Moving Beyond Metrics

I’ve mentioned before that a few year ago we bought a stationary bicycle that allows you to join classes remotely.  

A few times a week I get on the bike, pick a class, and join in.   While you’re biking, there are indicators on the screen that tell you how fast you’re going, how hard you’re peddling and how well you are doing compared to everyone else.

The bicycle knows how old I am.  I must have told it my age in a moment of weakness.  And it knows how old everyone else is.

When I’m peddling along and I see that I’m pulling ahead of people in their thirties I feel great.  Once a few people in their seventies were ahead of me and I told Deanna, we’re getting rid of this bicycle.

Earlier this week I attended a two-day conference at the Hartman Institute’s  NY headquarters and Yehuda Kurtzer, President of Hartman North America, was talking about the challenges facing American Jewish leaders.  And he said one big challenge is that so much of what we do is judged by metrics.

How many come to services or programs?  How fast are your services?  Are you surrounded by 30 year olds or 70 year olds?

Metrics affect everyone.  Ask your doctor about metrics.  How many patients do you see each day?  they are asked.  And other questions about measurable quantities that may or may not have to do with being a good doctor.

Ask your children’s teachers about metrics.  How are your students’ test scores?  they are asked.  And other questions about measurable quantities that may or may not have to do with being a good teacher.

You go on social media and you’ll see all sorts of quizzes you can take like, 10 questions to help you know if you’re in a happy marriage. 

I’m all for guided inquiry, but do we necessarily need a score sheet to tell us if we’re happy in our most significant relationships?

We need to push back.  Not because metrics are useless - they can be very useful.  They can help us professionally and personally to determine if we are meeting certain goals.  But they are not enough.  They often miss the intangible things that are truly at the heart of what we are trying to accomplish or, even more-so, at the heart of what it means to exist as a human being.

The Torah tell us to count people.  And the Torah tells us that when it comes to fulfilling God’s will there are benchmarks. Did you do this mitzvah or that mitzvah?  The Torah doesn’t keep it all vague.

And rabbinic tradition as we know delights in providing quantities.  When it’s Passover - season of freedom - many Jews, following rabbinic tradition, wonder at the Seder whether they consumed enough matzah to fulfill their obligation.  Or drank enough wine.  

But the Torah also provides for mystery, for that which cannot be quantified or adequately described.  

צלם אלוהים Human beings created in God’s image.  Mystery.  Can’t be quantified or adequately described.

ואהבת  You shall love the Lord your God.   Do I have to make 10 kissing gestures toward the heavens every day?  Of course that’s a ridiculous question and that’s my point.  Loving God transcends quantity and definition.  You feel it and figure it out as you go.  

Or, from this morning’s Torah portion, with regard to the festival of Sukkot - והיית אך שמח v’hayita akh sameah - you shall be utterly joyful.  You can’t measure joy the way you measure matzah.  

Metrics are important.  But the most significant things in the world - our spark of divinity.  Our capacity to love.  Our experience of joy.  All defy standard metrics.

So what do we do?  We push back.  We temper our preoccupation with metrics.  I want to suggest realms in which we can and should push back and reclaim the intangibles that in many ways are the most real things we have.

Last week we read how the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol, would atone first for himself, then his family, then all of Israel.  He started with the individual and worked outward.

I’m going to do the opposite - I’ll start big and then work toward the personal.  A few examples of how we can move beyond rigid metrics to really do what’s needed in the world.

Yossi Klein Halevi just finished writing a new book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.  A little background.  Yossi is a leading Israeli author who made Aliya in the 1980s.  He describes himself as right of center but he has devoted much time and energy to understanding the perspectives of people who, for whatever constellation of reasons, understand things differently than he does.

His home in French Hill looks out onto Palestinian neighborhoods, mostly separated from his neighborhood by fences or walls.

In 2001, he wrote a book describing his efforts to understand Christians and Arabs more deeply and this time, he wanted to write a book that would explain why Jews are connected to Israel, why it matters to us, why our connection to Israel is profound and deep and lasting.

He has already begun to receive responses from a number of Palestinians.  He has said that he intends to write back to each person who responds and he is already thinking about arranging face to face dialogue with those who want to have a respectful exchange.

What are the prospects for peace, or even progress toward peace, between Israelis and Palestinians?  

Mostly when that questioned is asked, we look toward demographers to tell us what percentages of Israelis and Palestinians hold particular views on a variety of issues.  

And such data is important.   But what Yossi is trying to do is to invite conversations with individuals in ways that are personal and deep. 

Metrics give an overall sense of who thinks what and what is or isn’t possible.  

But for real progress to take place, people need to talk with each other, in small groups, preferably over good coffee.  That’s what Yossi has already done and what he wants to continue to do.

Moving it closer.  Jewish leadership in America is trying to help Judaism be ever more relevant. Ever more compelling.  To young and old alike.

The questions we tend to ask one another, rabbis and lay leaders, are questions that tend to focus on numbers.  How big is your synagogue?  How many members?  How many come to this program or that program?  

These are important questions.  Volume can be one indicator of a community’s strength.

But I’m afraid that we don’t really ask other questions enough - questions like, How did this moment affect this person or that person?  How was someone moved to think about life differently?  Or to face a challenge?  Or to recognize the depth of a moment of joy?

Is it ok to have a separate service that only a few people come to, if they find it joyful or meaningful in some way?  Or is it a failure if fewer than 100 show up?

Is it ok to have a class that 10 people enjoy or does a committee say, “Sorry.  Waste of resources.”

Earlier this year we had hundreds of teens here for a USY Shabbaton and that was powerful and amazing.  And I will also tell you about the conversations I’ve had with half a dozen teens that, I believe, were impactful for me and for them.   And sometimes it’s a conversation with just one.

Last Sunday night we had over 600 people here to listen to NY Times columnist Bret Stephens speak with ADL - CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt about a variety of national and international issues.   Powerful and amazing and we will continue to do these kinds of programs.  

And I will also tell you, that what excited me most are the individual conversations that I have had with people who were there that reflect how the event has impacted their personal thinking about major issues of the day.  And therefore we will continue to have small gatherings, in people’s homes or at the synagogue, that also have their place.  

How big?  How many?  Should not be the only questions we ask.

So as we explore, and as we plan, I hope we all will think of questions about quality that are not so easy to quantify.

And now just a word about the personal.  

Guided questions - about how happy we are in our relationships, how successful we are in our work - can be helpful.  I’m a huge advocate for seeking professional help to guide us in our self-reflection.

However, let’s not forget to trust ourselves.  To trust our instincts.  I’m not an evolutionary biologist but I do know that we can figure many things out without answering a survey or mapping our life experiences onto a statistical chart. 

We need to go beyond the metrics.  To ask questions about how and why and not just how many.  

Next time I’m on the bicycle, I will try not to look too closely at how fast I’m going or how far or how hard I’m peddling.  And if I see that a 90 year old just passed me by, I hope that I will be able to wish him or her Mazel tov and just keep going.

Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on May 5, 2018