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.

Psalm for Wednesday and the Book of Esther

The Psalm for Wednesday is not the easiest psalm to recite.  Filled with calls for Divine Retribution and violent justice against those who oppress, it does not seem to trust human rulers to do their jobs. Crying out to the Holy One, in recent days and weeks, we have seen violence done in the name of God, hatred and malice among and between faithful of many traditions.  We have seen genocide against Christians and Jews in the Middle East and some of the last remaining Jews of Yemen (whose community has been there for 2000 years) fleeing to Israel.  Brussels, the seat of European government, has seen its supposedly multicultural and multiethnic city bombed and broken by terror and regular terror attacks in Israel have impacted tourism and everyday life.  Tonight we read the Megillah-the Book of Esther-where God’s name is never mentioned yet whose presence fills the book.  Mordechai and Esther play their holy roles and bring God and goodness amidst the chaos and the evil.  Haman is the most evil character of the story, bringing hatred and violence, yet Achashveros, is not exactly a good guy either.  Concerned only with his own pleasure, firing his first wife for being a proto-feminist (she didn’t want to dance naked on command), he signs on to the massacre of the Jews, and only allows them to defend themselves after realizing it might affect HIS life (with the death of his beloved wife).

We can easily cry out to God:

“1 O LORD, Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, shine forth.

2 Lift up Thyself, Thou Judge of the earth; render to the proud their recompense.”

(1917 JPS translation from: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et2694.htm)

Yet, one of the lessons of the Book of Esther, is that we have to act, too.  We depend on God, yet do God’s holy work HERE, NOW.

“16 Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?”

The answer to the question is God--but the answer is ALSO us.  For we have God within us.  In my first interfaith chaplaincy class, students spoke about “being Jesus in the room.”  At first it sounded absolutely absurd to me, the theology did not speak to me.  Yet over time, I found so many moments when my timing was impeccable.  I found so many times when I thought my words failed me and they hit just the right note.  We all have within us Godliness.  We all have within us the possibility of a better world.  What are we doing to activate that?  How do we bring not just God’s retribution, but God’s love?

From the Jewish perspective, it’s much easier to NOT be Jewish!  Non-Jews only have 7 Noahide Laws, while we have 613 Mitzvot/Commandments.  The last of those Noahide laws demands a court system, a justice system.  It must be functional.  It must be equitable.  It cannot treat the rich and the poor differently.  It cannot treat people differently based on color or faith.  We were strangers in Egypt, so we MUST remember the stranger.

Our system of justice has major flaws.  Different drugs result in harshly different sentences.  Money allows some to face far easier terms than others.  The bail/bond system allows some to return to their normal lives while facing trial and others to remain imprisoned--losing their jobs, their lives, and even their children.  Worldwide, we do not know how to resolve terrorism.  Are we in a clash of cultures or do we ALL need better education?  How do we balance the need to remember that every soul was created in God’s image--even if that soul wants to kill us--AND remember that no one’s blood is redder than ours--that we have a right to self-defense AND should not kill innocents.

Wednesdays, we end Psalm 94 with the opening of Psalm 95, reminding us that Shabbat is coming (as it is a psalm of Kabbalat Shabbat) AND that we should sing before God, offering our Thanksgiving.

How do we offer our thanks in an imperfect world?

How do we fix the justice system?

How do we find justice for terror’s victims?

How we stop terrorism?

Do we use an iron fist or fill our quiver with love?

None of these questions have satisfactory answers.  Yet each Wednesday we ask them.  We sing the Psalm, cry out to God, and hopefully continue to improve our answers.  Justice should be swift, but mercy must also be in our arsenal.  In the interim; let us find love in all of our hearts; let us share God’s presence with all those around us; let us find hope in the words of the prophet Micah.

ח  הִגִּיד לְךָ אָדָם, מַה-טּוֹב; וּמָה-ה' דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ, כִּי אִם-עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד, וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת, עִם-אֱלֹהֶיךָ.

8 It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the LORD doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1806.htm

Amidst the violence, the hatred, the misery in this world; there is also much love, justice and peace.  Let us build up the latter so the former does not even triumph.