Zeh
hayom asah Adonai, nagilah v’nism’chah bo.
This is the day that Adonai has made, let us
rejoice and be happy in it. - Psalm
118:24
This verse, which Hebrew Union College– Jewish
Institute of Religion students knew as Dr. Paul Steinberg’s favorite
phrase, is read as part of Hallel on
every holiday service. The verse extols us to find the time to rejoice and be
happy in the moments that we are in—because they are special, and because we
are experiencing them.
I will admit that I, and other people in the
office, looked at this past year with more dread then anticipation. We were approaching not only a banner year
for the number of B’nei Mitzvah celebrations—but a year that doubled our usual
average—with a child of the congregation marking a Bar or Bat Mitzvah virtually
every weekend from Labor Day through the
end of June, with only a few breaks for Jewish holidays or holiday
weekends. One of the things that we
pride ourselves for at Temple Sholom is the fact that (barring twins), we
celebrate only one member of our congregation becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah each
Shabbat.
In truth, we were pushed beyond our
capabilities. Despite the yeoman-like
efforts of our office manager, Barbara Cooke, and our Fellowship chair and
Bar/Bat Mitzvah coordinator, Dani Schwab, we’re still only a small congregation
with one full-time employee. We were
blessed to bring back Cantor Sharlein in a limited-service position, but even
if we’d employed her full-time, it was a lot of work, with a new student added
every week.
We had to make some changes, often on the fly,
in our cherished traditions. Not every
student was invited or attended every classmates’ simcha –and we will have to
work hard to re-connect that community in the years to come. Some services were in the chapel, some in the
sanctuary, some at the JCC—and one service had over 400 attendees (ok, that was
my daughter—thank you again to those who were able to join us and to all of you
who have shared in our simcha. Please
save the date for Ezri on 6/18/16.). We
were constantly printing more prayerbooks, and we discovered that we can
actually fit over 200 people, almost comfortably, in our chapel.
All in all, despite the challenges and the
difficulties, I can now look back (almost) on the year and see something quite
wondrous. Even when we had to contend
with a 5K race cutting off all access to our services, each and every Bar or
Bat Mitzvah shone. Just about every
family was able to focus on the moment and celebrate, with their friends, their
family, and their congregation, and, gradually, the nervous and worried grins
on parents’ faces became smiles of pure joy.
This was indeed the day that Adonai had made, and they were there to
rejoice in it.
I consider it a privilege to be able to
celebrate these moments with you, my congregational family, whether (as I now
have been), the proud parent watching my child on the bimah, or the proud Rabbi
standing in front of the Ark with your child, passing on the millennia old
blessing of our tradition. This crazy,
chaotic year has taught me that, no matter how many times I go through it, or
whether one week seems to blend into the next, each child, each family stands
out in their own uniqueness.
As I tell your children, I begin to get to know them as they become Bar or Bat Mitzvah,
as we work on their sermons and prepare for their services. In the years that come after, as I teach them
in JU, as we travel together to Europe, I not only get to know them better, but
get to share with you the joy of watching them grow and mature.
These are the days that Adonai has made, and it
is up to us to notice—to take joy and happiness in the moment. These are the moments that we treasure and
store up to shine a light for us when times may turn a little dark. Thank you for sharing these moments with me
and with each other—as part of the family of Temple Sholom.
