For most of my childhood, my family and I attended services at Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in Midtown Manhattan. Every week we took our favorite spot in the Moorish Revival sanctuary, six rows back on the left, then lingered after services to schmooze with the clergy. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, when I was attending regularly, the synagogue was an intimate but not exactly dynamic community — turnout on Friday evenings rarely exceeded a hundred people. The exception was when the congregation emerged in full force for the High Holidays, and the synagogue resorted to an undisguised class hierarchy to solve its seating problem. A “Community Service,” the most affordable option, took place in an overflow auditorium across the street. The “Family Service,” for which tickets were more costly, deviated from ritual norms by starting around sundown, forcing attendees to begin their Yom Kippur fast either early or late.…