I’m very pleased to be here to talk to our Sister congregation. As I’m sure you all know the Irvine United Church was our “landlord” for a number of years. During those years we established a relationship with the Church that has been really special and very important to University Synagogue. We had a great landlord and our joint Thanksgiving service is a highlight of our year. In 2006 it will be in our new home and I hope that many of you will attend on Nov. 22 at 7:30 pm.

Today’s theme, “Jewish Perspectives on Giving” is challenging because it’s difficult to generalize, especially about Judaism. So I thought I start with a basic lesson on Judaism. A bit of Judaism 101. Then I’ll address the importance of charity in Judaism and then talk about how we developed and successfully raised the funds needed to get into our new building.

Approximately 5 million of the world’s 13 million Jews live in the United States. There are four movements in the U.S. today: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist. Orthodox and sometimes Conservative are described as “traditional movements. Reform, Reconstructionist, and sometimes Conservative are described as “liberal” or “modern” movements. As you can see the Conservative movement is perceived in different ways in many quarters.

Orthodoxy is actually made up of several groups. It includes the modern orthodox, who have largely integrated into modern society while maintaining the observance of halakhah (Jewish Law), the Chasidim, who live separately and dress distinctively. These are the “black hats and black coats” you see many times on TV and in the newspapers representing Jews and Judaism. The Orthodox movements are all very similar in belief, and the differences are difficult for anyone who is not orthodox to understand. They all believe that God gave Moses the whole Torah at Mount Sinai. The whole torah includes the written Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the Oral Torah, an oral tradition interpreting and explaining the written Torah. They believe that the Torah contains 613 mitzvot (commandments) that are binding on Jews, but not on non-Jews. So, you are all OK! According to the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey 10% of American Jews identify themselves as Orthodox, including 22% of those who belong to a synagogue.

Reform Judaism does not believe that the Torah was written by God. The movement accepts the critical theory of Biblical authorship: that the Bible was written by separate sources and redacted together. Reform Jews retain much of the values and ethics of Judaism along with some of the culture and practices. Many non-observant, or agnostic Jews identify themselves as Reform because it was the first and is still a liberal movement, although in recent years Reform has generally adopted more traditional practices. There are approximately 900 Reform synagogues in the United States and Canada.  35% of American Jews identify themselves as Reform, including 39% of those who belong to a synagogue.

Conservative Judaism. formally organized in 1913, in the United States, grew out of the tension between Orthodoxy and Reform . Conservative Judaism maintains that the truths found in Jewish Scriptures and other Jewish writings come from God, but were transmitted by humans and contain a human component. Conservative generally accepts the binding nature of halakhah, but believes that the Law should change and adapt, absorbing aspects of the predominant culture while remaining true to Judaism’s values. There is a great deal of variation among Conservative synagogues. Some are indistinguishable from Reform, except that they use more Hebrew; others are practically Orthodox, except that men and women sit together. Most are very traditional in substance, if not always in form. This flexibility is deep rooted in Conservative Judaism. 26% of American Jews identify themselves as Conservative, including 33% of those who belong to a synagogue.

Reconstructionist Judaism grew out of Conservative, but it doesn’t fit neatly into the traditional/liberal, observant/non-observant continuum used by most people to classify movements of Judaism. Reconstructionist believes that Judaism is an “evolving religious civilization. We do not believe in a personified deity that is active in history, or that God chose the Jewish people. We strongly believe in egalitarianism and prayers and rituals are not gender oriented. In fact the Bat Mitzvah, female version of Bar Mitzvah was created by Mordecai Kaplan the founder of the Reconstructionist movement. As you know University Synagogue is a Reconstructionist community.

Judaism focuses on relationships; the relationship between God and mankind, between God and the Jewish people, between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and between human beings. Our scriptures tell the story of the development of these relationships, from the time of creation, through the creation of the relationship between God and the Jewish people, and forward. The scriptures also specify the mutual obligations created by these relationships, although, as we have seen, various movements of Judaism disagree about the nature of these obligations. Some say they are absolute, unchanging laws from God (Orthodox); some say they are laws from God that change and evolve over time (Conservative); some say that they are guidelines that you can choose whether or not to follow (Reform, Reconstructionists). However there is one thing that all movements, and all Jews agree on and that is Charity. Recently on a comedy message board they were listing  oxymorons like “jumbo shrimp”, “military intelligence “and “athletic scholarship.” Somebody posted “Jewish Charity” and that bothers me a bit because charity is a fundament part of the Jewish way of life.

Traditional Jews give at least ten percent of their income to charity. Traditional Jewish homes commonly have a “pushke”, a box for collecting coins for the poor. Giving to charity is an almost instinctive Jewish response to express thanks to God, to ask forgiveness from God, or to request a favor from God. According to Jewish tradition, the spiritual benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar actually does the giver a favor by giving a person the opportunity to perform “tzedakah.”

“Tzedakah” is the Hebrew word for the acts that we call “charity” in English; giving aid, assistance and money to the poor and needy or to other worthy causes. However the nature of “tzedakah.”is very different from the idea of charity. The word “charity” suggests benevolence and generosity, a magnanimous act by the wealthy and powerful for the benefit of the poor and needy. The word “tzedakah.” is derived from the Hebrew root meaning righteousness, justice or fairness. In Judaism giving to the poor is not viewed as a generous, magnanimous act; it is simply the performance of a duty, giving the poor their due.

Certain kinds of “Tzedakah.” are considered more meritorious than others. The Talmud which is a compilation of interpretations of the Bible, moralistic teachings and maxims, anecdotes from the Rabbis, folklore and recordings of legal rulings by the Rabbis, describes different levels of “tzedakah.” Maimonides (1135-1204) organized them from the least meritorious to the most meritorious –

1. Giving begrudgingly
2. Giving less than you should, but giving it cheerfully
3. Giving after being asked
4. Giving before being asked
5. Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity
6. Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity
7. Giving when neither party knows the other’s identity
8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant

Now we know a little about the different movements and how important giving is to Judaism, let’s look specifically at how University Synagogue raised a very large amount of money to enable us to move into our own building. Here’s a little background. We had been searching for a reasonably priced piece of ground in the area for many years. Talk about an oxymoron…”reasonably priced ground”.  And then we learned that the Irvine Ice Rink was for sale. We first had to determine if we could possibly turn it into a synagogue. After some preliminary architectural studies we determined it was feasible and would save us a lot of time. As it turned out we were able to get into the building relatively quickly and now have a stunning home.

The next major hurdle was to raise funds to purchase the site and then to rebuild and remodel it completely. We formed a committee and began to address the many, many aspects needed in a successful campaign. I’ll just mention some of them-

Every successful campaign begins with stating the need and turning it into a compelling statement or campaign objective. In our case it was easy. Everyone realized that we needed a home of our own in order to continue our growth pattern. We called it a Campaign for a Home of Our Own. We used the architect’s preliminary renderings to produce stationery and simple but effective campaign materials.

We formed a small but dedicated committee and began the next step. We had to examine and rank all members of the Congregation to see what we thought was an appropriate gift for each family. This is not an easy task but extremely necessary. It is not based on fact but on what we think we know about fellow members. These were, of course, very confidential estimates. As we rated people we assigned them to committee members that knew them, wherever possible. It’s always easier to contact someone when you know them. We next needed to establish a mechanism for tracking gifts and pledges. Letters of Commitment have to be written to donors and you have to say thank you again and again.

We needed to train our solicitors and arm them with answers and try to anticipate what prospects would ask.. So we held training sessions and went over the material. We knew that in most charitable campaigns, 80% of the funds come from 20% of the donors. In fact in some campaigns it’s 90% from 10% of the donors. So we concentrated on the major givers. Those people whose potential made a personal contact a necessity. We also knew that you don’t publicly announce a campaign without one or two major gifts. The more the merrier. Fortunately we received two substantial lead gifts and we were on our way. We distributed our selected and assigned names to our solicitors and sent them forward to get appointments and to make presentations. The most difficult part of the entire process was getting appointments. You usually speak to a lot of answering machines and make a lot of callbacks. Then there’s schedule coordination because we know that it is more effective to have two committee people call on prospects. And after the presentation there’s follow-up because in many cases people don’t decide immediately. And then there’s signing a letter of commitment and getting the gift properly recorded in our records.

One of our core beliefs and philosophies at University Synagogue is that everyone should share the effort and participate in the Campaign. It really doesn’t matter how much you contribute. The important thing is that you do contribute.

Since it is physically impossible and impractical to visit all 600 families the Board initiated  a Building Fund that each member pays. We don’t use the word mandatory, since that is a “red flag word” in our congregation. However we do insist, unless there is real hardship, that everyone honor their Building fund contribution. We even renamed it. We call it CBA  It stands for Community Building Assessment. This too takes constant follow up with reminding letters, statements and thank yous.

Over the last few years we have been very successful in our fund raising campaign.  

We’ve continued to grow and like all synagogues we have needs that also continue to grow. There never is enough money so our need to raise funds is on going.

For example, during the High Holidays, just completed, when we have our largest attendance we tried our first High Holidays appeal. Many Synagogues do this  We had to be careful not to offend and yet give members good reasons to participate. A Past President, Ron Glickman made a moving appeal. I’d like to quote from that talk.

“The survival of the Jewish people begins at the local Synagogue. It begins with us.

Getting a bagel with lox and cream cheese at Shirley’s Bakery, working out at the J, going for Chinese food after a Woody Allen movie on Christmas Day – these are all part of being Jewish, all part of our civilization. But until we have communities like we have  at University Synagogue, communities where we can worship together, where we can study, where we can perform acts of tikkun olam (repairing the world) – places where we can  go  through the entire life cycle together- rejoice at each other’s simchot (happy events), weep with each other  other times and yes, places where we can say kaddish over each other when we die – unless we and others create vibrant and vital communities like this, there will not be a Jewish people and there will not be a state of Israel. It takes synagogues,.” Ron continued.

“All synagogues need  money and we do too. We deliver outstanding programs that we want to sustain – worship services (that people actually attend –maybe more here than anywhere else.) child and adult education, active tikkun olam programs (helping others and repairing the world), outreach – all supported by loyal and hard- working clergy and staff. Dues and contributions go to support these things but there is always a gap and that’s  why we all need to help – here today. We are also going through what many of you did when you bought your first home: you stretched to get into it when you bought it and then it always ran more expensively than you thought it would. But you grew into it and everything eventually worked out. That’s what we’re doing. We’re growing into our new home As we increase our membership over the years it will become easier but – in the meantime the Synagogue is in need of our help – all of us, not just our wealthier members.”

He concluded – “So University Synagogue, probably more than any  Synagogue you know is not only helping Judaism survive but it’s actually helping it grow and flourish. The survival of the Jewish people – begins here and now at University Synagogue.

We were delighted with the amount of our “collection” on Yom Kippur. No one complained and the congregation was generous beyond our expectations. We plan to do this again next year.

I want to close by talking about another aspect of giving that you’ll confront in many buildings everywhere. You’ll see it, tastefully done, I trust, when you visit our building. I refer to the common practice of naming rooms, portions of building, donor walls and on and on. We found that naming and dedicating was a strong incentive for many of our donors. From my perspective for many years, having a name on a wall was just an ego trip for the donor. But I’ve changed my mind. I was in Philadelphia in a synagogue, the second oldest one in the US and I overheard our son speaking to his son…”See that name up there that’s my grandfather. And that name there is the man I’m named after.” All of a sudden it was clear to me that naming and dedications are not for us but for future generations. It is a way to inform future generations about our values.

I‘ve given you one man’s Jewish perspective on giving. It is complex and complicated but it is clear that we are all better human beings if we are charitable and giving.