Another View about Pew

In the past two weeks, our community has been brought together by the most intensely emotional experiences. Three congregants have passed away in the short time since Simchat Torah, each an important influence in their own way: Roz Mainelli, Eileen Darman and Larry Diamond. Each has left aching hearts within our congregation and beyond. Roz and Eileen, both vital women who lived 86 years, nevertheless surprised those who knew and loved them by their sudden passing. Larry’s death came as a total shock. At age 71 he appeared strong and healthy as recently as Yom Kippur, when he led a discussion, and on September 22, when he moderated the forum prior to the Boston mayoral primary. His sudden hospitalization and rapid decline were incomprehensible to us all. All of these losses compounded the passing of several parents of members in the past two months. We extend our condolences to their families and to all who mourn them.

This past weekend we also celebrated a major life milestone: Debi and Ashley Adams’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. Ashley and Debi chose to mark their anniversary celebration with a renewal of vows ceremony on Sunday, preceded by a special Shabbat service. Family and friends, including many HBT members, were inspired by their marital commitment to spend every Friday night together. Their love for each other, coupled with tremendous respect for the different ways they live and act in the world, gave us all reason to believe in the power of marriage to transcend life’s many bumpy roads. Our sanctuary  and social hall were filled with expressions of pure joy.

Holding sorrow and joy together may be an art, but I believe that even more importantly, it is a practice. Each requires attention to the moment. Having a community to share all of these emotional experiences is a tremendous gift.  I believe that creating space for these emotions to unfold, providing a loving community to embrace one another in sorrow and joy, and practicing rituals that draw our attention to the moment are among the key reasons that we exist as a synagogue.

Two weeks ago, I shared some thoughts about the recently published study by the Pew Research Center, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans.”  A week ago, a post by my friend and colleague, Rabbi Gail Diamond, reminded me that there is more to Jewish life than this report portrays:

When I graduated rabbinical school 20 years ago, I was happy to get a job at a 100-family synagogue that had been built right on route 95 in Attleboro, MA. We were in a growing suburban area and soon we had over 120 children in the religious school. “Demographics are everything in this business,” I thought as I watched colleagues in nearby Taunton, MA and Woonsocket, RI, struggling with synagogues in what seemed to be the “wrong” locations. “These are the problems we want to have,” I told congregants as we worked to fit all these kids into a tiny building, built 25 years prior with only two classrooms. I was wrong. In the decades since I have learned that my work and the work of my colleagues transcends demographics and statistics. What matters, as my colleague Rabbi Barbara Penzner told me back then, are moments of connection and religious meaning, and the ways in which we connect these moments together to make a whole.  (See more)

Of course, I was flattered to read Gail’s tribute. But more importantly, her message gave me hizuk, strength, as it reminded me, during a time of overwhelming stress, of what we are all about. We may not be able to predict the future of the Jewish people in America. We may not know exactly how to respond to the demographic trends. But what we all know, every one of us, is that we are here for those moments of connection and religious meaning. They may feel few and far between (and may the sorrows of our lives continue to be few and far between). However, because we have lived through them over the years, as our children grow up and we grow older, as we hold one another up through times of trial and spread our joy through times of celebration, as we talk Torah together and stand up for justice together, as we bring food to the homes of mourners and make donations to Family Table – the cumulative impact of all this binds us together into a meaningful whole.

As we often read in our siddur (prayerbook) just before the Shema:

We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled,
ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles;

We are loved by an unending love                            (Rabbi Rami Shapiro)

Whatever is in store for us, for our synagogue community, for us as individuals, or for the entire Jewish people, it is that love, we pray, that will embrace and sustain us. It certainly did these past two weeks.