When a congregant is sitting in synagogue and listening to the announcements, there is one particular sentence that brings with it supreme dread and utter disappointment: “This week’s kiddush is sponsored by the shul.” Few announcements are worse than that. It is worse than hearing that (i) your child’s head is stuck in the playground monkey bars… again, (ii) the shul dinner in your honor has raised the least money in the history of shul dinners or (iii) the rabbi has extended Yom Kippur to a second day.
When the average congregant hears someone declare that the kiddush “is sponsored by the shul,” the congregant usually envisions a few platters of fairly mediocre cookies, unexciting crackers and a few bottles of uninspiring generic beverages. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. Mind you, the disappointment is not gender or even age specific. When a shul-sponsored kiddush is announced, some women have been known to faint, some children have been known to throw a temper-tantrum and some elderly have been known to scream “This is a Shanda! At my age, every kiddush counts!” For these reasons, most congregants simply forgo a shul-sponsored kiddush and instead head straight home to dine in delicious decadence.
Only the uninitiated or uninformed make the mistake of milling about in a mostly empty room of mostly empty dreams, fooling themselves that somehow a vat of meatballs and a tray of kugel will miraculously appear. Such misdirected congregants may briefly glimpse a meaty mirage of brisket, wings and cold-cuts, but they quickly discover that their eyes have deceived them. Of course, there are a few exceptions to this rule. If you are a member of any of the following congregations, they even a shul-sponsored kiddush at your house of worship is likely something to behold: (i) Congregation Ahavath Cholent, (ii) Congregation Beth Schnitzel, (iii) Young Israel of Roast Beef, (iv) Hebrew Institute of Herring, (v) Bnai Wings or (vi) The Jewish Salami Center. (Yes, the rabbis leading these fine institutions might include Rabbi Eathan Forkgang, Rabbi Messi Napkinowitz and Rav Doubledipsky.)
Other synagogues usually devote their resources more toward the spiritual and intellectual and less toward the edible and perishable. That makes sense because a shul is not a restaurant and the Shabbat morning experience is not supposed to be a food-fest. Rabbis receive seminary, not culinary, training, and they deliver sermons, not luncheons. Shabbat morning davening features Shacharit, not Shachaeat, and the Torah reading features the Haf-Torah, not the Haf-pound of Pastrami.
That said, when a single congregant or a group sponsors a shul kiddush, everything about the Shabbat experience seems that much sweeter and the future that much brighter. Folks tend to show up earlier than normal for davening and they shuckle and sway with heightened fervor and focus. Most in attendance actually listen to the rabbi’s speech with more than passing interest and they also tend to belt out the ending of davening with gusto and pizzazz. Granted, many congregants intentionally daven with gleeful swiftness, knowing full well that a delectable payoff is close at hand. The Chazzan (even if paid by the hour or by the musical note) and the rabbi (even if paid by the word or by the laying of guilt), will mercifully pick up the pace so as not to encroach on the time for kiddush consumption. And, let’s face it, the members of the clergy have to eat too.
If the shul kiddush is part of a bar or bat mitzvah celebration, that often means you need not worry about preparing an elaborate lunch at home. A kiddush to celebrate an Auf Ruf is similar. Some events, however, do not lend themselves to a kiddush of any nature. If someone passes away, a kiddush will not be thrown, no matter how much the deceased was disliked by the community. A divorce also will not be celebrated with a kiddush, at least not publicly. A kiddush also will not be thrown for mundane, everyday achievements. If you take out the trash, clean your room or decide not to annoy a family member, do not expect a kiddush. If you speak less lashon hara, steal less money or hurt fewer feelings, you will not be rewarded with a kiddush.
Final Thought: If you (i) invent cough medicine that tastes exactly like chicken soup, (ii) figure out how holding one day of Yontif in the Galut is 118% halachically permissible and advisable or (iii) create a tallis that never falls off the shoulders, then expect someone to sponsor a kiddush of epic proportions in your honor.
By Jon Kranz
