YK 5773 All Good Things

Transcription

1 YK 5773 All Good Things As I doubtless have mentioned in the past, I was a fan of Star Trek from when it first appeared on network television in 1966, my freshman year in college. I was most fortunate that in my first years in Bethlehem, the original series was on in reruns five nights a week at midnight and I am certain that I saw every one of the original episodes. By the time!star Trek: The Next Generation began in 1987, I had too many meetings to watch every week, but I enjoyed whichever episodes I was able to catch. That second Star Trek series lasted for seven seasons, more than twice as long as the original, and 178 episodes. In its final story line,!capt.!!!jean-luc Picard inexplicably finds his mind jumping between the present and the past just prior to the!uss Enterprise-D's!first mission seven years earlier at Farpoint Station, and twenty-five years into the future, where an aged Picard has retired to the family!vineyard in!labarre, France. As happens very regularly on television, all worked out for the best, and the series concluded with offering the possibility of other Star Trek series, like Deep Space Nineand Voyager. The title of those last two episodes was All Good Things [and was] derived from the expression, "All good things must come to an end." That is a well-known and very accurate expression and it applies to me as much as it does to Star Trek or to anyone or anything else. And so my friends, and others, I want to tell you this morning that I am going to retire as the rabbi of Congregation Brith Sholom in the summer of 2014, a little less than two years from now. For some of you this may be too soon; for others it may be long overdue; but for me it feels just right. God willing, I will have completed thirty-nine years as the rabbi of Brith Sholom. A few leaders of the congregation have been aware of my thinking for several months and I feel by announcing my retirement now, there is an appropriate amount of time for the

2 congregation to do the necessary planning for its future. There is a year to organize and then a number of months to do the interviewing and selection of a new rabbi. It will take me all of that time to sort out and clean out my office. By making this announcement on Yom Kippur, I feel that I am reaching most of the congregation at one time, not favoring any one group or person over another. I do not intend this morning to talk about the past, other than in ways it will impact on the future. There will be time to reminisce next fall on the High Holidays. I do not want to spend a lot of time talking about myself, but only want to share a few items so as not to have to tell everyone individually. Toby and I intend to stay in Bethlehem. We own our home, we like our home, and while people may not give it much thought, Toby s job is based in the Lehigh Valley. Until we have some reason to move, we will remain here. Some may wonder why I am retiring while my health is good and so many professionals are continuing to work into their late sixties and early seventies. For one, I am a strong believer in making way for younger colleagues. The Conservative Movement is shrinking and the number of available pulpits diminishing. Young men and women are being ordained every year both at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and at the Ziegler School in Los Angeles. Someone will come here with new ideas, new approaches, new energy, new insights he or she deserves a place to go and you deserve to experience their vitality. And while there are aspects of the rabbinate I will miss, there are also several I will happily give up. I will no longer have to say NO to all kinds of ideas and requests which I think either contradict Conservative Jewish tradition as I understand it, the Brith Sholom community as I understand it, or common sense as I understand it. It is not always easy to say no, and often very uncomfortable to do so; but nonetheless

3 necessary. I will be happy to come home from a car ride and not look with anticipation at the phone answering machine afraid that it will be blinking with a message of sad news about someone. I will be happy to read a book, a newspaper or magazine, hear a lecture, experience an event in the life of one of my children or my granddaughter without thinking if it is relevant to a sermon, d var Torah, Bulletin article, HaKol or newspaper column, or some other utilitarian purpose. I will be happy to leave town for a day or a week without fearing that someone will die and, if I am unavailable, will be disappointed that I am not here to officiate. Or that if I make myself available, then I will be disappointed. I do not think that these realities are different for any other member of the clergy, rabbis or cantors, ministers or priests. There is only the question of how long any of us chooses to live with these issues. But even more important than what I will be giving up, is what I hope to gain. I want to be there when my granddaughter, Kayla, has her first dance recital, or gym performance, or concert, or little league game without having to find coverage or feel guilt. I want to attend grandparents days at school. I want to take walks with her and go to the movies and I also want to be available for other grandchildren if Toby and I are so blessed. Clergy, like some other professions, are never done for the day, and I have had to miss all kinds of events in the lives of childhood friends and, more importantly, my family. It is time for me to play the role of husband, father grandfather and brother before all else. I have no specific plans at this time other than that my first priority will be straightening out the papers, pictures and knick knacks that I have accumulated. This will remove a burden from my children who will not need to do the extensive sorting my sister and I have been doing with the STUFF left behind by our parents, grandparents and

4 other relatives. I also plan to do a better job of keeping up with the weeds in my garden. Rabbi David Wolpe wrote: Human attempts to peer into the future, to borrow a metaphor from philosopher J. L. Austin, are like a miner s hat. A small area is illuminated in front of us so we can adjust our footing. Yet when we project far into the future, darkness reigns and the shadows deceive. The only way to know more of the future is to move forward; with each step the light advances and the next patch of ground becomes visible. I have no special ability to project far into the future, but there is some light that past experience has shed on the transition that is soon to occur here. These changes are never simple. Change is inevitable. Change is neither inherently good nor bad it all depends on the change being made and how it is received. This congregation and its leadership need to spend time in the coming year to decide a general direction for its immediate future. Like the miner s hat, none of us can see too far ahead and inevitably there will need to be some balance between constancy and change. I want to raise a few questions this morning, not to give answers, but simply to begin a thought process about some topics and issues. What is the role of Jewish denominations today? Study after study shows that many young Jews just want to be labeled as Jews. The claim is that we are living in a post denominational era. What does this mean in terms of Brith Sholom being a Conservative congregation, or as the new terminology prefers, kehilla? When I grew up, when I studied for the rabbinate, the guiding principle of Conservative Judaism was tradition and change firmly rooted in Jewish law, halachah. Conservative Judaism avowed that the Torah was both min hashamayim, from the heavens, Divine in nature and yet had

5 been put together in its final form, more than two thousand years ago, by a masterful editor, known as the Redactor. We believed that Judaism developed and adapted. That created a need to be familiar with not only the ancient and medieval texts, like the Talmud and Shulkhan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law, but also with modern responsa as well as current trends in sociology and psychology and critical thinking. These concepts mattered to most Conservative Jewish professionals, but whether they ever mattered, or were understood, or were of any interest to more than a handful of lay people has never been clear. Conservative Judaism has shrunk and is shrinking. If you want to read the evidence, I suggest you go online and look for the articles, I will not take time this morning to prove it. Reform Judaism is now the largest movement in the United States and, ironically, Chabad and the unaffiliated seem to be the two fastest growing Jewish phenomena. I think it is not unfair to say that the vast majority of this congregation has a more liberal approach to Jewish law and tradition than I do. That is not really unusual in our movement. The question is: what will you expect of the next rabbi, since this one is not going to be changing much in the next two years. It may be appropriate to look for a more liberal thinking rabbi with the hope that he or she will appeal to more younger Jews, unaffiliated Jews, or even to many of those here today. That is for the congregation to decide. But I want to share my perspective on the past few decades. There are already four, liberal congregations in the Lehigh Valley: two in Allentown, one in Easton and one right here in our building. Brith Sholom is first and foremost, but not exclusively, a Bethlehem synagogue. As many of you sitting here today realize, it also has appeal to Jews living in Allentown, Easton and several smaller communities. With very few Jews moving into Bethlehem, what will attract new members while still appealing to the current

6 membership? While Brith Sholom may be unique for many reasons, our religious posture niche has been to be a bit more traditional than the other two Conservative congregations in the Lehigh Valley. I have no way to predict if this will serve the congregation well in the future. But there is no guarantee that any change will attract the unaffiliated. There are some changes that could profoundly disturb some of our current members. For what it is worth, Jewish law has the principle: bari v shema, bari adif if there is a certainty and an uncertainty, the certainty is preferable, or as we might say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Hoping to get the unaffiliated to join, or the less committed to come to services, are very worthwhile goals, but probably not if you loose those who are already members and committed. It s something to think about. My guess is that the next rabbi will have different interests, skills and perspectives than I do. I have no idea if she or he will care about house matters or proof reading, or other Lehigh Valley institutions like Jewish Family Service or the Institute for Jewish- Christian Understanding. But even though I have no idea whom you will select as my successor, I suspect I do know some things about him or her. So while I am confident that the community will resolve its expectations of a new rabbi, let me speculate a bit on what a new rabbi is likely to expect of you. The rabbi will expect that you are hiring a new rabbi, not a couple or a family. If the rabbi is married, his or her spouse may well have a career of their own and may not be as involved in congregational life as rabbinic spouses have been, not only for the past decades, but for the past century. The new rabbi will want to impact your lives. That desire will doubtless include some of the priorities from the items on your list of expectations. But what about some of the items on the rabbi s list that may not be on the congregational list? The rabbi will be interested in kashrut, not only here in the synagogue, but in your homes and maybe in

7 your eating with him or her in a restaurant. Will anyone who does not already have a kosher home be prepared to become kosher? At the very least, I would recommend not regaling the new rabbi with a description of your favorite shrimp recipe or where the best fresh lobster may be eaten. He or she doubtless will smile politely, but recognize that there is very little chance to make an impact on the sanctity of your eating preferences. And even if kashrut is not the new rabbi s thing, we can all anticipate that increased attendance on Shabbat, the High Holidays and festivals is every rabbi s thing. How do you think a new rabbi will feel when she or he sees the sharp decline in attendance on the second day of Rosh Hashanah? How do you think he or she will feel when congregants do not even realize it is Shavuot or that Shavuot is a major Jewish festival? How do you think the new rabbi will feel when she or he realizes that even retired people who come regularly on Shabbat morning, do not attend on the festivals, even for Yizkor? I can assure you that this rabbi does not feel good about these developments. I would also not regale the new rabbi with your shopping plans or the errands you are going to run after services on a Shabbat or festival it s TMI way too much information. The new rabbi is doubtless going to offer new adult education classes. Will the day and time just never be right for you? Will the material covered just not be what you wanted? Will his or her teaching style just not be quite right for your learning style? Or will you just plain be too busy to attend? How do you think the new rabbi is going to feel about these excuses? On average, today s rabbis are spending at least nine years in undergraduate and graduate school; some of them ten or more. I doubt that much of that time is spent on learning what temperature setting is ideal for the sanctuary heat pump. The new rabbi will want to excite you with his or her insights into Jewish tradition,whether it is pouring over an ancient text or Jewish yoga.

8 I already wish my unknown successor all the best. I will not have invested 39 years of my life to see Brith Sholom do anything other than soar to new heights as a congregation. I will support the new rabbi the key question is: will you? Brith Sholom will be in a very good position in its search for a new rabbi. I think it will be a buyers market. We have a beautiful building and sanctuary which are not as old as many synagogue buildings and we have done our best to maintain all the major systems and components. We have a reasonable endowment, more than many synagogues not only of comparable size, but even larger. We have a morning minyan on Mondays and Thursdays, and a strong Shabbat morning. We have a chevra kadisha. The Lehigh Valley remains a good location on the east coast, not far from Philadelphia, New York and even Baltimore. There is a Jewish Day School near-by and a modern mikvah and a clergy group that includes the rabbis and cantors of all denominations, a rarity in the United States. There are plenty of opportunities for interfaith activities, colleges where one may find quality music, lectures and classes. But in the final analysis YOU the congregants will determine whether a new rabbi will make an impact and can feel good about his or her position. To me, that, not the selection process, is the greater challenge. All good things must come to an end, but my retirement does not mean that all good things are coming to an end for Brith Sholom. It just means it is time for me and for you to move on to the next stage of our lives. Hopefully we, like the crew of the USS Enterprise, can continue to go and explore places and experiences where no one has gone before. Kayn yehi ratzon so may it be God s will. AMEN