Dear Friends:
Rabbis around the world love Cheshvan, the month we have just begun, because it has NO HOLIDAYS!! This past month was quite busy, as expected, with High Holidays at the Los Alamos Jewish Center, the congregation to whom I am so grateful, followed by Sukkot followed by Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah (I attended five different synagogues in three days), and to top it off, Beverly and I decided to “end” the season by going to Roswell, New Mexico, for one of my semi-regular Shabbatons.
I enjoy greatly visiting with my Jewish friends from Roswell and Carlsbad, and I think we all had fun with the discussion topic for Shabbat afternoon of Ghosts and Goblins in Rabbinic texts. Nevertheless, I’m now looking forward to some rest and relaxation. My current focus is on a planned Friday evening/Saturday morning Shabbat back at the Los Alamos Jewish Center on December 9-10 when I’ll be leading the congregation and providing a review on the mechanics of the Torah service – when do we rise, how do we recite the blessings for an aliyah, what is the etiquette surrounding the scroll, etc.
I began turning my thoughts to teshuva this year by teaching a class up in Taos, New Mexico, at the start of the month of Elul on the liturgy for this season – I’d forgotten how much I like offering educational programs at the Taos Jewish Center. My mother then joined us for Rosh HaShanah, and I dedicated my evening sermon to her, speaking on rabbinic parallels to the teachings of my parents during my youth (how does Pirke Avot address the concept of waiting an hour after eating before going swimming?). The highlight of Yom Kippur for me, unquestionably, was listening to Orli chant Kol Nidre – the only comparable thrill in past years was hearing Dov blow shofar. I thought Orli’s singing lifted the entire congregation to the level of the angels – one of the goals and images of Yom Kippur – but you’ll have to ask another congregant if you want an unbiased opinion of the beauty of that moment.
I concentrated my cantorial energies during the holidays, as usual, on evening services and Musaf, and as a result I had those tunes running through my head for weeks afterward. The formal end to the holiday season, Simchat Torah, started off on a wonderful, spiritual level with a service led by my dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Malka Drucker, at HaMakom congregation in Santa Fe. Rabbi Malka graciously allowed me to assist her as we unrolled the entire scroll in a circle of congregants and shared insights on individuals based on the parsha at his or her fingertips.
One of the great joys of being a rabbi has been conducting wedding ceremonies for former Bar and Bat Mitzvah students, and I was treated to this opportunity again in August when I served as the officiant in New York for one of my favorite “kids.” Perhaps I’ll receive phone calls from her two brothers when they decide to get married in the future!
My rabbi-ing duties often extend outside the synagogue – a notable recent example being a presentation at the annual conference of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society on the Jews in Theoretical Division at Los Alamos during World War II. I hope to reprise this talk in the future through the Los Alamos Historical Society – it was a lot of work preparing the talk but thoroughly entertaining to learn about some of the giants of physics.
Of course I just had to buy a few books to gather the information I needed – one recent purchase was a copy of The History of the Los Alamos Jewish Center by Rabbi Abraham Shinedling (1958). Keeping it company on my increasingly crowded bookshelves are a few other newcomers including A Torah Commentary for Our Times by Rabbi Harvey J. Fields (1995) and The Study of Judaism: Bibliographical Essays by Richard Bavier (1972). Lest you think that all my purchases are highbrow, I also now have a copy of Old Jews Telling Jokes by Sam Hoffman (2010), and please don’t ask me about Dr. Drobkin (he’s on page 183).
As for reading in my spare time, I’ve gotten great pleasure of late from a relatively recent Israeli novel called Thera by Zeruya Shalev translated from Hebrew into English, a memoir entitled In Search of Memory by the Nobel chemistry prize winner and Viennese-born Eric Kandel, and the graphic novel The Cardboard Valise by one of my favorite artists, Ben Katchor.
I hope the month of Cheshvan brings you (and me) some welcome reading time, and may your prayers from these past High Holidays all be answered.
B’shalom, Rabbi Jack