Preface

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In the Beginning

As I began the journey of writing this book, asking for God’s direction in the opportunity and privilege to do so, I experienced the excitement and awesome possibility of bringing Jewish wisdom about money to those who have made building religious community and communal organizations their volunteer or professional life. I also experienced anxiety, a sense of inadequacy, and blocks to bringing a sacred approach to money in my own life. I know I am not alone in this, for you are sharing these words with me, drawn by your own curiosity or need. I have yet to meet anyone, no matter how solid their faith, that is free of struggle when it comes to dollars and “sense.” And so the journey begins, and the gates of inquiry open.

The longing to engage life from a perspective of abundance and faith, not scarcity and fear, is also at the heart of my inquiry into this subject. It reflects my passion and commitment to bringing the depth and breadth of Jewish teachings on money and spiritual life to all faith communities, given the central role finances have in our world. It has also been a painful struggle at times to write on a subject that has asked me to enter into long-held fears of the presence and absence of money in my life. I have needed to explore feelings of self-worth, tied to what we see is “of worth” in our world. The fact that it is easier in many of our faith communities to talk about spirituality or sexuality than how much we earn or spend personally, and how money is organized in our congregations, added to the challenge in writing Offerings of the Heart.

Images from my childhood—the place where so many foundational attitudes about money were set in motion—come flooding in. Flashes of my life growing up as a second-generation middle-class Canadian Jew in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and later in Toronto, Ontario, come to mind. I share these early memories with you as an invitation to recall your own formative experiences with money and values from your own traditions, and how they impact your choices and attitudes around money today.

At first, I see a pushka (charitable collection box) being circulated around my classroom in the 1960s to gather pennies for planting trees in Israel. There’s another paper box to collect change for the United Nations program for children in need, and a third sitting at my grandparents for new immigrant funds. Everywhere, in Jewish settings, these little boxes for Jewish and larger world causes greeted my comings and goings. Unless they were old pennies of value to me, a burgeoning collector of stamps and coins, these “coppers” were to be collected and deposited for those who did not have the opportunity to do the same.

These pennies, with either Queen Elizabeth or Abraham Lincoln on them, pop up at Jewish holidays too. My family gathered for Hanukkah, the celebration of political and religious freedom that the Maccabees won for the Jewish people over 2,000 years ago, and spun the dreidel (a top with four Hebrew letters on it that stand for a “great miracle happened there”). I can visualize the scene. Everyone antes up a penny, and depending on which letter the top falls on, we get a penny or give a penny, take the pot or just half of it. Jelly beans or peanuts will suffice in the absence of coins, but shrieks of delight and shouts of desired outcomes fill the air. At evening’s end, we say goodnight to my great-grandfather Ben Zion and my grandparents, half the booty given to the omnipresent tzedakah (charitable giving) box, half for our own collection. I learned early on that our “winnings” are never just ours. There is always someplace where those in need can benefit, even from our meager take.

Passage into adult membership in Jewish community is marked by the bar mitzvah (for boys) and the bat mitzvah (for girls). It recognizes that the young person has reached the age of responsibility for one’s own Jewish practice and welcomes the 13-year-old as an adult in the Jewish community. There is the process of learning, preparing, and reciting a portion of the Torah in public. Surrounding my particular bar mitzvah is a lunch at the synagogue and a gathering back at my parents’ home for friends and family that night. A few gifts of Judaica, books, Canadian and Israeli bonds arrive. The impression I am most left with is the meaning system attached to the gifts, usually given in increments of 18 or 36 dollars. As each Hebrew letter has a numerical value, and the word chai (life) has a numerical value of eighteen, blessings for life and double life are expressed. Money is not just for “things,” but also for enhancing and bringing meaning to life itself.

To this day, whenever I make a charitable contribution that does not list a multiple of 18 as an option, I check the “other” box and write in my own variation of a chai donation. My accompanying prayer is, “You who receive this offering, may it enhance your life, and the life of those who receive from you.” Money is both an actual and symbolic tool for the deepening and sustaining of life, and through its giving and receiving, we can inspire others and be inspired ourselves. We can align ourselves with the values we hold and those we reach for.

Later in my teenage years came what I fondly term “Fund-raising 101”—the United Jewish Appeal walks for Israel. The dollars-per-mile forms are circulated in the class, and we gather pledges and show up for the hike across a dozen or more miles in Toronto. Regardless of who has gathered the pledge, this seems to be a family or pack-of-friends event. We are walking in public as a community, but not only for our community. I feel exposed and vulnerable, proud and excited. This is repeated over time in walks for cancer and AIDS research. Marching collectively as a Jew in public is tied in my memory to raising consciousness and raising money for a cause.

My memories of money are not all silver-lined. Growing up, money was at times available and at other times scarce. Many of the heated discussions I remember were forged in the gulf between what was desired or expected as part of the North American dream of upward mobility, and what was possible given the limitations of financial resources. Money was generously given to those who needed it, and at the same time a source of conflict and need. Issues of class also existed, and still do, under the radar screen, but were a felt presence at the kitchen table on many occasions.

Money was also a mystery. How does it work? How is it managed? Why do some people have more than others? How do you save or spend it wisely? These were not explicit conversations at home, school, or even my first jobs. Money seemed to exist independently of us, influencing choices of generosity or selfishness, compassion or cruelty. I remember once lying to a teacher of mine in the 1960s—that we had one of the “new” color televisions at home, which my parents brought to my attention after it was mentioned to them in casual conversation at a parent-teacher interview at my school. It seems that in making conversation with my parents, my teacher congratulated them on their new purchase—itself an interesting subject for her to focus on. The fact was we had a fine black-and-white television. I do not consciously remember the forces at work that led me to conjure up this possession, but I do remember the embarrassment I felt when I was caught and my mother’s compassion and kind urging that I need not make things up to “fit in.” Yet the unspoken pressures of class and status in the world around me had begun to seep in.

Power, status, and wealth all contribute to this definition of class and, depending on one’s frame of reference, the felt abundance or scarcity of resources. This is a particularly sensitive area in the Jewish community, where exclusion from the larger culture forced many Jews to make it on their own in some entrepreneurial way. Being predominantly white in a white majority culture allowed for access that people of color were often denied, yet being Jewish closed a whole host of other doors. These issues of class and race were (and are) often so subtle and complex as to defy identification and discussion, yet they are present in all areas of money and communal life.

There were societal images of Jews and money that gave rise to anti-Semitic comments I would hear. This implicit and explicit prejudice spurred my grandparents and parents to find their own way in the world and extend a loan or a job to those in need. Memories abound of my father giving jobs to new immigrants who spoke no English to help them get settled. Later, when I worked for a decade with a small educational theater company in Toronto, most often at the poverty line in wages, I never felt that I was lacking anything, as long as I had meaningful work. I also came to realize that I had issues to overcome in asking for compensation. It was as if I felt I could not live according to God’s ways if I were paid a livable wage. I would break into a sweat when I asked for a reasonable daily fee for consultation services or negotiated a salary increase, yet I never questioned what I was giving to charitable causes. Part of the ongoing work I have needed to do as an adult in this area is to be aware of how money is linked to self-esteem, religion, class, and power dynamics in relationships. Later, through life as a parent and partner, I have come to acknowledge that the higher goal of meaningful work and compensation needs to be balanced with practical demands and needs. The desire to balance this practical demand with core personal values is an ongoing challenge. In many ways I find this mirrored on the communal level as congregations struggle with the relationship between their missions and their budgets.

There is a Jewish tradition, rooted in the Hebrew Bible, to tithe one’s income or produce to benefit others. Even one who was the beneficiary of such righteous giving still needed to tithe what they received. This imperative (mitzvah) encourages us to find a way to help, even when our own resources are limited. No matter what one’s own need at the moment, there is always someone who is in greater need, and the definition of want and need is subject to higher values of justice in the allocation of resources.

Years later I found myself, as both an independent consultant and congregational consultant for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, in the role of a resource, trainer, and program delivery person to organizations and congregations around North America. Money and congregational life became a prime area of consultative need and service delivery wherever I turned. It is a journey that brought me into contact with Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Jeffery Dekro, the Alban Institute, and to this project today.

These are but a small set of snapshots from the album of my influential memories. We all have them. Often we may not even be aware as to how these lessons of family and faith come to guide our sermon from the pulpit, our budgeting comments at the board meeting, our direction of congregational programming, spending, or charitable giving. For some faith communities and organizations, core religious teachings on financial and human resources may be front and center in the system. For others, values may be implicit in the approaches to revenue and expenditure, or they may have become separated from bottom-line financial decision making, lost in the quest for balanced budgets and repairing leaky roofs.

Confusion or tension can also exist between private financial practices and faith-based congregational practices, or between religious values and traditions and the business aspects of running a congregation or organization. Our contemporary world does not ask us to put our financial practices through a religious audit to see how our actions line up with living a godly life. Simply attending synagogue, mosque, church, or meeting place does not, in and of itself, heal this divide. We must also consider what spiritual insights might guide and determine our choices within the sanctuary, and how the prayers and policies of our congregations contribute to us all living lives b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God.

A Theological Note

Our religious heritages provide a wide spectrum of thought about God and how God is present in our lives. The positive or negative experiences and concepts you had about God growing up may be the greatest influence on you today, or you may have undergone profound changes from the beliefs you grew up with. For some of you the Scriptures (including the rabbinic texts if you are Jewish) may be seen as the literal word of God given at Sinai. For others among you these may be textual records of humanity’s quest for God or for a life guided by humanity’s sacred principles that spread across the centuries. Still others of you may uphold certain values and religious practices but struggle with any formal concept or belief in God. You may have already experienced shifts in your theological viewpoint and spiritual practice, depending on your experience, religious upbringing, or stage of life.

Whether you experience and understand God as working through human agency or personally directing the course of individual human events, as a personal being or as a force in the universe, or whether you struggle with the very existence of a divinity, your conception of the principles of your faith tradition are bound to affect and be reflected in your attitudes towards money and in your making and spending of it.

When we gather in congregational settings, we come with our individual beliefs and interact with communal policies, customs, and practices. Likewise, the belief and behavior systems in our faith communities influence who we become and how we think about critical issues such as financial and human resources. We may ask ourselves: What core values inform our decision making? How do God, tradition, halakhah (literally “a way” or Jewish religious law and teachings), and our core values inform our decisions around money in our congregations or organizations?

At times differences between individual values and beliefs and those of our religions can be mutually enhancing, and at other times they may be in tension. We can benefit greatly in our communication and choices about financial matters when we share not only balance sheets but concerns over how money is connected to our theologies, deeply held values, and life experience. Avoiding these discussions—viewing them as “not related to the bottom line” or relegating God-talk or values clarification to moments deemed spiritual—contributes to a financial and spiritual split where we may consider our financial decision making as unrelated to us being the best person or community of faith we can be.

From a Jewish perspective, this is not a new philosophy. The view that money is a tool for doing God’s work, or put another way, embodying godliness in our deeds, is present from the time of Abraham’s interactions with neighboring Canaanite peoples through the birth of the Jewish people in the exodus from Egypt, up to the present day. It is this sense of stewardship of Divine resources, and of values-based decision making in all areas of congregational life, including finances, that informs our conversation in Offerings of the Heart.

A Brief Historical Note

As part of this preface I wanted to briefly touch on some historical stages in the development of the Jewish people and the relationship to financial resources. At the very birth of the Jewish people in the exodus from Egypt, Jews traditionally paid a minimum tax to support the establishment and maintenance of their ritual sacred center (the Tent of Meeting or ohel mo’ed in the desert), their leadership, and later the Temples (Bet HaMikdash) where the priests made their sacrifices. They also provided a share of their tribal allocation to the Levites so that the Levites could focus on the needs of the sacrificial cult. Thus there was an obligatory contribution to support avodah (sacred service).

There were a variety of avenues developed for expressing thanks for the blessings attributed to God-given bounty in the fields and the home. Some of these ways of expressing thanks also provided the disenfranchised or stranger to Israelite society with sustenance. The land itself had to be given a rest every seven years (shemitah) and every fiftieth year was deemed a jubilee or yovel where all debts were forgiven and possessions were returned to their original owners (though scholars disagree as to how or whether this was ever actualized). A portion of each field was left to those in need, and there was the practice of tithing a percentage of one’s produce for one’s own celebration of abundance, for those in need and for the Temple. All these were based on the perspective that the earth and natural resources are God’s, and that sustenance, land, and wealth are Divine gifts we are to steward. The prophetic critique of religious, social, economic, and political inequality and inequities at different times in the Bible may challenge an assumption that these ideals were lived up to with regularity. However, they are clearly presented as an ideal and a mark of economic justice to be measured against everyday actions.

As Rabbinic Judaism developed from 200 bce onwards, the rabbis helped systematize the flow and allocation of resources by promoting and enshrining in law core values of holiness, community building, compassionate action, and service to God. The Jewish spirit of practicality in religious life is expressed in the rabbinic saying, “Where there is no bread, there can be no Torah, Where there is no Torah, There will be no bread” (“Pirket Avot”/Ethics of the Sages, 3:17).

In the middle ages the parnaseem (community leaders) were often asked to raise taxes for the government and they also developed a process to charge a Jewish communal tax for the maintenance of religious institutions, as well as tzedekah (giving for just and compassionate ends) for the widow, orphan, and all those in need. Jewish law and custom kept pace with ongoing interpretations of past biblical and Talmudic halakhah to meet different situations as Jews found themselves in new societies due to the expulsion from one or the invitation to join another. Jews also followed emerging trade routes due in large part to their not being allowed to own land in many places, and limits on their being able to participate in professional trades and guilds.

The rise of the modern nation-state and the option in some countries for Jews to become citizens of those states opened up new opportunities to be engaged in economic life. This brought new possibilities and also awakened long-standing prejudices. Institutions and methods built on biblical and rabbinic foundations continued to develop in these modern nation-states, whereby money could be distributed by guilds or groups to those in need and collected for Jewish communal activities. Some of these groups included kibbutzim in Israel, especially after the founding of the modern state in 1948, international relief organizations to aid Jewish communities in need or to enable Jews to leave places of persecution, and Jewish welfare agencies in Canada and the United States in particular. The establishment of the synagogue, and later Jewish agencies and community centers in North America, also led to new areas of fund-raising and financial distribution.

In North America, a key part of Jewish identification and sense of belonging became connected to membership in synagogues of a variety of developing Jewish movements—Orthodox streams, Reform (late 1800s), Conservative (early 1900s), Reconstructionist (1950s), Jewish Renewal and the Havurah Network (1960s)—and a variety of smaller and developing streams of Jewish life. The synagogue continues to remain central to Jewish communal life, but the involvement by Jews in institutions outside the Jewish community also increased as religious and ethnic barriers began to fall after the Second World War. This has meant that resources once directed internally within the Jewish community are now also directed outside as well. This holds true for all faith-based organizations today, which have to compete with multiple volunteer options and worthwhile causes available to their memberships outside a particular religious denomination, congregation, or ethnic community.

The synagogue of today has considerably more extensive financial needs than before. It has taken on many other functions that the old synagogue was not solely responsible for. It is a beit midrash (a school for adult and child learning), a beit knesset (a house of assembly), a social center (a site for meetings, celebratory dinners and events, and so forth), a social service center (where life-cycle events, pastoral counseling, day care, and so forth take place), a cultural center, a youth center, and so on. The cost of infrastructure, salaries, and programming to meet these diverse needs has become substantial. At the same time, the yearning to belong to a faith community and the choice to learn, grow, and express oneself as a Jew, or in partnership with someone who is Jewish, has found a renaissance in North America.

The Goals of This Book

Ideally and historically, the Jewish people have been committed to looking at financial resources as tools for building sacred community, reflecting the Divine image in the very structures and foundations of communal life. The foundational approach to economic resources from biblical times onwards has been to operate within available resources and to thank God by offering back a portion of what we have been graced with.

In today’s parlance, money is an expression of the values we are actually committed to in our actions as well as the commitments we hold internally to do godly action in the world. Budgets and spending priorities become a reflection of our priorities, which in turn reflect the values articulated by a communal mission statement supported by the entire community.

In his book Judaism as a Civilization, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, expressed the idea that Judaism is more than a religion. It is the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. This includes rituals, liturgies, and religious practices, as well as art, dress, language, ethnicity, and so on. For most of Jewish history, religious belief and behavior tended to define a person’s sense of belonging in their community. Nowadays, it is often an individual’s feeling part of something larger than themselves, in alignment with a personal need or spiritual journey, that tends to determine whether they will attach themselves to a congregation, organization, or belief system. Oftentimes, a flashpoint for the sense of belonging and identity is most pronounced where financial commitment and the process of fund-raising and spending arise in faith-based community.

In congregations, we are also pulled in a variety of directions that, on the surface, can seem in opposition to the very foundations of our endeavor. We are neither for-profit “businesses” in the marketplace, nor classic nonprofit organizations. We have dimensions of both, with the added ingredient of a spiritual and culturally-based mission. I like to think of our faith-based communities as “for-prophet enterprises,” sharing the ultimate goals of manifesting the sacred values, laws, and cultural traditions we have come to hold dear.

This book asks us to examine our prevailing attitudes and behaviors around money and religious life in community and in our own hearts, with a goal of transforming and inspiring our thought and action around money. This book also aims at providing texts, tools, and contemporary approaches to help clergy, staff, and lay leadership of congregations and organizations of any faith in approaching financial resources as core means to building and maintaining whole and holy lives in a communal setting. The sacred mission of religious organizations raises the questions that relate to this goal—how our communities can create conscious values-based approaches to developing and managing financial and human resources, rooted in the very sacred traditions, principles, and impulses that brought us together. Values-based decision making is something that most communities or organizations do in an unself-conscious way. In many cases it is marketplace values that are the driving force. It’s not that people don’t have values or use them. Religious values are often different from marketplace values, so by employing them consciously, we will end up with different decisions.

As congregations and religious organizations struggle with these questions, they must also address concrete, new, and ongoing needs, which include staffing, physical space, prayer books, youth and adult education programs, social justice and human support programs, ritual items, and so much more. The path to dealing with these issues from a spiritual perspective begins with a personal dimension. It is important, for example, to overcome the various stigmas in our society concerning money, while at the same time acknowledging our own discomfort levels.

First, we need to create a trusting environment for such a discussion. Conversations about money in a communal setting can be challenging, because issues of class and money are tied to issues of self-worth, personal values, and individual choices. We may have discomfort or even shame at having too much, too little, or not enough. Envy, competition, and insecurity can all surface when we talk about financial issues. The intensity of discussion, opinion, and emotion can increase when attached to conversations about religion and religious and ethnic identity, especially when there has been little in the way of education and dialogue about money and religious life. Through study, effective listening, and open discussion of our attitudes and expectations, however, we can turn a potentially challenging subject into a profound opportunity for building relationships and community.

There has never been any organized religion that did not need resources of some kind, expecting its members to contribute offerings, dues, or taxes to support its institutions. Along with the personal dimension as described above, we need to develop workable congregational systems where funds are collected and managed in a fair and just manner that both reflects our values and inspires further giving.

While the approach taken is rooted in the experience and insights that have evolved over 3,000 years of the Jewish people’s journey, it can be applied to any congregation or organization. There may be different creative ways of answering the same questions depending on the size and life cycle of a community, the professional and lay leadership involved, and the resources on hand. Looking at money in a faith-based communal setting does mean asking that we view our responses through a certain lens that may effectively deepen and change who we are and how we respond to a given issue. Outcomes and financial plans are a necessity. So is examining the basis for our decisions and the way we arrive at them.

This is not a comprehensive book on how to do budgets and capital campaigns, spend or save money. There are more expert materials on these subject areas available from the Alban Institute, the synagogue and church movements, Jewish federations, denominations of all faiths, and the nonprofit and business worlds; however, this is a foundational book about some Jewish values-based approaches to the multiple streams through which financial concerns run in our congregations. While the focus will be congregational life, the approaches and issues we explore also apply to the use of money in any community of faith and the larger culture we live in. We will explore a variety of approaches to a given subject, using traditional Jewish and contemporary sources. We will look at best practices from congregational life and at ways to educate and inspire our home communities to incorporate these ideas whatever our religious tradition. We will examine the development of these attitudes and halakhot as they pertain to our missions, plans, budgets, fund-raising campaigns, and giving.

One of the Hebrew words most known to the world is shalom. Hebrew is a meaning-laden language, initially constructed around two- or three-letter root words from which all concepts are expressed. The word shalom (peace, hello, good-bye) comes from the word shalem (wholeness or completeness). In a wonderful embodiment of a Jewish approach to the Divine and human intersecting in the world of practical matters, the word for paying for an item to take possession of it became l’shalem. To obtain something is to create an exchange that leaves all parties feeling whole and holy in their comings and goings with each other. Money used as a spiritual tool in this way has the potential to leave everyone resting in a place of peace, of shalom.

The goal in Jewish tradition of approaching money through this spiritual consciousness is not only peaceful transactions, but also the development of an ethical human being reflecting God in fundamental actions where heaven and earth intersect. Moses Maimonides, one of the most prolific and influential medieval Jewish leaders and known also by his acronym “the RaMBaM,” writes:

The commerce of the learned person has to be in truth and in faith. Their yes is to be yes and their no, no; they force themselves to be exact in calculations when they are paying, but are willing to be lenient to their debtors. One is not to buy on credit when one has the wherewithal to pay cash. . . . One should keep one’s word in commerce, even where the laws allow them to withdraw or retract, so that their word is their bond. . . . One should be careful not to deprive one’s neighbor of their livelihood or cause anguish or hardship to others. One who does all these things is the one referred to by the prophet Isaiah, when he said, “You, Israel, are My servant, with whom I am exalted.”

As you dip lightly or deeply into these chapters, may the offerings of your own heart be stirred so that you and your treasured communities can live into all you are and are yet to be. Imagine a world in which our religious institutions and networks of sacred relationships stand as an inspiration and practical example for a global community operating in the image of the Divine. Envision how you and your congregation, organization, or community’s actions could be active participants in this goal. Money, how it is organized and viewed, is an integral part of realizing this dream.

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