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amother
Green
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 Mon, Dec 09 2019, 2:41 am
| Iymnok wrote: | | When there was a cholesterols added it was because it was sponsored |
This wins the "Honesty of the Year" award! 
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singleagain
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 4:58 am
Someone mentioned how money was fungible. While that it one of my favorite words and arguments. That is not always true. The way my dad does it, is that all money given to the Kiddush fund, is for the kiddiush fund. Of course, no one pays dues for that minyan. And it's not budgeted with the rest of the minyanim. And stuff. But my dad keeps records of everything he buys. Besides for the food, which can include tuna, egg salad, whitefish salad, chopped herring, schmaltz herring, spicy herring, 3-5 different crackers, assortment of cakes and cookies. Three kugles (which he gets in bulk) and yes, a cholent (which I'll elaborate on in a moment) there is also, plates, cups, napkins, serving spoons, shot glasses, serving plates. Real knives to cut the cakes. assorted plastics for putting things away. Locks for the fridges bc stuff kept vanishing. Not to mention, water, soda, Seltzer and of course, wine and whiskey.
Now to my dad's cholent... It's actually about to end. Bc there's a guy who makes the cholent (someone donated a crock pot to the Kiddush) so he buys potato, beans, meat which the kiddiush fund pays him back for. Then he goes to the shul and cooks it. That's time which he donates, does not get paid for. And since this guy has moving soon, there will be no cholent unless someone else steps up. It's not gonna be my dad who does enough running around for it. And it would raise the price of the kiddiush an extra 50$ a week to get it catered, instead of the 10 or so dollars that we pay the cholent maker for ingredients.
If the cholent of that important to the Kiddush, someone will step up and make it, otherwise garmanu and zei gezunt.
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 6:40 am
I feel people are being overly harsh on OP. I may be wrong, but I get the feeling she's fairly young. Weren't we all young once? Once you're older and life's expenses hit you in the face, you get more realistic. For sure by the time you're making simchas (I don't mean cheap simchas like a bris etc.) and paying for mesivta tuitions and seminary, you understand the economics more. Whether it looks like a "comfortable" shul or not, most frum people are juggling huge expenses and face a lot of pressure. And if you have money, your responsibilities and pressures just increase. My rich friends who help a lot with the needs of the community, are very cognizant of the need to be responsible with how they allocate their funds. They fund needs, not optional extras, because every $50 they spend on a non-necessary item takes away $50 that they could have given to something that's genuinely necessary.
I doubt the budget in OP's shul is done the way she thinks it is. OP feels the kiddush is a fixed expense so if people sponsor, that's money going straight into the general shul coffers and is basically a nice bonus. I've lived in many different communities and davened in lots of different shuls with different flavors of Yiddishkeit and haven't seen a shul that does it that way. Which of course isn't to say it's not possible! But generally sponsorship is actively sought out, to cover the cost of the kiddush, and if there's a week where the sponsorships bring in more than the cost of that week's kiddush, the money goes to cover other weeks where they fell short. It gets expensive to feed a crowd.
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amother
Bronze
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 7:10 am
| amother [ OP ] wrote: | | Money is fungible. For our shul, the cost of kiddish is a fixed weekly expenditure. They're spending X dollars on kiddish every single week, just like they're spending Y dollars on paying babysitters for shabbat every single week or paying Z dollars for security every single week. All those costs come out of the general shul funds. And anything anyone sponsors is just money that goes into the general shul funds. |
Is the cholent at your shul catered or does someone make it? To make a hot kiddush in our shul is very expensive, we only have kiddushim when someone has a simcha like an aufruf or a bar mitzvah etc.
Our shul has a board and we have membership meetings. Not once did the membership bring hot kiddush every week up for a vote. We have other things that we want our membership dues to go to. You must have a very wealthy shul.
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Simple1
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 7:22 am
Op, I'm sorry, a lot of the replies were harsh and mean.
But no, It's not tacky for a shul to only put cholent if sponsored. Just different than what you're used to.
But I think it's ok for you to use this as a criteria and decide that this community might not be right for you based on the kiddush. Or you might decide that the pros outweigh the cons. Whatever works for you.
I personally don't know anything about our shuls' kiddush policies because I don't go to shul (same for many women around here.)
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HonesttoGod
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 8:36 am
| amother [ OP ] wrote: | | You mean... "a kiddish should be X because I said it should be X" |
I mean a kiddish should be lchaim and cake because lchaim is to make kiddish - the bracha - and cake for the mezonos after (or candies if your rabbi says you need to make shehakol after kiddish WHatevr you hold).
Literally - the idea of a kiddish is for people to bring bracha so they make kiddish they make mezonos they bench you mazel tov and move on.
Everything else is an extra. And to demand a full meal as an extra because you believe it should be affordable is a little naive.
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amother
Honeydew
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 8:42 am
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I don’t understand the full kiddish weekly. Do the ladies with small kids always shlep out in the rain and cold to go to this or do the husbands come home full and the wife eats basically alone.
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salamanca
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 9:34 am
| amother [ OP ] wrote: | | A lot of people at our shul make the kiddush basically their lunch. A nice kiddush allows people to stay and socialize; food brings people together. |
So these individuals bring lechem mishna with them? They sit down to this "meal"?
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salamanca
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 9:41 am
| amother [ OP ] wrote: | Sadly, there are some really bitter/nasty comments in this thread. Some of the things being said are totally absurd, most notably:
- If you enjoy a good kiddish, you're an disgusting fatso who is stuffing your face at the kiddish and then going home and again stuffing your face with another huge meal
- If you enjoy a good kiddish, you must be a bad Jew who doesn't take yiddishkeit and davening and shul seriously
I bet a lot of the nasty comments are coming from insecure women who can't imagine anything is better than what they have, and want to put other people/shuls down. They'd rather trash other shuls with substantial kiddishes, rather than realize that there could be something beautiful about a shul with an extensive kiddish.
There are many benefits to an extensive kiddish in shul, and it's not just about stuffing your face. For example:
- You can socialize and meet new/different people who aren't necessarily in your circles much more easily if people stick around for a while rather than grabbing some grape juice and dashing out. And then you know new people to invite to proper Shabbos meals at your house.
- Relatedly, it creates a community atmosphere, avoids cliques, gets everyone involved, etc. People who don't have a natural place to go (e.g., singles) don't have to worry about hoping/begging for a lunch invite.
- It's a good opportunity to get to know the out-of-town families of the people in our community. If someone's parents or cousin visits once every few months, they get to know us and we get to know them. People know each others' out of town family because of the extended socialization.
- You can avoid having to cook a big Saturday afternoon meal or spend several hours hosting a big meal or at someone else's house. You can eat a lot at kiddish, come home and take a nap and relax, maybe have some leftovers from Friday night, etc. It makes everyone's life easier not to have to worry about Saturday.
- And yes, it does encourage some people who wouldn't otherwise show up to come to shul. We have some JFKs (just for kiddush) or people who come near the end. But who cares? Just because someone isn't in shul the whole time doesn't make them a bad person and doesn't mean they can't be a valuable member of the community. Everyone connects to Judaism differently. Maybe they don't connect to davening as much as other people do. Or maybe they daven at home for whatever reason. Who are you to judge that they're a bad bad Jew? And even if someone who isn't the model davener... they can be a good financial supporter of the shul, can volunteer their time to the shul, can have good midot and be a nice person people like having in the community, can do mitzvot in other ways, etc. |
Why is it that when people cannot defend themselves with facts they pull out the "race" card? Well you are doing the same thing, except using the "insecure" card. I cannot imagine anyone posting on this thread is insecure.
Also, the point of a kiddush is not to avoid having to cook a Shabbos lunch. If you don't want to cook lunch, buy it.
And as far as the JFK's go: kids notice everything. It does not set a good example for them when they notice hordes of people at the kiddush that they did not see in shul.
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amother
Linen
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 9:45 am
At my shul (OOT) there is a basic kiddush weekly. There are two ways to sponsor a kiddush. One is to sponsor the basic kiddush, which just helps offset costs, and is not expensive. The second is to have a more lavish one, in which case, you pay for whichever food you choose. The food and the cost is all up to you--you can do cold bagels and salads, you could have hot cholent and kugel, etc, and you pay for it directly.
I don't think this is tacky at all. Without being harsh--I have no expectation of the shul to serve a full meal for kiddush and don't think this is a fair expectation. Saying they should either have it or not and sponsorship shouldn't be connected either way isn't very tenable. Either the shul needs to reallocate money for food every week or people can't make a simcha for the shul. In smaller communities, providing a big kiddush every week can get expensive as there are fewer people to shoulder the cost.
If there is a full luncheon kiddush there is bread so everyone can wash and eat.
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 9:58 am
| salamanca wrote: | Why is it that when people cannot defend themselves with facts they pull out the "race" card? Well you are doing the same thing, except using the "insecure" card. I cannot imagine anyone posting on this thread is insecure.
Also, the point of a kiddush is not to avoid having to cook a Shabbos lunch. If you don't want to cook lunch, buy it.
And as far as the JFK's go: kids notice everything. It does not set a good example for them when they notice hordes of people at the kiddush that they did not see in shul. |
All rules of civil discourse disappear when the OP includes accusations of "patronizing and infantilizing."
The people who figure out what to make/order for kiddush are people who go to the kiddush.
There isn't a some high in the sky person calling the shots from a distance.
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amother
Brunette
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 10:10 am
FWIW, while money is fungible - e.g. all US dollar bills or whatever currency is of equivalent value, EXPENSES are not fungible since any budget contains very specific "line items" and a balanced budget means that the total of line items adds up to the amount of income received.
A shul or any other organization can certainly determine how it wants to allocate its funds but absent unlimited funds paying for one expenses means allocating funds for that item and determine to delete other items from the budget.
In the scheme of things an individual organization would decide whether $2600 (cost of 52 catered cholents) is an item they wish to include in their budgets or whether that amount should be spent for something else.
However I think part of the issue is the use of the term "tacky" which has an implication of being flashy and lacking class and I don't think it is fair to designate the lack of an cholent as being "tacky" as such term is generally defined.
If as you have written the inclusion of cholent creates an atmosphere in a shul that you want to have in your new location then seek further. As posted most posters don't find this to be something they seek in their shul for the most part and actually find it a perk that could be a negative for many households. It is entirely possible for you to organize a specific cholent fund wherever you decide to affiliate with and persuade others of the benefits of creating an atmosphere where people linger to eat heartily 
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Ruchel
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 10:14 am
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"And as far as the JFK's go: kids notice everything. It does not set a good example for them when they notice hordes of people at the kiddush that they did not see in shul." well, glad then that I don't go to shul because I'd come like half an hour at most, before. See the problem in your reasoning? You're saying, better not see Jews on shabbes
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 10:17 am
In my community there's a kiddush with kugel and cholent every week. I personally don't think it's necessary and my dh often doesn't stay because he's not interested in having to deal with the behavior of some of the people there.
Op you obviously feel that going to a shul with a nice kiddush is important to you, other people disagree. Some communities have more singles then other communities. Different communities are catering to different clientelles. I think you also said that you have youth groups. that also costs money. Not all shuls have women all the time so it's different.
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 10:58 am
| amother [ Honeydew ] wrote: | | I don’t understand the full kiddish weekly. Do the ladies with small kids always shlep out in the rain and cold to go to this or do the husbands come home full and the wife eats basically alone. |
Some people are truly in their own bubble...
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:07 am
| amother [ Honeydew ] wrote: | | I don’t understand the full kiddish weekly. Do the ladies with small kids always shlep out in the rain and cold to go to this or do the husbands come home full and the wife eats basically alone. |
The ladies are not invited to any of the meals served on Shabbos at the shul.
The ladies in my house don't care to eat like the men in my house. I serve salads and fish Shabbos day unless having guests. It works. We all have a small meal together.
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watergirl
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:13 am
| amother [ OP ] wrote: | | Some people are truly in their own bubble... |
Yes. This website is international and spans every type of frum women. We all have our bubble, yourself included. Many people have asked you questions to attempt to understand your specific community and preferences so we could give you the best kind of reply but we’re not getting much back from you… Maybe you can enlighten us as to the type of community that you currently live in and it’s a place that you are looking to move to?
Last edited by watergirl on Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ruchel
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:13 am
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I'd starve waiting, or with salads and fish (both of my least favs, and not filling).
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icedcoffee
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:14 am
| Quote: | | So these individuals bring lechem mishna with them? They sit down to this "meal"? |
FWIW, at my shuls at least, there are dozens of challah rolls there and we sit down.
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amother
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Mon, Dec 09 2019, 11:15 am
| watergirl wrote: | | Yes. This website is international and spans every type of frum women. We all have our bubble, yourself included. Many people have asked you questions and attempted to understand your specific community and preferences so we could give you the best kind of reply but we’re not getting much back from you… Maybe you can enlighten us as to the type of community that you currently live in and it’s a place that you are looking to move to? |
watergirl you are much nicer then me... I thought that was such a rude comment...
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