Read another four chapters of Isaac Leeser’s biography. A theme that keeps coming up is the apparent disinterest of the Adjunta of Mikveh Israel in the activities in which Leeser was engaged for the Jewish public - in other words, the ones for which he is posthumously beloved and admired. As a general rule, they would not fund his schools or publications, and their support of some of his national projects was hit-or-miss. He found their contract negotiations with him insulting, and serious attempts to muscle him out or hobble him were made almost every time. Yet on his side he was idealistic and impertinent, possibly not diplomatic enough to win over his opponents. He (probably justifiably) felt disrespected by them, and they (probably also justifiably) felt hurt when he would dig in on matters of principle. Sussman puts this into a wider context of “congregationalism” in America, where the laity (both Christian and Jewish) held the real power in public religious life. The clergy under them had to find ways to build careers in the context of anticlericalism (Christian) or disinterest in clerical professionalism (Jewish). It’s incredible that Lesser lasted 21 years at Mikveh Israel. I’m now curious to know more about how Sabato Morais dealt with these same currents in his tenure, since he too felt called to respond to national Jewish interests that drew his attention away from the synagogue.