Consider your audience: you're asking the dudes who read your deep-thinking modern-Jew website why they don't affiliate and don't take the time the participate unless they get to run the show.  Except that the people who are going to write comments (beyond the Jewcy-staff mafia) aren't running the show and are taking the time to at least read and think about how they affiliate.

But my answer for why all of those other lazy Jewish men aren't organizing, attending, etc, etc, is that the cultural portion of Judaism that retains the most resonance in many people's lives has been a traditionally femine domain.  Holidays revolve around food and kids, and as much as you complain that Dad's not waking everyone up to go to shul on Saturday, I don't think Mom is either.  As much as we like busting down gender-walls, we feel a little strange about it when it's so tightly wrapped around tradition.  Or at least I do - like every time I hold back from participating in a prayer over shabbas candles.

I did a Dvar Torah on just this topic about a year ago. My theory is this: Back in the day, men were in charge of the Judaism. The role of women was in the home and the role of men was in the synagogue. When modern Jewish movements attempted to be egalitarian and the cultures around them followed suit, Judaism stopped being a men's club. That's what kept us involved before.

Now that women are largely in charge (my temple's board is lead by a female president) and the board is probably 3/4 women) they have forgotten what kept men coming.

What used to keep men coming is no longer possible because of gender equality.

Two things need doing. The first is creation of a men's club. Every congregation needs a strong Brotherhood. The second is services need fixing. Women love a good

la la la niggun and a Debbi Freidman tune. Men, simply put, do not. You'll notice that

if you daven with an ultra-orthodox community there are no la-dee-da melodies. There are niggunim, but they are more like chants. The songs are too.

Our services need an injection of invogorating chants.

Anyway, that's what I think. 

Debbie Friedman SUCKS! (or so says this woman anyway.)

But David, how do we get them to JOIN a brotherhood? What kinds of things will attract them?

And how do we get them to help with the nuts and bolts support? The womanly duties?

Excellent analysis David. I have no idea why men have become increasingly less involved over the past generation. Our congregation has an amazing Sisterhood that can get 25 -30 women to volunteer to help set up an event. The Botherhood can barely get 5 guys to show up to make breakfast tacos on Sunday morning. ("Tacos for Israel" is their major fundraiser. Don't ask.) Reading the Jewish press, you see comments about how men feel marginalized in their synagogues. I suspect it is many small things. Too much la-di-da as David says. But also more serious stuff. Perhaps as our approach has become more "touchy-feely,"  men have felt uncomfortable. But I truly don't know the real answer. I wish I did.

Hwilensk is on to something.  In the last twenty or so years, many synagogue rabbis have replaced the traditional, intellectual devar Torah (which may or may not include questions or comments) with touchy-feely "open discussions."  Instead of learning what traditional or contemporary commentators have to say about the parashah, congregants are encouraged to ramble about how the text makes them "feel," while the rabbi sits back and says, "Uh huh, uh huh, and what do others think?"

In such situations, it's not uncommon to hear personal tirades about how "this text is patriarchal, speciesist, ageist;  it doesn't give the Pharaoh's or the Canaanites' point of view; this text offends/oppresses/silences me," and the like.  Few people making such wholesale judgements have ever engaged in serious Torah study, including the ability to read and understand Hebrew, familiarity with Rashi and at least one other traditional commentator, knowledge of how the oral tradition reinterpreted problematic passages, and such.  I wouldn't call this phenomenon a women-vs.-men thing;  knowledge and wilfull ignorance are found equally in both genders.  All I know is that it turns me and many others off.  Rather than encourage lowest-common-denominator touchy-feely talk, synagogues should feed and challenge us intellectually.