15

The Role of the Rabbi

in the Fiscal Health of
His Congregation
Haskel Lookstein

INTRODUCTION
My assignment is to discuss the role of the rabbi, educator, and Jewish
communal professional in the fiscal health of their institutions,
particularly fundraising. I imagine I was given this assignment, in
part, because, since my father, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein, of blessed
memory, passed away in 1979, I have raised most of the funds for the
annual synagogue appeal of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (hereafter
KJ), which amounted to approximately $1.45 million last year, and
most of the building funds for the Upper School of Ramaz ($10.5
million) and the Ramaz Middle School ($35 million). I am currently at
the $36.5 million level toward a major construction project to enhance
the future well being of both KJ and Ramaz.



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The figures presented above notwithstanding, I confess that I

hate fundraising. I tremble every spring as we prepare to launch the
Annual Synagogue Appeal, and I am uncomfortably nervous as I
prepare to meet a prospective donor for our building fund. My personal
apprehensions aside, however, I always remember my father’s repeated
warning and urging: “Hack,” he used to say, “remember, you should
never put money before everything, but you must always put money
behind everything.” I have tried to heed that advice and warning.
I shall organize this presentation as follows:

1. The theoretical basis for the rabbi serving as a leader in charitable
fundraising and disbursements.
2. Different models of rabbinic functioning and their relation to
fundraising.
3. My father’s model: Why and how it works.
4. A practical plan for an annual synagogue appeal.
5. Conclusion

THE THEORETICAL BASIS

The role of any Jew is to be involved in, and committed to, tzedaka
(righteousness) and mishpat (justice). While tzedaka is translated
literally as righteousness, the Torah she’b’al peh (oral law, i.e., the
Talmud) understood it as charity, or acts of kindness.
The source for this role is found in Genesis, when God speaks
glowingly about the first Jew, “For I love him [Abraham] because he
will command his children and his household after him that they
should safeguard the way of the Lord by performing acts of tzedaka
and mishpat.”1 The Talmud comments on the word tzedaka as follows:
“The three signal attributes which characterize the Jewish people are:
merciful, modest, and the performance of acts of kindness, as it is
written, ‘For I love him because he will command his children and
his household after him that they should safeguard the way of the
Lord by performing acts of tzedaka [meaning kindness or charity] and
mishpat.’ ”2
A further Talmudic clarification of the term tzedaka as acts of
kindness can be found in the following passage: “A certain meturgeman

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[teacher] began his lesson as follows: Our brothers are gom’lai

chasadim [dispensers of kindness] descended from gom’lai chasadim
who uphold the covenant of our forefather Abraham, as it is said: ‘For
I love him . . . to perform acts of tzedaka and mishpat.’ ” 3
If every Jew must be involved in, and committed to, tzedaka,
the rabbi must be a paradigm of kindness and charity. He must be an
exemplar of generosity to those in need (a ba’al tzedaka), and he must
energize his community to be ba’alei tzedaka. My revered teacher Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik of blessed memory, gave dramatic emphasis in
his Halakhic Man to this rabbinic role in the following vignette: “My
uncle Rabbi Meir Berlin told me that once Rabbi Hayyim of Brisk [the
Rav’s grandfather] was asked what the function of a rabbi is. Rabbi
Hayyim replied: ‘To redress the grievances of those who are abandoned
and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, and to save the oppressed
from the hands of his oppressor.’ ” 4
Rabbi Hayyim was known far and wide for his brilliance and
for blazing new trails in understanding the entire corpus of the Oral
Law. Nevertheless, he saw his primary role as a ba’al tzedaka and
chesed (kindness), which he modeled personally and toward which
he galvanized his community. He fulfilled, literally, the dictum of the
Mishna: “And may the poor be members of your household,”5 so much
so that it is told that when his grandson (the Rav) was a little child, he
tried to avoid visiting Rabbi Hayyim’s house because of the presence
there of the lame, the sick, and the disfigured.6
There is a well-known story which illustrates how Rabbi Hayyim
galvanized his community to practice tzedaka. A few days before Yom
Kippur, Rabbi Hayyim was informed that a young Jewish Bundist
had been taken into custody by the czarist police and sentenced to
death. He was told, however, that the authorities could be bribed and
that five thousand rubbles would ensure his freedom. The leaders of
the community were opposed to raising funds for this atheistic Jew.
Rabbi Hayyim, on Yom Kippur eve, after mincha, assembled the
congregation and told them that the leaders of the community had
to produce the ransom and bring it to him. If not, he would not allow
Kol Nidre prayers to begin and the shul would be closed for all of Yom
Kippur. Reluctantly, the leaders produced the funds. and together

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with Rabbi Hayyim, they brought the ransom to the mayor of the city
and the Bundist was freed. That year, neither Rabbi Hayyim nor the
community leaders ate the prefast meal. The arrangements were not
completed until a half-hour before sunset.7
A final demonstration of how strongly Rabbi Hayyim felt about
the primary role of a rabbi can be found in his insistence that, upon
his death, no flowery descriptions of him were to be inscribed on
his tombstone, as was the fashion in Europe. He asked that only the
following words be used: “Ha-Rav Hayyim ben Ha-Rav Yosef Dov Ha-
Levi, ish chesed [a man of kindness].”8
Those who were close to the Rav testify to his personal generosity.
My father, who was my model as a ba’al tzedaka, was exceptionally
generous himself, and he galvanized KJ to be the leading synagogue in
New York City for UJA and Israel Bonds. My great-grandfather, Rabbi
Moses Zevulun Margolies, the RAMAZ, was a founder of the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, an organization on whose board
my father served for close to forty years with great leadership and
distinction.
I have tried to follow this pattern of personal generosity and
leadership in my own rabbinate. I learned how to give through my
service on the National Rabbinic Cabinet of UJA. I recall in 1984
attending an emergency meeting in Washington, D.C., to help fund
Operation Moses, the dramatic airlift of thousands of Ethiopian Jews
to Israel. The then chairman of the cabinet, a Reform rabbi, Haskell
Bernat, announced that it would cost $6,000 to bring a Jew from
Ethiopia and settle him or her in Israel. I recall thinking to myself:
Why should someone else pay for these Jews; shouldn’t my wife and I
have the privilege of redeeming at least one Jew? I immediately raised
my hand and made the pledge. The next Shabbat we held an appeal in
KJ and I announced our pledge first. The results were electrifying and
inspiring. People began pledging $6,000 and multiples of $6,000—one
Jew, three Jews, ten Jews. We raised a huge sum for this extraordinary
operation. I learned right there two important lessons: First, to respond
to my communal obligations—the Jewish tax is what we call it, and
second, to lead, to announce Audrey’s and my pledge first and then

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to say to the congregation—as an IDF officer says to his platoon—

“acharai” (follow me)!
All of this is in fulfillment of the model set for us by the first
Jew, as God described him, “For he will command his children and his
household after him . . . to perform acts of tzedaka and mishpat.”9

MODELS OF RABBINIC FUNCTIONING AND

THEIR RELATION TO FUNDRAISING
On the theoretical level, as we have outlined it above, it is hard to
conceive of a rabbi who does not model tzedaka personally and devote
himself to raising funds for tzedaka professionally.
This means, first and foremost, taking the initiative to raise funds
for the tzedaka needs in his community. Examples abound. It could be
to help an individual who experiences sudden financial losses and who
needs help for the short term or for an extended time period. There
are families in crisis who require financial help. There are emergency
needs in Israel, such as assistance for citizens in Sderot, financial aid
for the Gush Katif evacuees, or Israeli merchants on Ben Yehuda Street
who, in 2002, were in danger of losing their tourist businesses because
of the absence of tourists in the face of frequent suicide bombings.10
These are but a few examples of causes to which a religious community
should respond. Who else but the rabbi should lead the fundraising
efforts for such causes? How can he let his community stand idly by
while other Jews—local or far away—are suffering?
Fundraising for one’s own synagogue or school is an entirely
different matter. Of course donating to a shul or a yeshiva is tzedaka,
but it is not tzedaka in the personal sense. It is institution building and
sustaining. To what extent ought a rabbi to be involved in raising funds
for the institutions he serves, and should he also be a decision-maker
on how those institutions spend their money? In other words, should
the rabbi be a “partner” in his shul or school?
In many, perhaps most, congregations, the rabbi is divorced
from fiscal matters. He is not expected to be the fundraiser and he has
little—or no—say in how the funds are spent. A good argument could
be made that the latter is a logical consequence of the former. Indeed,

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if the rabbi does not raise the funds, why should he decide how they
are spent? He is not invested in the fiscal life of the congregation.
This issue—the rabbi’s involvement in the fiscal aspects of
congregational life—is largely dependent on how the rabbi views his
role in the community: how he sees himself and how he sets his goals. In
this connection, it is helpful to listen in to a recent online conversation
recorded by the Rabbinical Council of America in December 2007.
The conversation was stimulated by a London Jewish Chronicle article
on rabbis who have chosen to leave the pulpit rabbinate in England.
As part of the conversation, Rabbi Michael Broyde, founding rabbi of
the Young Israel of Toco Hills in Atlanta, Georgia, categorized three
different models of the rabbinate and, correspondingly, three different
types of shuls:

Many rabbis are embodiments of chesed and relationships.

They build communities and Torah true Jews one Jew at a
time by being present for their congregants. While many
of them are Torah scholars, this is not their mission or
their forte. When they think about their legacy, it is a shul,
a community, and a collection of loving religious Jews—
rather than a set of sefarim or a set of grand ideas.
Many other rabbis are embodiments of Torah
learning and scholarship, and they see their shul as a vehicle
for Torah learning and scholarship, for both themselves
and their community. Community grows intellectually as
the rabbi grows intellectually, and the community takes
pride in the fact that their rabbi is a well known Torah
scholar. The rabbi’s legacy is one of scholarship, rather
than people.
Yet other rabbis build communities around doing
things that are religiously positive besides Torah learning.
Some of these rabbis build shuls around Israel activism,
and some around social activism and some around charity
and good deeds. Here, too, the shul becomes a vehicle for
much good that the community and its rabbi takes pride

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in. But the rabbi does not invest in the chesed of individual
members.11

Rabbi Broyde (let us remember that this was an Internet

conversation and not a precisely articulated analysis) has identified
here three rabbinic models:

1. The pastoral rabbi who builds a community through personal

commitment to the members.
2. The scholarly rabbi who produces scholarship himself and
strives to build a scholarly community.
3. The activist rabbi who builds a community through social
activism (e.g., Soviet Jewry, philanthropic causes, creating a
school).

These models need not be mutually exclusive. There might be

elements of all three in one rabbi, but it would seem that Rabbi Broyde
is talking here about emphasis and concentration of efforts.
I would suggest a fourth model that would not exclude the other
three but would inform and affect the nature of any or all of the other
three. It is the model I learned from my father of blessed memory. In
this model, the rabbi sees himself as the head of a congregation. He is
intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the shul. He does
not see himself as one of a number of employees but rather as the
shul’s CEO and, in a certain sense, its CFO, who raises the voluntary
funds—or supervises the fundraising—and who is intimately involved
in supervising how the funds are spent. The lay board has oversight but
it understands—and appreciates—that the rabbi is running the shul.
He not only sits at every board meeting; he plans the agenda. He is the
key member of the nominating committee who makes sure that the lay
leaders are people who put the shul first, have no personal agendas, can
work with and respect others, and will help him to serve effectively in
running the operation today and planning for the future.
This was my father’s model in the rabbinate. It included items
one and three above and, in the case of Ramaz, item two as well, but

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there was no question who was in charge. There was nothing that went
on in KJ that he did not either do himself or supervise others doing.
No task was too menial for him, including inspecting the women’s
lavatories above the ladies’ balcony before Rosh Hashana and Yom
Kippur. And woe to the superintendent who did not have them spic
and span for that inspection. He was involved in everything: High Holy
Days honors, budget, nominations, board meetings, and, of course,
fundraising. I believe this was the model of the late Rabbi Herbert S.
Goldstein, who created the Institutional Synagogue in Harlem in the
1920s and moved it to West 76th Street when Harlem began losing
its Jewish population. He was the CEO and CFO of that institution. I
believe this was also, in part, the model of the Rav at Maimonides. I do
not imagine that he ran the school day-to-day, but he founded it, set its
philosophy, picked the educational leaders, and no doubt supervised
the curriculum. And he raised funds for the school. It would never
have gotten off the ground without his efforts, and it probably would
not have survived without his continued active involvement. Everyone
knew that Maimonides was his school. In the Rav’s vision of his
role, this model number four was, of course, integrally connected to
his main model, which was, as he put it, being a melamed (teacher),
scholar, and enhancing the Jewish intellectual growth of his students,
the entire community and, of course, the Maimonides family.

MY FATHER’S MODEL: HOW AND WHY IT WORKS

I shall now describe my father’s model as I absorbed it, and try to
show how and why it is a workable model for a modern rabbi and
congregation.
The model rests on how a rabbi views himself and his future
in relation to his congregation and, equally important, how the
congregation views him.
There is a traditional Jewish expression known as kisseh ha-
rabbanut, literally the rabbinic chair or, somewhat more pretentiously,
the rabbinic throne. Biographers would write about European rabbis
and say that they “sat on the rabbinic seat” in Warsaw or Lemberg
or some other city. My father used to tell his students in his famous
practical rabbinics course at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan

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Theological Seminary (which he taught for over forty years) that a

rabbi should not “sit on the kisseh ha-rabbanut”; one doesn’t sit in the
rabbinate; one serves in the rabbinate. He described the ideal rabbi as
an eved l’avdai Ha-shem (a servant to the servants of the Lord). He
frequently cited the rabbinic aphorism “k’m’dumin atem shes’rara ani
notain lachem; avdut ani notain lachem (You think I am bestowing
authority upon you? I am bestowing servitude upon you).”12
He used to emphasize this relationship of rabbi to congregation
as “servitude,” not in the sense of the congregation as boss or master,
but in the sense of the rabbi’s effort and devotion. In this connection
he would frequently cite the judgment of Reish Lakish in the Talmud,13
“How do we know that the words of the Torah can survive only through
one who kills himself for them? It is written: ‘This is the Torah, when a
man dies in the tent.’ ”14 Reish Lakish was deriving a midrashic principle
from a verse dealing with the ritual consequences of a death inside a
house, by stressing the herculean effort required for productive study
of the Torah. My father applied this to the extraordinary commitment
required of a rabbi to lead a congregation and to develop a thriving
shul—a “tent of Torah.”
Contrast this view with the complaint of a former assistant
rabbi in St. Johns Wood Synagogue: “The biggest personal challenge
was that I didn’t get enough time to spend with my family. Being
community-centered becomes a priority 24/7. . . . A problem I found
was that I wasn’t expected to treat it just as a job but as a total lifestyle
commitment . . . this can be hard.”15
True: it is hard, and it is a common complaint in the rabbinic
community. But that hard challenge is precisely what avdut (servitude)
is. This is what “killing oneself for Torah” is all about. It requires nothing
less than “a total lifestyle commitment” to a community. And when
one has such commitment, such a sense of avdut, a good community
will respond accordingly. My father and I have been blessed with just
that kind of community.
A congregation must feel that relationship. They must know that
they can and should call upon their rabbi for every need. They must
sense that nafsho keshura b’nafsho (his soul is bound up in theirs),16
and that he is there for them not just for now, but for the extended

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future. His future is bound up in theirs, in the future of the shul. It

is like a marriage, essentially a lifetime commitment, totally without
reservations.
My father was deeply involved in many institutions and
organizations. He founded and headed Ramaz; he was president and
then chancellor of Bar-Ilan University; he was president of several
important organizations; but KJ knew that his home and family were
on East 85th Street. There never was any question about his primary
loyalty. The result was his ability to lead the congregation in every way.
There was something similar in the Rav’s loyalty to the Boston
community and Maimonides. For almost forty years he taught several
shiurim a week at Yeshiva University, along with philosophy lectures
and, for a time, a weekly shiur at the Moriah Congregation on New
York’s Upper West Side. His greatest scholarly productivity was in New
York, but his home was in Boston and in Maimonides. He never left
and, therefore, Boston and Maimonides were loyal to him.
“I was about to go into a board meeting,” a rabbi recalled, “when
a senior board member turned to me and said: ‘You might be the
rabbi, but remember I’m paying your wages. Make sure you agree with
everything I say.’ ”17
Such arrogance, disgraceful as it may be, is not uncommon in
synagogue life. But it could never be expressed in a congregation where
the rabbi has demonstrated his total commitment to the community.
And if it did surface, the board member’s tenure would be quickly
ended by the more rational and menschlich lay leaders who understand
what a “marriage” is.
My longtime friend and colleague Noam Shudofsky of
blessed memory, whose relationship to Ramaz was also one of total
commitment, used to kibbitz me by saying that KJ members responded
to my annual appeal and to building fund solicitations because “you
marry them, you officiate at their children’s brit milahs and simchat
bats, you marry off their children and you bury their relatives; so
they respond accordingly.” It was a pithy way of saying it, but the
fundamental observation was that I am committed totally to the needs
of the members of the congregation; I am part of their family; and they
are part of mine. Therefore, they take my appeals to heart.

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Once a rabbi perceives himself as an eved l’avdai Ha-shem

(a servant to the servants of the Lord) and is perceived that way by
the congregation, he can and should accept the responsibility of
fundraising and fiscal management. Just as in one’s marriage one is
obligated to provide the necessary funds and manage or partner in
their disbursement, so in a congregation or school it is both natural
and preferable for the rabbi—or head of school—to fundraise and do
fiscal management. It is preferable because the rabbi has a long-term
commitment, while officers come and go relatively quickly. Moreover,
one president may be a very good fundraiser and another may be an
excellent fiscal manager, but a third or fourth may be ineffective in one
or both areas. A fully committed rabbi is “forever” and must take on
these responsibilities so that the congregation will continue to flourish.

A PRACTICAL PLAN
FOR AN ANNUAL SYNAGOGUE APPEAL
Thus far, I have discussed rabbinic fundraising in theory—why it
is right in principle and why and how it can work. I would like to
close with a description of how I conduct our annual synagogue
appeal, a voluntary donor campaign which raises about $1.5 million,
representing more than forty percent of the congregation’s annual
budget.
The major effort of the appeal is in the form of two evening
meetings in my home, the first in mid-May and the second in early
June. They account for about two-thirds of the total. The first is
designated for major donors, $2,500 and above, and the second for
pledges between $500 and $2,500.
Three weeks in advance of each meeting, the invited donors
receive a personal letter from me inviting them to join the president
of the congregation for a reception in our (my wife’s and my) home. I
describe the purpose of the meeting, which is both philanthropic and
social. I include with each letter a response card and self-addressed
envelope. I invite about 150 potential donors to the first meeting and
slightly more to the second. Usually, about fifty to seventy people come
to each of the meetings.

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Many recipients of the letter respond that they are—or are

not—coming; many send back the card indicating their pledge or gift.
A number do not respond at all. I try to call all the nonresponders
to encourage them to come (there is a very good group feeling at the
meeting which encourages greater generosity), and, if not, I discuss a
pledge with them. I also call all those who respond that they cannot
attend and I ask them for a pledge. The conversation gives me a chance
to discuss with them why this appeal is so necessary for a thriving
congregation and what the range of the donations is. Approximately
650 out of our 1,050 member families donate annually to this appeal,
which means that the average gift is above $2,000, an amount that is
slightly higher than our dues.
My phone conversations, however, of which there are about
250 (appeal related) during May and June, and another 150 before
the High Holy Days and fifty or so in late November and December,
are about much more than donations to the appeal. They give me a
much-appreciated opportunity to connect personally with a quarter
of our members, to inquire about their families, their children, their
general happiness or, God forbid, unhappiness, and anything else
that comes up in such a personal communication. A few years ago, I
opened a conversation with a very generous donor by asking: “How are
you?” His answer, “I’m in great shape for the shape I’m in,” led me to a
serious discussion with him about his worsening physical trials. It also
provided me with a marvelous insight into how one can and should
view life’s challenges. This served as the theme for my Rosh Hashana
message a few months later in the synagogue bulletin.
Strange as it may seem, a direct fundraising appeal by the rabbi
is not an assault or an affront but rather an opportunity for a rabbi
to engage a congregant in a very personal way. Especially in a large
congregation, such opportunities are few. Unless a family brings
a problem to the rabbi or, God forbid, suffers a loss or, happily, has
a simcha, the personal contact may be a “Good Shabbos” or a quick
word after services. A face-to-face or phone fundraising talk presents
an opportunity for genuine, personal connection. For the rabbi, it
might also be a useful reminder that he has not been in touch with

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a member as much as he should, and he might then provide himself

with a reminder to call or visit on a more regular basis.
Then there are the profound lessons that are a by-product of
rabbinic fundraising. I will conclude with two which have positively
affected my life.
An elderly man in the bakery business who was a regular,
generous contributor to the annual synagogue appeal, responded to
my phone query “How are you?” with a “Don’t ask!” When I inquired
what was wrong, he told me that his best customer had just gone
bankrupt unexpectedly and had left him with a large, unpaid bill. I
commiserated with him for a while and then he asked: “So, rabbi, why
did you call?” I gulped and said, cautiously, “Well, I guess this isn’t the
most appropriate time, but this is the season for my annual appeal
meeting.” “Rabbi,” he said, “what does one thing have to do with the
other; my father, of blessed memory, always said: ‘When you give, you
don’t give your own.’ I’ll give you $2,000, as always.”18
The second lesson: At the end of every fundraising phone
conversation or meeting in my office, I always say “Thank you.” I say it
even when the answer is no, because, first of all, the person gave me his
time, and second, I remember my father’s advice to me when I began
my fundraising efforts and was rejected by a potential donor; “Hack,”
he said, “did you say ‘Thank you’? Remember, you need friends even
more than you need donations.”
In the vast majority of conversations the response is very
generous. In a number of cases, when I say “Thank you,” the donor
responds: “No, Rabbi, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to
be part of this great mitzvah.” This lesson, which originated with one
donor in the congregation, has now spread to others over the years and
a culture has developed among wonderful Jews that it is a privilege to
help the shul thrive, to help build a new school structure, or to help
relieve the plight of the residents of Sderot or the evacuees from Gush
Katif, among other charitable causes. It is a very important lesson for
the Jewish growth of the members of our community. Perhaps, more
important, it is a lesson which has inspired me in my own life, and it
constitutes one more reason for my gratitude to my father for setting

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a model for me as a rav chesed, giving personally and fundraising

professionally.

NOTES
1. Genesis 18:19.
2. Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 79a.
3. Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 8b.
4. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halachic Man, trans. Laurence Kaplan (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1983), p. 91.
5. Mishnah, Avot 1:5.
6. Apocryphal story known in the Soloveitchik family.
7. Aaron Soloveichik, Sefer Mateh Aharon (Jerusalem: Targum Hotza’ah La’or,
1997), pp. 16–17.
8. Apocryphal story known in the Soloveitchik family.
9. Genesis 18:19.
10. At KJ we ran our own midrachov (“shopping street”) in May 2002, at the height
of the terrorist attacks, for a group of merchants from Rehov Ben Yehuda whom
we brought to New York at our expense and set up a Sunday sale at KJ which
attracted over 10,000 customers. The merchants were overwhelmed with sales in
one day surpassing their sales for the previous year.
11. Ibid. Michael Broyde Zmbro…@emory.edu >Tuesday, January 8, 2008 (available
only to RCA members).
12. Babylonian Talmud, Horayot 10a.
13. Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 43b.
14. Numbers 19:14.
15. Kornblau, op. cit., Dec. 20, remarks by Stephen Sacks.
16. Genesis 44:30. Judah’s poignant statement about the love between the patriarch
Jacob and his son Joseph.
17. Quoted by Rabbi Marcus Freed in the RCA online conversation, Kornblau, op.cit.
18. Conversation with Louis Orwasher, around 1990.

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