Wisdom from Building Our House - May 2018

A Homeless Congregation?

Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn her seven pillars. Prov. 9:1

Our congregation is ever growing and ever renewing.  When I first arrived at Temple Sholom of Plainfield in 1999, we had been in one location for almost ninety years.  The building was large enough to fit all that we needed, but was feeling a little tired. Finding new members was a struggle, and old members were moving away.  The month before I began, the new congregational president promised that we would move to Scotch Plains by the time his term was over.  The announcement was a surprise to some; of concern to others.  We spent the next two years deciding what it meant to be a thriving congregation, and then realizing we had a decision to make - would we move, merge, or maintain?  In the end, to save our congregation, we took a leap of faith and sold our building, finally leaving in 2003, and setting ourselves up as the guests of the Fanwood Presbyterian Church.  In the end, it took fifteen years (and almost seven presidents, with one repeat) to find our new home in Scotch Plains.

In the beginning, we thought the toughest part of a move would be getting to a decision.  We thought it would be easy to move from one old building into a new one.  It turns out that you need a pretty big float of money to do that.  We needed to proceed in steps: move out to temporary quarters, sell the old building, find the right new site, purchase the site with money from the sale of the old building; raise money, get approvals, build and then walk the Torah scrolls to our new home.

Many of our current members only know us in Scotch Plains, and are surprised we have been around for over a century.  While we were in Fanwood, many of our members only remembered the church and Union Catholic high school.  Only those who have been a part of the community for more than fifteen years remember our building in Plainfield, and the leap of faith it took to begin our journey.

In our wilderness period, we constantly told ourselves that our congregation was more than a building; that our community existed without walls.  It was ironic that our congregation, which had been one of the founders of a temporary homeless sheltering program found ourselves without a home and unable to house those in need.  We used that time to change our self-image - from a congregation that hired people to do things, to one that did things ourselves; whether it was listening to a talented cantor and organist, or serving coffee at the onegs.  We learned that our congregation was only what each of us collectively contributed.  In the end, that was the only way we could build a new home, by finding the means within ourselves.

In the end, it almost didn’t happen.  When faced with the uncertainty of a large mortgage, many congregants who had joined since Plainfield wondered why we needed to make such a leap of faith.  To those older members, we were already in the middle of the leap, and we needed to find a place to land.  We felt that we were starting to be seen as the little congregation that couldn’t, and each passing year would make it more difficult to stretch out and reach our new home.  So, we gathered ourselves together, and we took the leap - and here we are.

Here we are - but our journey and period of homelessness has taught us several lessons:  We need to keep our long-term goals in mind, and keep faith with those who helped us get to where we are today.  Sometimes, we need to take a risk and to trust that we will land safely.  We need to remember that however big the journey, we only make it by helping each other take the important steps.  Our congregation - building or no - is still only as strong as its members, and as healthy as we choose to make it.  Finally, we know what it was like to be without a home, and we feel more strongly to help others in an analogous situation.

Proverbs teaches us that Wisdom built a house and set a table to attract those who would learn.  We have done the same, but the shell is the house and the table, the real attraction is the wisdom.

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham