Nourishing Our Souls – and Our Stomachs

As The Commodores can tell you, Sunday morning is a time to take it easy….which can often make it hard to gather a minyan for the shacharit service. At Temple Israel of Natick, Sunday morning’s prayers are also dedicated to mindfulness and the importance of being present…and the best way to be present, as one of the service's co-captains, former FJMC Regional President David Singer recognized, is to actually be present. So David came up with an appetizing addition to the Sunday morning menu, and he knew just who to reach out to for help.

“David knew that I like food, and he came to me and he said, ‘Hey, could we enhance the minyan with some food after the service?’” shares Temple Israel of Natick Men’s Club President Seth Gitell. “I thought it was terrific, because Sunday’s a day, if you're working during the week, when people have a little more time. We also hoped we’d encourage some of the parents who were dropping their kids off for religious school to stick around for breakfast [and Bar'chu]."

David and Seth’s efforts quickly brought more people to the temple and to the table. “We started in 2023, and over time, we've more than doubled the attendance of the typical Sunday minyan when we add the food component,” Seth says. “The turnout is even better when we combine an Enhanced Minyan with another Men’s Club event, like when we held it on the same day as the World Wide Rap.” 

Now food has always been a natural fit following services, especially on Shabbat, but what makes Seth’s spread so special is the care and passion he puts into it. “I think my wife would say that I’m kind of obsessed with food, and particularly Jewish food, and so the minute I started working on this assignment, my mind was racing,” he explains. “I set out to first identify various local options, because you need the hechsher. Fortunately, there still are a number of kosher bakeries in greater Boston, and in addition to that, one of our local grocery stores has a kosher bakery. But I knew that no matter what, I had to get bagels from Rosenfeld's in Newton. I started ordering in advance to make sure I had enough bagels, and what really helped me, even though it may sound silly, is that when I ordered in advance, I could ask the Rosenfeld people to cut the bagels in half, which is a huge time saver.”

Beyond the bagels, Seth took great pride in finding other items that would draw people in and be accessible to as many diners as possible. “It’s getting things like salt belly lox, because people love it,” he says. “We also need to have a nut friendly environment, so I’ve found pastries that everyone can eat. I also learned how to use the ovens at Temple Israel, and there’s a way to take BJ's muffins, which are inexpensive and kosher, you heat them up, and people just rave about them. So in addition to being delicious, it’s also a social experience, where you get to engage with people in a more substantive way than just seeing them in the hallway on the way into and out of minyan.”

Sunday Morning Minyan Co-Captain David Singer agrees. "Seth's Enhanced Minyan has exposed a broader group to our Mindfulness Service, and we always had a great time socializing afterwards," he says. 

One of the best things about the Enhanced Minyan, David and Seth note, is that it doesn’t have to take a whole lot of work to engage those who want to pray and eat together. One of the keys to welcoming a crowd, Seth adds, is promoting the event effectively. “I’ve noticed that our temple e-newsletter always has a graphic element, and now we have tools like Canva or ChatGPT that can help us make compelling visuals more easily. I thought, why not let AI do it and see what it comes up with? So I asked it to create an illustration that looked like a 1950s or 1960s Jewish deli, with food like a bagel, lox, and coffee, and some kind of old timey, Hebrew-like font. I had to go through a few rounds of refinement and editing, but I really liked where we ended (see the graphic below). I would encourage anybody who's in the midst of promoting their Men’s Club, especially if they don’t have design skills or much time, to take advantage of AI and these other tools.”

AI-generated bagels are great – but the real thing, Seth and David have found – is even better. FJMC International has noticed too, and awarded the Enhanced Minyan Program a Torch Award at its Convention earlier this summer in Chicago. “The Enhanced Minyan makes a difference in our community,” Seth says, “and for FJMC to recognize our efforts is extremely gratifying. We really do want other clubs to know about it, because it's something that they can replicate – it's not the most complicated thing in the world. Just two or three Men’s Club members can absolutely pull this thing together, and then you're building community.”