When the time comes for God to get back directly involved in our ancestor’s lives, God first has to introduce Godself to Moses. In Exodus chapter 3, God tells the story that we are used to, “I am the God of your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God begins by defining the past relationship, and then explains what is keeping God up at night - the crying out of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. God wants to end that suffering, and reaches out to Moses to be on the team.
I have been doing a great deal of learning about “community organizing”, including a training that I attended this summer. As well, my spouse, Michelle, as part of her work for the Union of Reform Judaism, took a course out of Harvard with Marshall Ganz, one of the premier organizers of our time. Needless to say, our dinner table conversations have been lively. Ganz talks about the “story of self”, which organizers use in a one to one meeting to explain their own and to learn others’ self-interest. The key component to organizing is relationship, and the building block of relationship is the sharing of stories.
This past month, our Board of Trustees had a mini-retreat, which we started by telling our personal stories of how we came to Temple Sholom. I was almost one year out of rabbinic school, and had been traveling to a small congregation in Wheeling, West Virginia, as their interim rabbi during their 150th year. I had flown to West Virginia, after I had learned that several of the congregations that I was looking at had decided to go through student placement with HUC as better odds. By the time I landed, the Director of Placement had let me know that a 300 family congregation in Plainfield, NJ was interested, and wanted an interview. After a quick phone interview, I came in person to the Temple in Plainfield for an interview the next week. The Temple had not been happy with any of the previous candidates, who didn’t seem to quite fit.. I had one strike against me, when I said I did not want any of the proffered seltzer which was the only refreshment offered. However, once we started talking, things went better. As I remember it, when I said that I had grown up in a small congregation down the road, and so I knew suburban New Jersey Reform Judaism, a wave of relaxation went around the table. The next week, I was offered the position, and I have been here ever since (over 23 years, so far).
When I told that story (about telling my own story in that interview), I realized that most of the people in the room (other than Susan Sedwin, who had been at the interview) probably did not know how I started at the Temple. Other than Pam Brander and Susan, everyone else in the room had joined our congregation since I had been the rabbi. As I learned the stories of the others in the room, I realized how important it was to share mine as well.
We strive to create a haimische community here at Temple Sholom. We also do that through relationship. Some of that relationship is built sitting together in services, watching children together in religious school, making meatloaves, building the sukkah, or even just stuffing envelopes or delivering Rosh haShanah goodies together. Shared activity is another building block of relationship, but to do that, you have to choose to be present. And, when you are physically present, you have to choose to be personally present, by sharing who you are and what you care about.
These High HolyDays, make the effort to reach out to someone else in the congregation. It can be the person sitting next to you, whom you may never have met, or had a conversation with, or it could be someone you’ve spent time with, but never had a chance to share your story. Take that moment to share your story and then be a respectful listener and listen to theirs. Take it in. Appreciate their story and appreciate what brought them to this place to share with you. I would love to share stories with you - let’s make a time to do so.
Moses is pushy. He keeps asking God, “How will I introduce you to the people? What name shall I use?”. In the end, God finally says, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh - I will be, what I will be.” Once we know each other, we can move our congregation to that point - to move what it is that we could be, to what we will be.
L’shanah tovah,
Rabbi Abraham
