Rabbi Looks Forward and Back
First Day Rosh Ha’Shanah - September 23, 2006

The wise biblical sage, Kohelet, said that there is a time for everything: “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to build and a time to tear down, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to speak and a time to keep silent.”

What is not included in Kohelet’s list is “a time to retire” - perhaps because when he wrote those words, individuals didn’t live long enough to enjoy retirement. But certainly concluding one’s career is an important milestone in one’s life. The timing is up to the individual, and I came to the conclusion that this year is the right time for me. So this is not only my last High Holidays with you as your rabbi but also my last high holidays serving as rabbi.

The most frequent question I am asked is “What are you going to do in retirement?” My full and truthful answer is that I have made no firm plans. At least in the beginning, I am going to take one day at a time. Till now I have had an interesting and satisfying life.

Like Gaul, my career has been divided into three parts. Phase I was service to a synagogue in Columbus, Georgia for five years. It was a small but warm and hospitable congregation which was perfect for a starting rabbi. I felt needed and appreciated. I knew every congregant, and I had a personal relationship with each one. It was also there, that as a personal milestone, I first tried my hand at being a father.

Phase II lasted for 18 years. It occurred in the beautiful Berkshires of Massachusetts. Knesset Israel of Pittsfield is an unpretentious synagogue with a rich program of daily worship, weekly study groups, a good religious school, a vibrant youth group and even an outstanding summer Jewish film festival that attracts hundreds of tourist each week. It was in Pittsfield where my children became b’nei mitzvah, and it was there that I experienced the nest emptying as first my daughter and then a son went off to college.

I feel privileged to have enjoyed Phase III of my rabbinic journey right here for fourteen years at the Woodbury Jewish Center. I feel honored to have been this congregation’s first full time rabbi. I am grateful to have played a role in guiding our synagogue through its growing pains and helping it achieve its status as a major Temple on Long Island. I am thrilled, too, that while serving as your rabbi, I had celebrated the marriages of all three of my children. I also had the joy of welcoming five grandchildren into my life. And, God willing, this January the number will increase to six.

Now I have arrived at Phase IV – retirement. As I stated a moment ago, I have no firm plans for what I will be doing in the years ahead. But I must admit that the prospect of heading into the unknown excites me. Until now my life has moved in neatly ordered patterns. It has had a certain design and direction. There was the comfort and security of regularity and routine. Come next September, I will move forward into a life that is fluid and flexible, where improvisation will be my daily bread and unpredictability the staff of my life.

Of course, study will occupy a large part of my day. Sitting down with books is a joy I have had too little time for during my busy rabbinic career. That will now change. I expect also to do meaningful volunteer work. And I know that come winter time, those mountains out west will beckon to me. I might even become a “ski bum” for a month or so while I still have the physical vigor. In addition, I truly look forward to – for the first time in 37 years — not having to work on Shabbes, on Shabbat – or Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. I will be a simple congregant, sitting in the pews.

But foremost among my cherished expectations is to spend whole months at a time in Israel. I first visited Israel in 1958. I was sixteen years old and Israel was just 10. I immediately fell in love with a country where being a Jew is as natural as breathing the air. Those of you who have visited Israel know what talking about. I have returned to Israel countless times since then, and I can honestly say I feel more at home there than anywhere else I have ever lived. Yehuda ha’Levi, the great Jewish poet who flourished during the Golden Age of Spain, wrote: libi ba’mizrach, va’ani b’som ma’arav. “My heart is in the east, but I am in the farthest west.” I look forward to both my body and my heart being in the East, in Eretz Yisrael.

And then there are my children and grandchildren. One price I paid for being a rabbi – or I thought I had to pay for being a rabbi – is being there for others while often neglecting my own family. To cite but one example, I have three children who went to college yet I never once went to a parents’ weekend at their college. After all, I had to conduct services at my synagogue. How could my congregants get along without me?

Thank God, all turned out well. I have a wonderful family. My three children are committed and observant Jews which gives me profound satisfaction. We all have the deepest love and admiration for each other. And yet now I see clearly what I missed by not putting them first more often. And though I can’t turn the clock back and change what happened, in retirement I will have the opportunity to enjoy many special moments with my children and their children that I lost out on in the past. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to that happening.

But enough about retirement. This is Rosh Ha’Shanah, a time for reflection and self-evaluation. It is a time to look not so much into the future as into the past. And as I come to the end of my rabbinic career, and conduct my last High Holiday services, I can’t help but reflect on what it has meant to be a rabbi.

Why did I become a rabbi? You know that in the words of an old joke – that is no job for a nice Jewish boy. Well, I beg to disagree. I think it is a great job for a Jewish boy or girl. In my sermon on Yom Kippur, I will propose that our most important striving should not be for material rewards but to live a life of significance. I chose to make the rabbinate my life’s calling because it offered so many opportunities to make a difference. I could help build a more committed Jewish community; guide congregants in creating a Jewish home; help heal wounded souls; and enable individuals to celebrate milestones in a Jewish way. I could expose Jews to the spirituality of the torah and encourage them to pursue Jewish learning. I could strengthen the American Jewish community’s ties to Israel. What could be more rewarding in life than achieving those goals – even if imperfectly?

In addition, as rabbi I would benefit from the priceless reward of knowing that I have touched people’s lives. As rabbi, you establish relationships with people who you care about deeply and who feel a special bond with you. I am so moved when congregants who realize that I am going to be off duty for half of this year, say to me, “I hope you will be here for our child’s bar or bat mitzvah. I hope you will be here for our son’s or daughter’s wedding. It means so much to have you present.”

Knowing that you have touched people’s lives such that they want you there with them at their time of great joy – or at their time of deepest sorrow – knowing that they are bonded to you and you to them – is a source of profoundest gratification. But I would be less than honest were I to say that the rabbinate has been only joy and positive feelings. A few years ago, there was a piece circulating on the internet titled the “Perfect Rabbi.

“The results of a computerized survey indicate the perfect Rabbi preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 7:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, drives a nice car, and gives $50 weekly to charity. He is 28 years old and has 30 years of preaching experience. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens. The perfect Rabbi smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls daily on congregational families, shut-ins and the hospitalized, and is always in his office when needed.”

As this piece satirically suggests, criticism of the rabbi is frequently the result of unrealistic expectations: that one person will have all the talents needed to do everything well; that a rabbi has unlimited time and energy; that a rabbi has no personal obligations to family and friends, has no right to free time, and thus should always be available when a congregant expresses a need.

Unfortunately, rabbis often internalize these unrealistic expectations with the end result that they come down hard on themselves for failing their congregants’ every want and wish. This stress spills over, making life difficult not only for the rabbis themselves but for their spouse and children. As a consequence, there is significant burn out in the rabbinate, as well as divorce and alienated children. Thank God, I was spared that tsurus, that misery, because I have been blessed, throughout my career, with congregants who appreciated what I did do for them and were gracious when I fell short because they understood that even rabbis are human and fallible.

As I look back on my rabbinate, I realize that the greatest challenge I had to face was figuring out what the role of a rabbi is in this age of individualism? You may remember that several years ago on Kol Nidre night, I spoke about “salad bar Judaism”. A salad bar is a place where each person picks and chooses what he or she wishes to put on the plate. “Salad bar Judaism” is how I describe Jewish life today where every individual picks and chooses from Jewish tradition what he or she wishes to observe. This approach to Judaism raises a significant existential conundrum for me as a Conservative rabbi who is committed to Jewish law. How can I perform my duties as rabbi when every Jew is making up his or her own version of Judaism, customizing Jewish practice to fit personal whims. As a sign of the times, in a recent survey, 2/3 of the respondents said they were offended when a rabbi told them how to live Jewish lives.

But as a rabbi, am I not responsible to uphold, preserve and teach our 4,000 year old tradition? A sign in my study states: “The Ten Commandment are not multiple choice.” Yet, clearly the Jews I am ministering to do make their own choices. Therefore, the essence of the dilemma I have faced as a Conservative rabbi is where does my responsibility lie: to uphold Jewish tradition? Or do I embrace my congregants in the multitude of their lifestyles, even when those lifestyles are far removed from Jewish tradition.

As I look back on my rabbinate, I see that I have followed a middle path. I have tried to teach, uphold and defend Jewish tradition while at the same time, I have tried to meet my people where they are. I have accepted how they are living, but with the hope that through education and by demonstrating the beauty and joy of Judaism, they would come closer to living authentic Jewish lives.

Sometimes the gap is too wide to bridge. I once got a call from a young man who asked me if I would convert the non-Jewish woman he was about to marry that week. I informed him that conversion simply can’t be done that quickly. Well, he said, he would have to be married by a Justice of the Peace. But he had one last question. He plans to be married on Friday night, which is Yom Kippur. Is that OK? Well, at least he asked.

Frankly, this problem had never been raised in rabbinical school. May a Jew be married to a non-Jew by a Justice of the Peace on Friday night that is also Yom Kippur?

To be a rabbi today requires loving Jews and accepting them as they are. However, as rabbi I have another job: to be loyal to the teachings of Judaism. Judaism has a hierarchy of ideals: the importance of the Sabbath, of lifelong Jewish learning, of keeping kashrut, the dietary laws. Judaism teaches that not all preferences and lifestyles are equally acceptable. Judaism clearly prefers marriage to the single life; procreation to childlessness; lifelong commitment to one’s spouse over divorce; marriage with a Jewish partner over intermarriage.

Because of my second role, as a promoter and advocate of Jewish values, as a rabbi I different from a secular therapist. The therapist must reflect his or her client’s values and help teach self-acceptance. As a rabbi, first and foremost, I reflect the torah’s teachings and values and help congregants move, often by baby steps, closer toward them.

Several years ago, Frank Moore Cross, Jr., a noted scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School, gave the keynote address to the graduates of our Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary. He said to the newly ordained rabbis, “Your task is not merely to give your people a sense of well-being and peace, but to mediate to them the Divine claim and to teach them to persevere in upholding the law of the Lord.”

I have tried for my entire 37 year career to uphold that mandate. I hope God will judge me, not by his strict standard, but as we all pray on Rosh Hashanah, with a measure of mercy for having done – having tried to do – my very best.

As I look back over the years, I can say that I have found the rabbinate fulfilling. I treasure the memories of all the bar and bat mitzvahs, brises, babynamings and weddings we have celebrated together. I am deeply touched by the opportunities I have had to be there for congregants in their time of sadness and crisis. I will always remember the uplift I felt in teaching courses at our Institute of Adult Jewish Studies where for many years I had as many as 100 eager learners coming to my class each week. Those moments will be a part of me always. You, my dear congregants, with whom I have shared so much, will be in my heart forever.

Pirke Avot, the Ethics of our Father’s states: lo alecha ha’melacha ligmor . . . “Your’s is not to finish the task but neither are you free from trying.” I certainly did not finish the work that must be done here at the Woodbury Jewish Center. That effort will continue under the capable leadership of my colleague, Rabbi Raphael Adler. I see a bright future for our congregation, and I feel blessed in having been a part of it these past 14 years. And I anticipate and look forward to being with you as your rabbi through this coming August.

But since this may well be the last time I will see so many of you together, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for allowing me to be a part of your lives. I want to thank you for joining with me in making Judaism a significant force for meaning, Jewish celebration and spiritual growth for you and for your families.

Here is one last thought. In one area of life, there is no retirement. In the years ahead, I have every intention to continue to grow in my knowledge of Judaism and in my commitment to its practice. I hope that there will never be a time in your lives when you stop growing as Jews. So here is my final request of you, my dear congregants. Keep climbing the ladder of Jewish observance and commitment. That would be the best farewell gift you could ever give me.

As you and I move forward into the future, may God bless us all with good health, accomplishment, fulfilment and joy.

L’shana tova teekatayvo v’tayhataymu.