Blue Cup Oneg Shabbat
August 26, 2009
Community | Shabbat
(11 comments)
By JanetheWriter
For as long as I can remember, I've been hearing the same "blue cup announcement" during Shabbat services from the bema of my home congregation, Temple Emanu-El in Edison, New Jersey: "If you're new to the temple, please use a blue cup for your beverage during the oneg Shabbat so that we can identify you and welcome you personally to the congregation." I'd always presumed that visitors and new members heeded this request when choosing their cups, but beyond acknowledging it as a creative idea, I'd never given it too much thought.
Last Friday night, I attended services--as I have for much of the summer--at a large congregation in New York City where I've been a member for about four months. Upon entering the building, I was greeted by the darshei shalom just outside the sanctuary and, in fact, chatted with one I happen to know from my work at the Union. On this particular night I was alone which--even though I've cast aside any illusions that I'll meet my bashert in a synagogue--was just fine with me. Once seated inside, I was perfectly content to relax, unwind and concentrate on letting go of the past week. (As I understand things, that's just what God had in mind when God created Shabbat.)
As always, I enjoyed the service, the rabbi's remarks, the music, and the sense of community, even in the large sanctuary where I recognized only one person--another solo attendee, a woman I've met on several previous occasions who has children and grandchildren who live out of town. And, indeed, on the way out of the sanctuary, we wished each other a Shabbat shalom and chatted briefly. She was not staying for the oneg Shabbat so as I headed into the social hall, she headed out of the synagogue onto the street.
Once in the oneg Shabbat, I poured myself some juice and, scanning the room for a familiar face or two, saw only clusters of congregants socializing with others they already knew. Standing alone amid strangers, the sense of community I'd felt earlier in the evening evaporated and my wallflower tendencies kicked in. So, I spent a few minutes perusing the off-to-the-side table of program and activity flyers before I slipped out and headed home.
What I wouldn't have given for a blue cup at that oneg Shabbat...
Comments
Post a comment
|
Print
Email
Comment
I've never encountered the "blue cup" or its equivalent -- and what you left out of your story is whether or not it worked, whether old-timers looked for the blue cups and welcomed the newcomers. The more frequent approach to creating a welcoming atmosphere is to give the board members, or the membership committee stalwarts, badges, or white carnations -- and then put the burden on the newcomers to introduce themselves to the thusly identified.
When I was a twenty-something single, living in a city many miles from where I had been raised and where my family lived, and saying kaddish for my father, I went virtually every Shabbat for the eleven months to the same synagogue -- and in those eleven months, I was wished a Shabbat Shalom every week by the rabbi and by the rebbetzin, and never once by anybody else.
Later, when I became active in the temple that was my "spiritual home" for some three decades, the message from the rabbi to the Board members was that our most important role was not to quibble over line items in the budget, but to "work the room" at the oneg Shabbat, introducing ourselves to strangers and also introducing them to others in the congregation. The rabbi, by the way, practiced what he preached in welcoming strangers, and in creating shidduchim (matches) between old-timers and visitors.
As an unexpected "fringe benefit" of this practice, I entered a conversation with a newcomer, who turned out to have grown up in the same small town in Iowa as my wife -- and it turned out that this woman's sister and my wife had been close friends in their early teens, until both moved away from the town where they had grown up. My "random act of welcome" led to a reunion after 35 years between Barbara and Lorraine, and a rekindling of their old friendship.
Unfortunately, Jane's experience of isolation is relatively typical of what happens at our onegei Shabbat. Our synagogues establish committees and task forces and develop ads and brochures and web sites all in pursuit of membership recruitment -- but neglect the most potent tool for getting and keeping members -- making people feel welcome and part of the community.
This is the time of year when our congregations are visited by "shoppers." Whatever your version of the blue cup, the way to turn those shoppers into buyers is to greet them and make them feel welcome.
Thanks, Jane, for giving me my soap-box.