On saying goodbye

This is a very strange month for me. As I prepare to depart from Newburgh and Congregation Agudas Israel, I am beginning to contemplate my new life in St. Petersburg with Congregation B’nai Israel. I wonder what will be the same and what will be different? What will my responsibilities entail? How will I be welcomed and how will I ensure that the synagogue there is a place of welcoming for all?


This too is a journey!

As I ponder those questions, I have been working on the challenging text of winding down here. I have been trying to keep up my normal working activities, while also making extra efforts to make phone calls, meet in person, sit down and talk to the people of CAI. For the last seven years, they have been by my side in so many different ways. We have studied Torah together, prayed together, shared celebrations and mourned together. As I go about these coffees, lunches, dinners, meetings I have become overwhelmed by the words of kindness I have heard. I have discovered that small gestures on my part have been received as larger than life by their recipients. A phone call, a text message, a Facebook post, a hospital or home visit.

For me, these are what I imagine is expected behavior from a rabbi. Our job, our career is study, prayer, inspiration, but most of all, it is to be present with the souls of those around us. The job is not just what we put down on paper or in the ether of the internet, but in the human interactions that are far harder to tally. I might have made lists of the thousands of phone calls, hundreds of visits, and far too many funerals, but instead we all have our respective memories.

Through it all, I am most grateful to my beloved. She has stood by me through interrupted dinners, evenings, nights. She has known that those “interruptions” were sacred moments, calls to be with people in their brightest and darkest moments. Being a rabbi is more than a full time position. My phone is always nearby. Even on Shabbat, we can be reached via the doorbell. None of this would be possible without her support and her love. My work is in my office and yours, in my home and yours, within the community in so many different ways. As I say my goodbyes around town, I discover that within the community I am a (very) minor celebrity, that my gestures of goodwill have been well received.

All in all, I am grateful for the time I have spent here. For me, Newburgh and CAI was a place of personal, spiritual, intellectual growth. It was a place where I took the theory of my education and turned it into practical ministry, practical rabbinics. Sometimes I made mistakes, and I hope that I took responsibility for them, that I learned from them. I have never claimed to be perfect, but am always striving to be better, to build a kesher, a connection with Gd and community.

Leaving is bittersweet. New opportunities beckon, new adventures await, yet the love I have for this community will always remain. CAI and Newburgh are holy places. They have been an essential part of my rabbinic journey. I pray for the strong, bright, vibrant future of these holy communities.

Gratitude: the intersection of faith, politics and psychology

The Hudson River

The other day I was catching up on my podcasts, listening to Freakonomics with the title “Why is my life so hard?” http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-my-life-so-hard/ 

Using psychological research called the headwinds-tailwinds asymmetry, they spoke about how many people find their lives more difficult than they need to be. We frequently discount the positive factors in our life and focus on the negative. While evolutionarily this might have had some use, ensuring that we are aware of threats to our existence, in our modern lives this can be a challenge. The result is that we all carry an unnecessary burden. We assume our political party is handicapped by the electoral college. We imagine our team’s schedule disadvantages them. We protect ourselves in work or school by claiming we didn't have enough time or study enough.

Amazingly enough, there is a very simple solution:gratitude. Keeping a gratitude diary, meeting weekly with someone to share our written thanks can change everything. When I think of my faith, much of the effort is on reminding us of the importance of giving thanks. We are encouraged to say one hundred blessings a day, to find gratitude from the biggest things to the smallest. To appreciate our family,  to appreciate our very existence. To notice the flowers in bloom, the sun shining, the water flowing.

Some days the world can seem dark.  The news can seem uncertain, yet even in the depths of our despair, there is much to be grateful for.  This gratitude may even inspire us to action.  How can we ensure that those who do not have enough to eat are supported?  How can we help the homeless find a place to live?  How can we help those without medical care have it?  We might be reminded by the dozens of time in the Bible where it says variations of “do not mistreat the stranger” or “love the immigrant” because “you were strangers in Egypt”.  Every single human being on this continent came from somewhere else--whether 1 year ago or 50,000.  The gratitude that we should feel to those that came before us just might make us appreciate those trying to survive here now.  

Gratitude can change our lives--but appreciation can help us transform the lives of others!