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Shabbat Morning Remarks

11 Elul 5774
6 September 2014

Lanski Window LeftLast spring I began to experience something, while interviewing, that I now experience on weekly if not daily basis:  I was asked, "Why did I become a rabbi?"  There are several underlying questions that elicit the rabbi question, beyond an interviewer getting to know an interviewee (or a new community getting to know their rabbi).  The first is because it is fairly unique to meet a rabbi, so the question arises simply out of curiosity.  Second is the person who asks out of bewilderment.  This is more than just curiosity, it asked by someone who means well, but simply finds this choice of career bizarre.  Lastly, and the reason most often behind asking this question, is the person who assumes that one would become a rabbi because of some monumental experience.  This person, I think, assumes I had a miraculous recovery from a terrible illness, or a difficult childhood where my synagogue was my safe-haven, or my rabbi was like a surrogate parent, or that I attended Orthodox day school and a Yeshiva.  These questions are fair and are well intended, but they do not apply to me.  But let me tell you this story.

In the fall of my senior year of college, I attended a prospective students' weekend at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  A group of 20‑25 people came to learn about rabbinical school, meet the faculty and deans, and get to know real live rabbinical students.  This group looked a lot like my future classmates:  fellow seniors in college, a handful of 30 year‑olds who worked in various organizations before succumbing to the rabbinic itch, second-career students, a handful of Jews‑by‑choice, and a cadre of openly gay individuals who had only recently been able to apply to JTS.

On Friday morning we sat in a class called Biblical Exegesis, which to my untrained ears did not sound very rabbinic.  On Shabbat afternoon we sat with all of the deans, who in a matter of weeks would begin reading our applications and essays. Rabbi Daniel Nevins, the dean of the rabbinical school, asked each us to go around the room, introduce ourselves and say why we were thinking of becoming rabbis.  The answers were similar to the assumptions that inform the question I spoke about before (illness, close relationship with rabbi, transformative Jewish experience, love of Martin Buber).  Then it was my turn.

Whether it was the tension I felt or shear stupidity, I thought it was my obligation, my right to lighten up the mood. So what did I say?

I said I decided to go to rabbinical school because I had put my name in the NBA draft and no one picked me, so… rabbinical seemed like the right thing to do.  Dead silence, not even a nervous laugh.  Sure, I had picked the wrong room to make a sports joke and, after six years at JTS, perhaps the wrong institution to make a joke in general, but I thought it was worth at least a smile.

But as I was thinking about what to say for this talk, I parsed out this experience.  Perhaps what was underneath my joke, what lay underneath my fear of exposing my feelings and vulnerabilities, was a discomfort with the question.  I was blessed with a childhood filled with wonderful memories, I did not love (or always love) going to shul, and thank God I was a very healthy child.  Ask me later about my time at Orthodox Day School.

When I was asked why the rabbinate in my interview, I said what I thought was the truth.  I said how at the end of my senior year of high school I had a meeting with my guidance counselor, with whom I was very close—she introduced me to Ilyssa.  Also in the meeting was a teacher who had helped guide me through Niles North and my parents.  I had no idea what I wanted to do!

My guidance counselor, Beth Ross, said, "You should become a rabbi."  Wow, a rabbi?  The thought had never crossed my mind.  Sure I knew rabbis from my time at Solomon Schechter, and I knew other rabbis who also loved Israel.  But I did not know any rabbis who could hit a backhand down the line, nor did I know any rabbi who appreciated hip‑hop.  But since everyone around the table agreed including my teacher, one Brandi O’Brien, I thought they must know something I don’t.

My answer continued with how I went to college and majored in psychology but was not crazy about it.  I liked the clinical aspects of psychology; I loved being with people, and that was really it.  During the summers I went to be on staff at Camp Ramah; and I began to see Rabbi David Soloff, then the director, no longer as the authority figure I wanted/needed to steer clear of but as a visionary, as the craftsmen of my formative years.  I also opened my eyes to the influence that our rabbi, Sam Fraint, had had on my family.  And, while I did not understand it at the time, my Aunt Benay had a profound impact on me.

As the light was coming into focus in the tunnel of my college experience, I realized Beth Ross was on to something—the rabbinate was the right choice for me.  And in March of my senior year, despite my poor attempt at humor, I got accepted to rabbinical school.  In six years I learned so much.  I entered as an empty vessel and left being nowhere near filled or complete but I got a taste.  I got to taste the fruit from the tree of our tradition.  And perhaps more importantly, I was surrounded by teachers and classmates who inspired and always challenged me.  I had great mentors and … I got to serve the Fitzgerald Hebrew Congregation, a community in South Central Georgia that offered me their tradition and their wisdom.  They allowed me to use their shul as a lab for my development.  So much of what I am able to give is because they were willing to teach me.  This is what I told the people who were sitting around the table during my interview.  This was a truthful answer.  But I now think it was only a partial answer.

Way back when I first started (two months ago), we read Parashat Ma’sei, the end of the Book of Numbers.  The parahsa begins by saying, “These are the stages of children of Israel, who started out from the land of Egypt.”  It continues by saying that Moses recorded everything that had happened to the Israelites since leaving Egypt.  Everything!  But what is amazing here is that there are events recorded in this chapter that have never appeared before in the Torah.  This chapter in Numbers is not simply mentioning the highlights, the transformative experiences that made Moses/that made the Israelites who they were.

These were not throwaway events—since they are mentioned, we are forced to reconcile ourselves the fact that they are indeed important; these need to be examined and studied.  And what I gleaned from this brief and seemingly unimportant chapter in the Torah is that our lives and our identity are evolving.  We know the Sinai moments; we recognize the instant significance of the Golden Calf moments; but the events that seem insignificant that precede and follow those monumental moments influence and shape us in profound ways as well.  Yes, I had a good relationship with my rabbi, I went to Camp Ramah, and I learned a little Talmud before I decided to go to rabbinical school; but there were a lifetime of experiences and people that made me who I am and led me to choose rabbinical school.  But there will be a lifetime of experiences and people that will challenge me to be a better rabbi as well.

So where does that leave me?  Where does that take my rabbinate?  And where does Congregation Rodfei Zedek fit into all of this?

My path to the rabbinate has not been a straight line; it does not look like a graph with very obvious influential moments high above the seemingly mundane ones.  My path has not been fully carved yet—the trail is still unknown.  But the path has come to an important trail marker, and that marker is asking me to identify my vision.  I have graduated from working solely on myself.  No longer am I being asked to learn in order to receive a title:  my rabbinate, my ambitions, and our tradition are demanding that I set out on a path of meaning that goes beyond myself.

I want to live, work, and be in the Jewish community.  I want to be a part of a synagogue that will serve as a microcosm for a better Jewish future.  We have the potential for that here at Rodfei Zedek.  This is not a politician giving a speech; this is not pandering.  In a time when synagogues, especially Conservative ones, are in peril, we have the opportunity to be the model.  We have the opportunity to be Scout Leaders carving through woods to create a new path towards a vibrant and meaningful Judaism.  This community is filled with leaders, with implementers, with visionaries and scholars.  Some communities have excellent Torah readers, some have great programmers, and some have great teachers—we have them all.  We just need to use these resources.  We need to use them to better each other.

I want, in any and every way I can, to democratize Judaism.  I want to use the experiences and influences that led me to become a rabbi to inform what I teach.  But, just as important, I need to use those same experiences to inform how I learn.  I need you to be willing to be my teachers.  I need you to allow me room to grow, and I need you to challenge me.

We need to ask ourselves, as a community, how do we achieve this lofty vision, how do we create staying power for the future?  By talking to and eating with each other.  That is no joke—these are two things that every Jew is already good at.

I did not become a rabbi to say you need to do X.  I am not here to say my Judaism is right and your Judaism is wrong.  I am not here to say you need to keep all 613 mitzvoth of the Torah.  We have 613 mitzvoth in order to spread them around; no one person is responsible for all of them, and no one person can ask you to keep all 613.  But I am asking you to find the mitzvoth that work for you and challenge yourself to reflect upon the ones that do not.

And I am here asking you to talk to each other.  Talk to each other about which mitzvoth speak to you and which do not.  Talk about your favorite Philip Roth book, talk about (argue about) Israel, you can even talk about the Cubs!  Let’s just talk together!

Like most synagogues we have many different communities within the larger community; but unlike most shuls, these communities are all under one roof.  The road to our future is clear:  we need to talk to each other, we need to share Shabbat meals with each other.  We need share kugel at baby namings, and we need share kugel at a shiva house.  Congregation Rodfei Zedek will become a model for Jewish life when we are able to live under the branches of our individual community while knowing and appreciating that our branches are all connected to the same roots.

When a community looks one way it is oppressive.  When we are asked to check our brains, our hearts, or our critiques at the door, we not only lose a sense of who we are but we lose the wisdom of our tradition.  And a community that asks for conformity is a community that I want no part of.  I came here because it is a community that values ideas, that tackles our tradition head on and strives for intellectual honesty.  We all have a different idea for how our Judaism should be practiced, and that is a good thing!  I will never ask for these differing ideas to change in order to accommodate how I think our community should look.  But I am asking that we come together to share a passionate vision for how we can help and further each other’s paths towards a fuller Judaism, a richer community, and life of meaning.

Rabbi David Minkus

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