Thank You for the Invitations

What follows is my speech from the celebration marking my twenty-fifth anniversary at our congregation.

For this evening, I asked that we not have a parade of speeches. I want this event to be a celebration filled with enjoying each other’s company and of course dancing and perhaps some tequila. So let me honor my own request and not make this a lengthy High Holiday sermon, although like every sermon it will have the requisite three points.

First, I wish to acknowledge the events of October 7th and the difficult year we as a people are experiencing. Although on this evening our hearts are rightly filled with joy, they are also tempered like the wedding ceremony’s broken glass by this tragic and painful year. We are once again facing the dangers of antisemitic hate. We grieve. We fear for our future. Our hearts are bound to the hostages’ fates. Our compassion is sparked by the suffering of ordinary Gazans. Israel’s ongoing war chips away at our hopes each and every day. And yet I have faith that our people will once again survive these challenges.

Second, thank you to our synagogue’s leadership and especially to our current president Marty and the Gala committee and its co-chairs, Edra and Mike. I am grateful for your devotion to Congregation L’Dor V’Dor and your friendship. I have been fortunate to partner with many lay leaders so allow me to acknowledge those past presidents who are able to be here tonight and who I remain privileged to call friends: Mike, Ben, Jeff, Josh, Debbie, Marie, Lisa and Brian. Thank you for your continued support. I wish I could thank every one of you who served on our Board over the past twenty-five years and every synagogue member by name but then I would be ignoring my own request. Know that I remain grateful for your ongoing support, dedication and friendship.

Our synagogue is blessed to have a devoted staff. Li knows everyone and makes each member feel comfortable and keeps the office humming along. Ozzie, our newest addition, brings a wonderful enthusiasm to our workplace. Anne Marie continues to offer levelheaded advice and counsel. Every Friday Justyna greets me with her enthusiastic smile as she readies our sanctuary for the weekend’s activities. Jen makes teaching even the most challenging seventh grade a wonder and joy. And our cantor’s voice remains unparalleled. Talya never fails to lift our hearts with spirit and song. I am very fortunate to work alongside such a talented staff and devoted lay leaders.

I am also grateful to my parents, and in laws, who drove here from St. Louis and Baltimore to celebrate this occasion with us. I am happy they arrived here safely. My sister-in-law Sandee traveled all the way from New Rochelle and my sister-in-law Leslie from Detroit’s suburbs. And of course, my brother Michael is also here. We are the best of friends. I turn to him for rabbinic advice, but also wardrobe suggestions and cocktail recipes. I am so very grateful that my family can be here tonight.

My daughter Shira is here. Although Brooklyn can seem like a different world, Ari actually lives on a different continent. Shira and Ari did not of course choose to be part of a congregational family, let alone two congregational families, but they embraced it. They learned that for rabbis the line between work and home can often become blurred and that sometimes our congregants’ pains become our own. And Susie is obviously here. She is the voice in my ear simultaneously telling me she loves me and maybe it would have been better if I did this or that differently. I did not know this could be possible, but I am more in love now than I was then.

And now to the third point about the celebration at hand. Let me state an unspoken but obvious truth. You cannot have an anniversary celebration without two parties. Not only did I stay here for twenty-five years but you kept me for twenty-five years. And so, I remain grateful to you for calling me your rabbi and for inviting me into your lives. You ask me to be there at your best moments and your worst. And I never take that for granted. I see my calling as an enormous blessing. It is a gift with which you have provided me. Thank you.

I can experience a lifetime of memories in a week. In a single week I can dance with a wedding couple, grieve with children mourning their parent, kvell with the family of a b’nai mitzvah student, console another couple contemplating divorce, report back from a beleaguered Israel, and celebrate a birth with yet another family. It is an existence that sometimes demands too much heart. But I only know how to give all my heart.

Those of you who hired me back in 1999 saw something in me that I did not yet see in myself. Most young rabbis begin serving a congregation under the guidance of a more experienced rabbi. They begin as assistants. Although I had already been a rabbi for eight years, I spent my days teaching at the 92nd Street Y. I had not spent more than an evening or a morning in a synagogue and then only when giving a guest sermon. I had only officiated at the occasional funeral and the rare wedding. I was a teacher with some very strong ideas about the right ways and wrong ways of leading and serving a congregation but no experience putting such ideas into actual practice.

I imagine they said to themselves, “Well he seems earnest and most certainly energetic. Let’s hope he figures out the rest of the stuff.” Perhaps they also said, “He is really passionate. Let’s hope he does not upset too many people with some of his ardent convictions.” Then again, if everyone agrees with everything I say I would not be fulfilling my duty. I am called not only to comfort and cajole, but challenge. The sermon is not supposed to be about what we want to hear but what we need to hear—or to be honest, what I think we need to hear.

And yet I recognize that I could not have said any of what I said if you had not continued to place your faith in me. Thank you for affirming that friendship and agreement need not go hand in hand, that love and concern can overcome even the most strenuous of disagreements. Together we have tried to make sense of the world’s struggles. Along the way I have sought to offer some grain of wisdom, some fleeting inspiration to which we can take hold and perhaps even a different angle with which to look at a problem anew.

Together we can find meaning. It is to be found among us. Together we have discovered the power of community. We have come to understand that if a group of people stick together long enough we may not be able to overcome all of life’s challenges but the bonds we create can make them feel slightly less weighty. It’s not going to hurt any less, but it can feel slightly less overwhelming if we have each other. This is what community offers.

All we have to do is not let go of one another. And that’s what we have done. This not-so-secret power of community is what I continue to believe in and what I most endeavored to model and teach. To put it more succinctly, you can’t dance the hora by yourself!

But I have not only taught you. You have taught me.

Your tears have been my teachers. Your joys have offered me unexpected lessons. Your love and support have sustained me. We have learned a great deal from each other.

And yet, our story is still an unfinished story. There is more to learn. A lot more to say. And more to do.

Thank you for continuing to call me your rabbi and for the enormous gift of inviting me into your lives. Being your rabbi remains a privilege and a blessing.

May we continue to celebrate many more anniversaries together. Let’s dance!