By Daniel S. Brenner

Oh, those pathetic non-Orthodox Jews. They enlist high-priced advertising consultants to sell their religion to the next generation. Too bad the next generation is only interested in intermarrying. Maybe they should drop the marketing gambits and go back to the old time theological focus.

That’s my summary of the not-so-subtle undercurrent of Naomi Schaefer Riley’s Wall Street Journal piece scribed January 5, 2007 entitled “Revivng Judaism: Consultant-Speak Goes Religious.”

Schafer Riley, the Journal‘s “Deputy Taste Editor” and author of God on the Quad, follows a popular narrative of religion journalism — she asks us to think critically about the ways in which religious leaders use language that is typically used in political and commercial spheres to market their ideas and programs. She points to the new head of the Jewish Theological Seminary making a “listening tour” and the (not so new) synagogue initiative that is trademarked “Synaplex,” and the strategic plan of Hillel which strives for more “access.” She also wonders aloud about whether these religious communities are simply catering to people’s disparate spiritual preferences.

What’s missing? First of all, the story fails to mention the fact that probably every Jew in America has been marketed to by the Fifth Avenue-orchestrated advertisements of Chabad-Lubavitch. Consultant-speak is all over their latest campaigns — I assure you that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe never actually said “Jewish continuity is not an item on our agenda. It is our agenda,” or asked someone to “participate in their strategic vision.” Or how about the equally savvy Aish HaTorah which attempts to sell their “Discovery Institutes” by using a study coursebased on the sci-fi film The Matrix? It would also seem that any article on Judaism and consultant-speak would mention that all three organizations –- the Jewish Theological Seminary, STAR (Synaplex), and Hillel are competing with Chabad and AishHatorah in one way or another for their market share.

But there is a more important elephant in the room that Schafer Riley overlooks.

Anyone active in a Jewish community –- no matter how small — knows that advertising professionals and consulting gurus are not only attending bat mitzvahs, they’re also sitting on the boards of most synagogues and communal institutions. Extreme case in point — in London, the Saatchi brothers opened their own synagogue. Or take a not-so-extreme case — my mom spent her life writing ad-copy. When she retired, she became president of her small Jewish congregation. I can’t think of a single Jewish organization, large or small, that does not have someone with a marketing/PR background involved in their work.

So journalists might ask the question: Is there something more to the Judaism/consultant speak connection?

I might point out that the first highly paid consultant in history was Joseph, the dream interpreter who helped Pharaoh build his base. But seriously, I have to look no further than my father-in-law, an organizational psychology professor at Temple University, who wrote a popular title called “The Consultant’s Tool-Kit,” to find the connection. He also studies the Talmud every day in a program called “daf Yomi.” In his consulting work, he often takes traditional Jewish language and cooks it up us as consultant-speak for his non-Jewish clients. For example, he took the pedagogic model used in yeshiva, the chevruta –- and he created a training program based on partnering colleagues at different levels of learning. So, when he hears consulting words like “access” used in Jewish contexts, he doesn’t think about accessing credit card awards or all-access-pass, but access as it relates to a traditional phrase about torah study — access means to “open a text.”

The challenge journalists have in spotting trends in religious marketing is not going away. But rather than continue to spill ink on whatever batch of words pops up next, it would be great if writers asked why specific words were chosen, how they were received, and how they worked either in tension with religious concepts or as complements to them.

That, of course, might require a listening tour.

Daniel S. Brenner, a reconstructionist rabbi, directs the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in Manhattan, and is the author of Reb Blog.