As most of you may know, ten days ago I announced my retirement as Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom effective June, 2023. In making this decision I am reminded of the parent who sends a note to explain her son's tardiness for kindergarten. “Please excuse Johnny for being late for school this morning. Nine o’clock came sooner than expected.”
We may feel that my
retirement from Congregation Beth Shalom comes “sooner than expected” but in
fact it is coming at the right time. When I arrived at CBS in 2008 I was
the fourth rabbi of the synagogue in eight years. Although the synagogue
was thriving in terms of numbers, it was also struggling to maintain consistent
leadership, a sense of direction and stability. I hope, if anything, I
have provided that.
I am reminded, as well,
about the first time I made such an announcement to a previous synagogue.
Before I was ordained as a Rabbi, and during my student years at seminary, I
had a pulpit for three years at a small synagogue in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
The synagogue had hoped I would stay on after I was ordained. However, I
decided to accept a position at a different synagogue in a larger Jewish
community nearby. Over the three years that I was in Holyoke, I became very
close with the congregation. When I told them that I would be moving on, they
were disappointed, even a bit angry. One of the members, a man in his late
eighties, looked at me sadly and said, “And we thought you cared about
us!”
Of course, I did care
about them, I reassured him, but I needed to think about myself, my future and
the future of my family. So, I had to make the painful decision to leave them
and move on, a decision that eventually brought me here. I want to assure
all of you that even though I am leaving as your rabbi, I care about you. Being
your rabbi has meant that every day one or more of you, in ways small and
large, have touched my heart. I hope that on occasion I may have provided a bit
of that uplift for you too.
Naturally I am not
finished with my work here. I have two more years with you, but those two years,
as we know, will fly by, as have the previous thirteen! However, it
was necessary to announce my retirement now in order that as a congregation you
can plan for your future. If needed I will be available to think through those
plans with you.
Rosh Hashanah is a
time to reflect on the past, both as individuals and as a community. What a
year the world has had! The Covid 19 pandemic has not only shaken
all institutions throughout the world but it has led to a worldwide
crisis in every synagogue, every church, every mosque. The crisis has been felt
by every individual, in every home, in every family. These tumultuous
times have brought about enormous levels of stress, of anguish and of loss. As
one wag put it, these past 18 months have been like experiencing the flu
pandemic of 1918, the economic instability of 1919 and the political turmoil of
1968 all rolled into one!
Last Rosh Hashanah was
the first Rosh Hashanah in history where every Jew, wherever they lived in the
world, stayed home for the holiday. Instead of crowding into synagogues, we
watched services on our computers. Instead of gathering with family and friends
to enjoy a festival meal we ate alone. We were instructed to practice
“social distancing”. One of our congregants commented that “social distancing”
was the opposite of Judaism.
This New Year brings a
different kind of stress. We thought it would be over by now, but we are still
living our lives thinking about, worrying about, and planning around the
pandemic. There have been tragic losses, and there are many kinds of grief
being exhibited. Grieving over loved ones, but also grieving over
opportunities lost, a lifestyle lost, and a concern that we don’t know what
post-pandemic will look like.
We often don’t
appreciate what we have until we are in danger of losing it. The writer Mitch
Albom, who became famous with the publication of his book Tuesdays with
Morrie, published another book, Have a Little Faith. In it, he
returns to the Jewish community of his childhood in New Jersey. He writes
about coming to terms with all he had left behind and lost. His plans as
a young man – to become 'a citizen of the world' -- had largely come true, he
writes. He had friends in different time zones. He'd been published in
foreign languages. He had lived all over the world.
He writes, "You can
touch everything and be connected to nothing. I knew airports better than local
neighborhoods. I knew more names in other area codes than I did on my
block." Most of his relationships, he writes, were through the workplace.
Then he thought about workplace friends who were fired or had quit due to
illness. "Who comforted them?" he wonders, "Where did they
go? Not to me. Not to their former bosses."
Often, he concludes,
they were helped and supported by their church or synagogue communities.
"Members took up collections. They cooked meals. They gave money to pay
bills. They did it with love, empathy and knowledge that it was part of the
supportive undercarriage of a "sacred community", like the one I
guess I once belonged to, even if I didn't realize it."
We too often do not
realize what we have in our sacred community. We take it for granted or feel
disappointed by its shortcomings. We often notice what is missing rather than
what is there.
When the Coronavirus
struck 18 months ago, we as a sacred community faced quite a challenge. How
were we to maintain synagogue life without being able to come together in the
temple? How do we make “social distancing” compatible with Jewish communal
life? It was not only an issue of gathering for worship. The very
undercarriage of our community had been pulled from us by the virus. Loved ones
died alone in hospital beds, their families unable to be with them in their
final moments! How would our community be there for them in their grief and
despair? Where before the pandemic hundreds of people might attend a funeral,
families now had to bury their dead practically alone. How were we to console
the mourner when we could not go to their home for shiva? How could we
help the bar and bat mitzvah families -- families that had been looking
forward to a synagogue packed with family and friends -- experience the
holiness of a bar or bat mitzvah from the confines of their home with only the
immediate family present? How were we going to educate our children when
they could not gather in the classroom with their teachers? All of this, and more,
against a background where parents were worried about losing their jobs, and
those who had jobs had to learn a whole new way of working. Adult children
worried about their elderly parents, the most vulnerable of the population. And
we all dreaded catching Covid, becoming seriously ill and even
dying.
Looking back, the
challenges to continuing community life were overwhelming and disorienting.
It reminds me of the parable Rabbi Hayim of Tzanz used to tell: A man,
wandering in the forest for several days, finally encountered another. He
called out: "Brother, show me the way out of this forest." The man
replied, "Brother, I, too, am lost. I can only tell you this. The ways I
have tried have led nowhere; they have only led me astray. Take my hand and let
us search for the way together." This is what we did. In the beginning, we
were all lost and confused. Yet, we held one another’s hand, and we found our
way through this together. So, we all deserve a “yasher koach”! All of
you stepped up. You were heroic this year. Just look at what we have
accomplished. We moved our entire synagogue online with no notice. We learned
how to mute and unmute ourselves (well, some of us are still learning). We
taught, we sang, we consoled, we prayed -- as a community -- while being
physically separated. What we did was unprecedented in Jewish history. We not
only survived -- we affirmed our values, we supported each other, we found a
way, we thrived. For all of this I am profoundly grateful to every single one
of you and I want to thank you all.
It was, and continues to
be, challenging and extremely difficult work.
I also want to apologize
as well. There were times in this process, when we were reinventing ourselves
as a synagogue, that I was not as patient with you as I should have been. There
were times when I did not listen as I should have. There were times when I too
hastily and abruptly dismissed your suggestions, you causing you to not
feel respected or heard. For this I am deeply sorry.
People sometimes ask me,
“Rabbi, when are we going back to ‘normal’?” My answer to you is that we are
never going back to “normal”. We will never go back to the way things were
before this pandemic. We have been through, and are still going through, the
defining crisis of this generation. When the world experiences something like
this, we are changed in a myriad of ways, often for good. The ways we practice
Judaism, the ways we experience “community”, the ways we learn and the ways we
teach are already different because of this pandemic. Some of the old ways we
will miss, some of the new ways we will welcome, but of one thing I am certain
-- Judaism will adapt to whatever the future will bring because throughout our
long and noble history the Jewish People have always met the challenges of “new
normals”. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and our People lost the
way we worshipped, we adapted and met the challenge. When we lived in the
diaspora, when we were oppressed and vilified, when we were threatened with
conversion or expulsion or death, we met the challenge. When nations more
powerful than we rose to destroy us, we met the challenge. When we returned to
Palestine to reclaim our ancestral homeland, we met the challenge. Each and
every time, we adapted, we changed, we met the challenge. We belong to a people
that does not despair, that it is relentless in its determination to move
forward, to overcome hardships, to endure and to contribute to the world.
These troubled times
present their own unique difficulties and challenges and call for novel,
original and fresh responses. Our sages teach that the ram's horn we blow on
Rosh HaShana must be kafuf (bent) to reflect our own bodies bent over in
grief. The shevarim (the broken blasts of the shofar) are meant to echo
the sound of our own tears. Yet they are always surrounded by tekiah (whole
sounds). This teaches us that even though our hearts have been broken we can be
whole again and, in fact, even more complete for having experienced that brokenness.
Shana Tova
Photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash
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