Sales & Services

Written before the trip:

I'm flying to St Louis tomorrow for Archon. It's also Rosh Hashanah. I'm not Jewish, but I know how important the High Holy Days are in the tradition. I've also been listening to NPR, one of whose segments focused on the financial straits of members of synagogues. If I have understood the situation correctly, this is the time of year when many temples collect membership fees, partially via the sales of tickets to High Holy Days services, but many Jewish men and women who in better times readily paid for their tickets cannot pay this year. Although I'm sure it's a mitzvah to provide a ticket under these circumstances, the idea of selling tickets to a day of obligation is very strange. It's true that my Anglican tradition used to rent the forward aisles to various prominent families (including some of my ancestors), but the entire church was never declared off-limits to humbler and poorer congregational members in good standing! I find it hard to believe that the Jewish tradition would deliberately discourage Jews from going to temple, so I must be missing some element here that is clearer to one raised in the faith tradition.