allegiances: SCA and synagogue
I was discussing my decreased involvement in the SCA (over the last decade or so) with a friend who suggested that I've shifted my social allegiance from the SCA to my synagogue. This is something I've thought about before and I want to record a comment I made in that discussion.
Certainly the degradation of the SCA over the last decade [1] has made it easier for me to find time for my synagogue. The SCA began its descent for me in 1994; it wasn't until 1998 that I even started showing up at my synagogue. I've thought a lot about how these are related, actually, and I think that had the SCA not gone the way it did I would still be involved in my synagogue but I would not be in a leadership position and I'd probably be a less-regular attendee. (Not infrequent, mind, but that I wouldn't have had a problem skipping Shabbat services to go to an event.) My synagogue has replaced the SCA in providing leadership opportunities, which have accompanying time commitments -- but, interestingly, I don't actually socialize a lot with the synagogue people outside of the synagogue context. I'm much more likely to go out to dinner and a movie (or whatever) with my SCA friends.
[1] We were talking about increasingly-obstructionist policies at the corporate level and their effects on the rank-and-file participants. The modern incarnation of these problems began with a major policy change, founded on false premises, in 1993. I spent a chunk of 1994 investigating those false premises, along with several other members, lawyers, and a judge.
Certainly the degradation of the SCA over the last decade [1] has made it easier for me to find time for my synagogue. The SCA began its descent for me in 1994; it wasn't until 1998 that I even started showing up at my synagogue. I've thought a lot about how these are related, actually, and I think that had the SCA not gone the way it did I would still be involved in my synagogue but I would not be in a leadership position and I'd probably be a less-regular attendee. (Not infrequent, mind, but that I wouldn't have had a problem skipping Shabbat services to go to an event.) My synagogue has replaced the SCA in providing leadership opportunities, which have accompanying time commitments -- but, interestingly, I don't actually socialize a lot with the synagogue people outside of the synagogue context. I'm much more likely to go out to dinner and a movie (or whatever) with my SCA friends.
[1] We were talking about increasingly-obstructionist policies at the corporate level and their effects on the rank-and-file participants. The modern incarnation of these problems began with a major policy change, founded on false premises, in 1993. I spent a chunk of 1994 investigating those false premises, along with several other members, lawyers, and a judge.