Rachel's article really talks to me, because twenty years ago I was attending meetings of presidents of large congregations, and we were talking about the same issues -- demographics, finances, the value of membership, and the value of the Union.

Following my congregational presidency, I became a member of the Union Board and of the MUM Committee, and I also began facilitating strategic planning workshops for congregations from coast to coast, most of them mid-sized -- and found through these exposures to hundreds of congregations that the problems of demographics, finances, membership, and communicating the value of the Union transcend congregational size.

Although the problems tend not to change, the world around us does, and every congregation needs periodically to do its own SWOT analysis -- examining its Strengths and Weaknesses, its Opportunities and Threats. The opportunities and threats are external -- you have to live with them and adapt to them because you can't control them. But your strengths can be exploited and your weaknesses corrected.

Beyond that, my observations on the important issues Rachel has called to our attention are too diverse and diffuse to be handled in a blog comment -- but I'll be back over the next few weeks responding at greater length on a point by point basis.

Meanwhile, I applaud congregational presidents, who probably have no idea going into their tenure that they are entering the most aggravating and the most gratifying experience imaginable. Three cheers for all who do the holy work of synagogue governance, but three cheers more for those who do it at the top leadership level!

There may be movement in the room, but there no longer seems to be room in the movement for anyone who considers his homeland to be the land that has always been his home and who finds no religious value in the Hebraizing of the liturgy, the reversion toward orthodox ritual practices, or the monotonously left-wing politics of the so-called "Religious" Action Center.

As a relative newcomer to Reform Judaism, I must say that it became a viable religious option for me, coming from a relatively Conservadox background, as it began to adopt exactly the attitudes that Mark Tasch deplores: Zionism, Hebrew, ritual, and liberal social action. Given that the growth of the movement into America's largest stream of affiliated Jews has paralleled those changes, there certainly seem to be more Lev-ites than Tasch-ites. (And we need to differentiate our Tasches -- Rachel Tasch, whose post initiated this conversation, does not identify Mark Tasch's issues as core challenges to the movement.)

M.B. would have us believe that those who have been alienated by the evolution of Reform away from the Pittsburgh Platform have flocked to the Society for Classical Reform Judaism. Since the SCRJ is a society and not an association or federation, its membership is comprised of individuals, not congregations -- but it does list 23 congregations on its web site as offering it some degree of support. (There are over 900 congregations in the Union for Reform Judaism.)

I would suggest that the more significant alienation from institutional Reform Judaism has been on the other side of the religious spectrum -- probably more significant in numbers, certainly more significant in demographics. I refer, of course, to the growth of independent minyanim and their kissing cousins, chavurot, which have been attracting young adults, often graduates of NFTY and Union camps, who are Jewishly educated and Jewishly committed and want a richer, more spiritual, more cerebral, and more participatory environment than is being offered to them by congregations like those in which they grew up.

As of a year ago, JTA was estimating that there are some 55 independent minyanim around the country, serving "refugees" from all the movements, including Orthodox seeking a more egalitarian environment, Conservative seeking more empowerment, Reform seeking more content.

The other Tasch, Rachel, alerts us to this in her challenge of demographics -- but the implications are not just sociological, they are existential.

Fortunately, the history of Reform Judaism is a history of pragmatism, of adapting the received tradition to the needs of Jews as those needs change over time and circumstances.

c.b. is more or less right in saying that most Reform Jews join synagogues when the kids are ready for Hebrew school. More or less, because this is also true of those who join Conservative synagogues, and because many of these Jews don't really have a denominational label UNTIL they join the synagogue, which may be because of proximity or because their friends are there -- no movement allegiance involved.

However, I have yet to meet anyone who joined so their kid could meet other kids, or could train his or her mind learning Hebrew. They join because they want their kid to have a Jewish education, or to have a bar mitzvah, or both.

Getting these services without paying for them is not fiscal responsibility -- it's what we used to call schnorring. And the synagogue that gives away its merchandise either has a sugar daddy who is willing to underwrite the cost of being Jewish, or the synagogue is not being fiscally responsible.

Nor do I understand why c.b. specifically challenges "the Reform movement" to cut the costs of being Jewish. They've already spared their adherents the cost of paying a premium for Kosher meat, and of investing in ritual garments. Jewish camp probably costs less than proprietary secular camps. If there are out-of-line costs to being Jewish, they are certainly not specific to the Reform movement.

c.b.'s seems to recognize that cutting costs involves cutting value -- presumably they're bringing something to the table that the volunteer moms and dads of today are unequipped to bring, even if they were back in the day. Synagogues hire professionals because their members want something better for their kids than a quickie bar mitzvah. And if the synagogue is doing a good job, they'll stick around after their own kid's bar mitzvah and their dues will subsidize the next kid's bar mitzvah.

The case can certainly be made that dropping services from the synagogue's portfolio in order to lower membership costs will backfire and membership will drop, because people certainly won't pay for programs and services that they don't see being delivered.

If you want to fault the Reform movement for something, go back to the original article that stimulated this discussion, and recognize that the movement and its congregations need to do a better job of communicating the value of everything they do, so that the c.b.'s of this world won't issue these silly challenges.