicity: Locations/institutions which will publicize shul events listings. Weekly/biweekly/monthly/seasonal mailings include X, Y and Z information, provided by the rabbi/president/Sisterhood/etc. List of shul email addresses. How the Shul dialer works.
Financials: Lists of shul funds, their purposes, who is responsible for managing each. Key donors for each fund. System for drawing on those funds. Local grant organizations. Who may sign checks. At which stores we hold accounts and receive discounts. With which services the shul has contracts - Internet, phone, pest control, etc.
Governance: List of standing and ad hoc committees. Job description for board positions. Procedures for creating new committees, for making expenditures, for hiring and dismissing personnel.
Codes: Kitchen key-holders. Tallis-locker combinations. Alarm codes. Bank codes and account numbers.
Shul secrets (rabbi’s eyes only): Members with questionable conversions. So-and-so is not eligible for an aliyah. The Benevolent Fund has the following loans outstanding…
This is not even close to an exhaustive list; I know, because I am currently drafting a Transition Document for my own synagogue, and realizing how much more belongs there.
Two caveats:
1. Presidents and Rabbis need separate Transition Documents; their needs differ. Also, the president’s document will be used frequently, since most shuls today change presidents every two or three years. The rabbi’s document, hopefully, will be used less frequently - but it should be well-maintained, in case of emergency, Gd-forbid. (Hence the need for my own such document; RWAC is still in Wacville!) And, I suppose, Office Managers and Executive Directors need their own.
2. This document is not meant to preserve policies in stone or perpetuate old systems; rather, it is meant to enable growth by providing basic building blocks. It should be dynamic, continually updated. Properly done, this will save new presidents and office staff months of confusion, and a new rabbi years of confusion.
Do it now!
Bring this up at your board meetings, please - this is the perfect time, with people back from vacation but before the big fundraisers start up.
And especially to all of you synagogues who are currently rabbi-hunting - that would be you in Atlanta, Deerfield Beach, Skokie, etc - please work with your outgoing rabbis to write up such a document. Your departing rabbi will (hopefully) be glad to help you move forward, and your incoming rabbi will thank you for it.
And finally: I would love to see the RCA, OU, Young Israel, etc, devote a Convention session one year to Transition Documents, or at least send materials to their member synagogues about the importance of preparing such a document.
(Could one of my RCA-member readers please make this suggestion on Rabbi Korobkin’s RCA listserv? You’ll understand if I can’t do that myself…)
8 comments:
Inpressive. I'm sure you're right about the need. Don't most committee heads have some of this info?
I'd like to hope that a 'ritual committee head would know some of the halachah/minhagim (force of habit to put halachah b4 minhag) issues.
re:community contacts...I'd like to hope that some members of your shul are involved in Fed or BJE enough to put the Rabbi in touch with the right people.
Hatzlacha to your RCA brothers.
I could probably use a Transition Document for myself...
Well put and much needed. As far as RCA goes, maybe they can fit it in between deciding what color each meal ticket should be, or deciding how much time to waste on resolutions. I think going with DAnny's listserv will be more effective, at least for those who regularly keep up with it. I enjoyed all you "High Holiday" stuff lately as I can definitely relate. Hatzlacha!
perhaps they should include other information like how to make sure that the secretary doesn't hate you. :)
and did you know that in europe the rabbis contract dictated how he was to dress? imagine putting that on a transition document. (shtreimel, hamburg, etc. Kapota, bekesher, suit jacket, gartle/no gartle, boots or shoes, white socks of black socks, what color tie he should wear, etc...)
Admittedly I'm not a rabbi and I haven't served on a shul committee, but that all seems like sense to me. I suspect the problem is that some of it is too obvious. Things like days when the community does/doesn't say tachanun or hallel; there's always someone in shul who has lived there for decades and knows the minhagim.
I can also understand why people would not want to set the 'shul secrets' down on paper. Even if the only people with access to it were of the highest moral standing and trustworthyness, accidents do happen: multiply it by X number of shuls over Y number of years and some of these things will slip out. Even if they don't, the fact that a list of such secrets is known to exist could cause unnecessary stress to many people, primarily those most likely to already feel excluded from the community (of course, it could cause necessary stress to others, for example the man who refuses to give his wive a get).
Chag Sameach RWAC!
Be a Happy Brother -- והיית אך שמח
:-)
Neil-
A lot of the information is, indeed, available from the "right people," but having a document saves the rabbi/president/committee head from having to do the legwork, as well as from wondering whom to trust.
Halfnutcase-
A good secretary makes the shul; this should definitely be part of the Document. Especially the secretary's birthday and gift-preference.
Daniel-
Minhagim - Actually, when you rely on individuals' memories, you generally get people who remember diametrically opposite things. It's the old joke - "our minhag is to fight about it" - but it's absolutely true.
We distributed lulav/esrog tonight, and several people commented how nice it was that the sets were pre-assembled for them, a real change from the past - even though we have been pre-assembling them for at least 3 years, more likely 5.
Jameel-
וכן למר!
Our shul has a "Gabbai's Manual" that an industrious gabbai put together a few years ago. It lists chronologically over the year all the shul's minhagim for almost everything. Sounds like a subset of what you're describing.
Michael-
Thanks for your comment. I have also created a collection of our Minhagim. It grows every year, as we encounter different alignments of the calendar. (Just wait for this year's Shabbos-Erev Pesach!)
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