A few months into my tenure as co-chair of Darkhei Noam, a lay-led partnership minyan that meets on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I asked my husband whether I was projecting loudly enough when I made announcements so that those sitting farther in the back could hear me. He responded that he had never actually heard me make announcements because as soon as I made it to the front of the shul, our two-year-old would start crying for Mommy and he would need to leave. Thankfully, as I progressed through the two-year term, both of my daughters became happy to stand next to me (or hide behind me) while I spoke.
From its founding, Darkhei Noam’s bylaws provided that the co-chairs of the minyan would be a man and woman, ensuring gender balance among its leadership. Therefore, unlike the situation in most Orthodox synagogues, my serving in a leadership role was expected, rather than an innovation. However, as our shul developed over ten years from a monthly minyan with few children to a shul full of families that met every week, having cochairs who were also parents of young children shifted from the exception to the norm. I had been in charge of youth programming and quite involved in the chesed committee prior to taking on the role of co-chair. While my youth-programming role often meant I was running up and down the stairs to check on the youth activities (and finding youth coverage on Friday morning due to last-minute cancellations), I had never before taken on such a public role in shul.
In a completely volunteer/lay-led shul, the role of cochair is a fairly intense and hands-on responsibility, and it was a challenge to balance those responsibilities with my busy professional life as an attorney and with the needs of my two young daughters. My role as co-chair involved much work during the week, but this work could be done on my own schedule (typically when the girls were asleep). While the occasional weekday emergency—such as a shiva minyan that needed to be organized at the last minute—would mean I’d need to scramble a bit, in general, as a group of volunteers and lay leaders, we were all respectful of one another’s time.
Challenges of Shabbat Tefillah
However, Shabbat tefillah did pose a challenge, as the established role of the co-chairs was to be the first to arrive to help set up and ensure that the minyan started smoothly and to be the last to leave, ensuring that the shul’s items were put away. There were certainly weeks when I wished that I could leave for shul on time and have my husband and children follow, but typically our kids were insistent that they come with me, and my husband (understandably) was not interested in coming to shul in the middle of leyning for two years. His on-time arrival was also helpful, in that it ensured that we had a minyan on time, and there were a handful of weeks when I’d send him ahead of me and our girls if I thought that getting a minyan that week would be tricky.
Needless to say, we continued to host many Shabbat meals during my time as co-chair, which was wonderful, but also made getting to shul on time harder. I will admit that were our roles reversed (i.e., if he were serving as co-chair while we had two young daughters), it’s quite likely that the girls would have happily gone to shul later with me and, similarly, mostly stayed with me once we arrived at shul.
During my tenure as co-chair, I was also blessed with co-chairs who were incredibly understanding and willing to pick up the slack if my kids needed attention or made my getting to shul on time difficult. Part of their flexibility—and the willingness of the entire board to pitch in as needed—certainly arose from our culture, which was more and more family-friendly, but was also a result of the entire leadership structure being lay-led.
Typically, the co-chairs of the shul would also greet congregants as they entered and be available for the inevitable issues that needed attention in “real-time” during davening. Although Darkhei Noam has always had childcare and youth programming for all of tefillah, there were never any guarantees that our girls would be willing to attend groups, nor any assurance that they would sit quietly in shul. None of this is surprising to any parent, but it did make Shabbat mornings more stressful. As a parent, I could have certainly had my husband deal with all child-related issues during shul while I was “on duty,” but as a busy professional, I felt that shul was an important time for me to spend with my kids, and I didn’t want them to feel they couldn’t come to me or that they couldn’t daven together with me.
After My Term Was Over
Once I completed my term as co-chair, I expected that the girls would happily ask to come to shul on the later end and enjoy relaxing with me at home. But instead they continue to insist that we come on time (and continue to resist going to groups). Having grown up spending many hours each Shabbat morning in shul, my older daughter enjoys putting away siddurim and humashim with her friends, as well as leading Adon Olam. My younger daughter spends her time at home practicing taking out the Torah, as she clearly aspires to do the same.
Shabbat mornings are certainly more relaxing now that I don’t have formal responsibilities at Darkhei Noam, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have served our shul during a time of growth. I hope I have inspired my daughters to be willing and eager to take on public leadership roles as they grow up, while also communicating to them that these leadership roles sometimes need to be adapted to their personal circumstances.