1. Slice chicken cutlets into bite-sized chunks.

2. Combine the chicken with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne, mixing until evenly seasoned.

3. Place flour and eggs into separate bowls.

4. Dip the chicken into the flour, egg, then back into the flour.

5. Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.

6. Fry the chicken pieces until golden brown and crispy.

7. In a pot over medium heat, cook hot sauce, ketchup, honey, garlic powder, and onion powder until bubbly.

8. Toss the chicken in the sauce until evenly combined.

9. Use liberally and serve repeatedly to incentivize attendance at shul-based or school-based learning events. 

The popularity of poppers has really popped among American Jews of all ages, and you would be hard-pressed to find a special occasion at which poppers are not proferred. The passion for poppers, along with their piquant potpourri, has rendered them standard catering fare, as if they were as authentically Jewish as sushi. No self-respecting host would dare conduct a Superbowl party, a siyum, a Purim seudah, a choson's tisch, a kiddush, a fundraising buffet, a birthday bash, or even a Yom Kippur break fast without poppers. (OK, maybe not the last one.) And when your local shul wants you to show up for a shiur or lecture or chavrusa situation, poppers will inevitably be dangled as bait.

But just imagine for a second if poppers were not part of the equation.

This nightmare scenario has not been conjured in order to harangue you about Orthodox eating habits. I am highlighting, instead, Orthodox entreating habits: how Jewish institutions induce you to experience communal life. 

Poppers are not the culprit and their golden-brown bite-sized tangy sweetness is not to blame. The leaders of your communal institutions have decided that the only way to your cold, cold heart is through your stomach. This phenomenon is so entrenched that it is hard to imagine a morning program without a "Breakfast Buffet!"; a Tikkun Leil Shavuos without a "Midnight Barbecue!" or a 2 a.m. "Ice Cream Extravaganza!"; a weeknight shiur without "Fresh Pizza!"; a pre-Selichos pump-up without a "Gourmet Pasta Bar!"; a seminar without "Thursday Night Chulent!"; a Shabbos morning davening without "Collation After Services!" To a certain extent, your local shul now spends more time and energy on catering than educating, and our beloved Ahavas Achim is no different.

It would be more understandable if these efforts were being expended only on children and teens, who realistically do need to be incentivized and motivated to enjoy the beauty of Jewish life. Parents and teachers understand that prizes and mitzvah notes and even a lollipop from the Candyman help to make shul or school a comfortable and exciting environment, and there is nothing wrong with that. But the problem arises when these very same tactics are deemed necessary for adults, who are never compelled to graduate from their juvenile stimulus-reward cycle, and who are never expected to show up without some carrot being extended. This is how little we think of you. 

In neighborhoods with fierce competition for your attendance at events and programs, the catering arms race has reached a feverish pace, with each institution desperately trying to out-popper the others.

Aren't you the least bit insulted that nearly every flier for a learning event that you have ever seen includes some version of "Refreshments Served!"? This tells you that the organizers were concerned that the Torah and inspiration they were offering would not be enough to get you off your tuches. And when you do show up and enjoy a positive experience, isn't the purity of the moment diminished by subconscious ulterior motives? 

Even Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to respond to that bell after the unconditioned stimulus (food) was removed. But you can never escape your stimulus and get a chance to salivate for pure learning. Your childhood has been prolonged when they always tempt you with ancillary reasons for doing the right thing.

What does this say about our community, when our appetites and not our neshamos dictate our choices? In the immortal words of the Rambam (Hilchos Shevisas Yom Tov 6:18), אֵין זוֹ שִׂמְחַת מִצְוָה אֶלָּא שִׂמְחַת כְּרֵסוֹ, this is not joy of a mitzvah but rather joy of one's stomach.

By perpetually providing poppers, the institution denies the adult the opportunity to perform mitzvos l'shmah, solely for the sake of the mitzvah.  

דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ־לִי תְּרוּמָה מֵאֵת כׇּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִדְּבֶנּוּ לִבּוֹ תִּקְחוּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִי׃

Speak to the Jewish people that they should take for me a portion; from every man whose heart wants to donate you shall take my portion. 

Rashi, citing the Midrash Tanchuma, illuminates the significance of that little word לִי:

 לִי – לִשְׁמִי

“For Me” means for the sake of My Name

There must be a purity of purpose in the collection process for the Mishkan. You are not supposed to be donating materials for your own aggrandizement, to build a glorious house for your own honor. The Mishkan must be constructed of components that were selflessly taken for the sake of Hashem only. The Sifsei Chachamim and Gur Aryeh explain the necessity of this לִי along the same lines: I might have thought that since everything in this world belongs to God anyway, granting a certain sanctity to all the materials, my personal motives and intentions are irrelevant. But no! When I do the mitzvah of  וְיִקְחוּ־לִי תְּרוּמָה, it must be with complete focus on Hashem.

The Sifsei Kohen picks up on the extraneous "vav" at the beginning of the phrase וְיִקְחוּ־לִ, and you shall take for me. He suggests this indicates a response to a previous act of taking. Working within the position of the mefarshim who believe that the commandments in Terumah and Tetzaveh in fact occurred after Ki Sisa and the Cheit HaEigel, and that the building of the Mishkan was a response to and expiation for this horrific sin, Sifsei Kohen explains that  לִי – לִשְׁמִי was a necessary ingredient in the recipe for the Mishkan because it had to counteract the selfless and whole-hearted donation campaign for the gold of the Golden Calf. The Jews who feverishly parted with their jewelry did so l'shmah, with complete dedication to the goal. So now, in constructing the Mishkan, the same purity of focus is required.

The Mishkan of our contemporary lives demands similar intentions, as the Gemara Pesachim 50b explains:

רָבָא רָמֵי: כְּתִיב ״כִּי גָדֹל עַד שָׁמַיִם חַסְדֶּךָ״, וּכְתִיב ״כִּי גָדֹל מֵעַל שָׁמַיִם חַסְדֶּךָ״. הָא כֵּיצַד? כָּאן בְּעוֹשִׂין לִשְׁמָהּ, וְכָאן בְּעוֹשִׂין שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ. וְכִדְרַב יְהוּדָה. דְּאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר רַב: לְעוֹלָם יַעֲסוֹק אָדָם בְּתוֹרָה וּמִצְוֹת אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ, שֶׁמִּתּוֹךְ שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ בָּא לִשְׁמָהּ.

Rava raised a contradiction: It is written: “For Your mercy is great unto the heavens, and Your truth reaches the skies” (Psalms 57:11); and it is written elsewhere: “For Your mercy is great above the heavens, and Your truth reaches the skies” (Psalms 108:5). How so? Here, where the verse says that God’s mercy is above the heavens, it is referring to a case where one performs a mitzva for its own sake; and here, where the verse says that God’s mercy reaches the heavens, it is referring to a case where one performs a mitzva not for its own sake. Even a mitzva performed with ulterior motives garners reward, as Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: A person should always engage in Torah study and performance of mitzvot, even if he does so not for their own sake, as through the performance of mitzvot not for their own sake, one gains understanding and comes to perform them for their own sake.

The Gemara validates doing mitzvos not l'shmah as a halfway house along a journey towards l'shmah. There is absolute value is doing the right thing and fulfilling one's obligations to Hashem, even if there is a fringe benefit (money, honor, socializing, food) to be gained. One is to be commended for involving one's self in the holy world of mitzvos no matter what. But does our community every nudge us to graduate from שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ to לִשְׁמָהּ? Or as adults are we permanently stuck at שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ? Have we lowered our expectations of ourselves to the point that there must be another reason besides Torah U'Mitzvos for our attendance? Is the parade of buffets indicative of our institution's misplaced lack of confidence in us, or is it a realistic decision based on knowing your people? Which came first: the chicken, the egg, or the hot sauce?

I don't know who is ultimately responsible for this behavior pattern, but it is something to which I am sensitive. Our shul, like most others, feeds your stomach along with your soul. After all, many of our mitzvos are accompanied by a seudah which enhances the experience. We want you to feel at home within our walls, and go home satisfied so you will come back again and again. But, with intentionality, there are many learning events after which no food is presented. We want you to come l'shmah, to consider your life a Mishkan worthy of elevated intent. We offer no mitzvah notes, no gold stars, no names in lights, no rewards other than the שכר מצוה which is infinite. In other words, we give you the chance to outgrow the שֶׁלֹּא לִשְׁמָהּ of childhood and enter the hallowed halls of לִשְׁמָהּ.

Imagine coming to learn or to daven for the sake of learning and davening. You're not there to see friends, to demonstrate your piety, to quell boredom, or to fill your stomach. Imagine Jewish life without poppers.