I recently had the pleasure of spending a weekend in the Boca Raton Synagogue which advertises itself under the slogan “Valuing Diversity Celebrating Unity.” For once the slogan is accurate. The large shul complex has space for at least seven different types of Shabbos minyanim by my count.
There is one chaburah in the shul that brings a rosh kollel down from New York for a series of “lomdishe” shiurim every other week, and another for many teenage girls whose Shabbos attire would not win accolades in your local Bais Yaakov.
With respect to the latter, an old friend from Jerusalem now living in Boca Raton commented to me, “Just focus on the fact that many of their families were not regular shul-goers, much less mitzvah-observant, five years ago.” In other words, what counts is the direction they are moving in.
A conversation in the shul parking lot on Sunday afternoon caused me to rethink what I wrote in these pages last January in response to Rabbi Ilan Feldman’s much-discussed article in the latest issue of Klal Perspectives. Rabbi Feldman wondered whether our communities have become less welcoming to newcomers even as they have become more rigorously observant.
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