Seven days to home
I “left home” almost 3 months ago.
I can count on my 2 hands the number of days I’ve slept in my own bed since December 1, when I started my sabbatical. Family guest rooms, hotel rooms and ship cabins are where I’ve laid my head to pillow. Remarkably, I’ve slept fairly well!
I do not take for granted the multiple blessings I enjoy in the luxury of this experience: a long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship with a synagogue; a community that cares for the physical and mental wellbeing of its clergy; the financial resources and good health to enjoy a series of getaways and revitalizing experiences; colleagues and laypeople who are able to support our shul in my absence; a family that can accommodate my needs.
Perhaps the greatest blessing of all is the feeling I have now, with seven days to go, the feeling of looking forward to coming home.
In these past weeks, I’ve experienced cultures and vistas very different from my own surroundings. I’ve explored and deepened family relationships. I’ve even imposed upon myself periods of solitude in my efforts to understand better my relationships with myself, others and God.
As I reach the end of this life detour, I feel my chosen paths have been validated and reaffirmed. The values and lessons I’ve tried to live by and teach have guided me on a fulfilling and meaningful life journey. Along the way, I’ve been blessed to connect with so many people who have chosen to share the journey with me. And best of all, I am reminded that all roads lead back to community: to a shared sense of responsibility, purpose and destiny.
And I didn’t even have to stop for directions!
I’m ready and excited to continue our shared work. May we pave the way to a life of learning, service and kindness together.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Craig Scheff
Being Here, Being There
In the middle of teaching my Kulanu class last week, I was stopped in my tracks by one of my sixth graders who looked up at me and asked, “How can you leave us, Rabbi Drill, when you say that we are your favorite sixth grade ever?” How can I leave indeed? OJC is my spiritual home, my workplace of more than two decades, one of the happiest places for me to be. (Spoiler alert: I have told every sixth grade for the past 23 years that they are my favorite class ever.)
As you know, I announced in November 2022 my decision to retire from full-time pulpit work this coming June 2024. Every day since that announcement has been an opportunity to process what it will mean to leave this beloved community, and to be completely present to the gifts and joys of my work as your rabbi. It has been a time for us to share loving words about what we mean to each other in the context of this community.
Retiring from the full-time work at OJC will mean that I can spend more time with our ever expanding family, and be a very present Bubbe to grandchildren.
From the beginning, I have said that while I am retiring from being a full-time rabbi, I am not yet done “rabbi-ing.” To prepare for “Act Three”, I met with wise colleagues and mentors at the Rabbinical Assembly and spent six months working with an executive coach. My mentors encouraged me to talk to lots of people and ask lots of questions for a full year before making any decisions about what kind of work I might do after OJC. My executive coach helped me articulate my primary values as I considered the kind of work that I would take on. Those values are: working with a fulfilling sense of purpose, acting from a place of love, and having flexibility for life.
In January, I started seriously pursuing some of my ideas and have now established two part-time pieces of rabbinic work that I will be engaged with once I retire from OJC.
Beginning in September, I will be serving my hometown synagogue, Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, New Jersey as Rabbi in Residence, working one quarter time to teach and assist the congregation’s rabbi, Rabbi Ari Lucas, in various clergy tasks.
I will also be working as a Mentor in the JTS Rabbinical School Mechinah Program, meeting virtually to guide candidates spiritually as they prepare for Rabbinical School through a year of Hebrew and text skill preparation.
These two very part-time positions will allow me to feel useful, make the most of my strongest skills, and still allow me the luxury of time and energy for family.
And as I hope I have shown all of you day by day and week by week, until June 30, I am completely Rabbi Paula Mack Drill of the Orangetown Jewish Center.
Shavua tov, have a great week ahead, Rabbi Drill
Two Rabbis, One Voice, Three Opinions 
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