Mitzvah Day by the Numbers and So Much More
Sunday, November 20 at Orangetown Jewish Center was a hub of activity as mitzvoth of every kind were accomplished. One way to try to describe the day is by the numbers. Our annual Breakfast Run brought 18 large bags overflowing with new and gently used coats, clothing, socks, and toiletries, together with a warm breakfast, to people who are homeless in NYC. This mitzvah was accomplished by 18 hearty volunteers from the age of 15 through 75.
34 congregants were blood donors who helped save over 100 lives in total!
Over 20 children of all ages who handcrafted 40+ colorful Thanksgiving turkey decorations to share with residents at The Esplanade, and 40 congregants, young and old visited with Esplanade on the Palisades residents, singing and interacting with them.
6 Chumash miracle workers mended the book spines, covers and pages of 34 Chumashim that were in disrepair.
12 Rhoda Bloom Kosher Food Pantry packers stood in the cold to load boxes of donated kosher food into recipients’ cars. OJC also collected 70 cans and boxes of food for the Rhoda Bloom Kosher Food Pantry.
10 participants learned with Rabbinic Intern Ilana Sandberg and 8 giggling yogis, raising funds to benefit The Rockland Pride Center.
18 congregants learned with Rabbi Dahlia Bernstein about making every day a Mitzvah Day and 30 Phone Buddies connected and celebrated at the Chesed Committee’s tea party in memory of Madeline Roimisher.
90 homemade muffins, 14 children’s coats, and various children’s clothing and shoes were delivered to the Martin Luther King Multi-Purpose Center in Spring Valley and Proyecto Faro in Stony Point.
Almost 20 knitted and crocheted hats and scarves will be gifted to The Rockland Pride Center Youth Program for the December holidays.
So that’s one way to understand the day – by the numbers. We can also understand the day by the emotional experiences and amazing moments felt by everyone participating: the joyful noise of a room full of children creating a craft for an elder, the power of Amichai’s guitar and children singing as Esplanade residents sang and swayed… and some even danced, the full room of people donating blood, the quiet concentration of repairing sacred books, the delight of two congregants meeting face to face for the first time after being phone buddies for two and a half years.
But I actually have another way to comprehend Mitzvah Day 2022. As the building filled with people, as we worked side by side to make this world a little bit better, we all remembered something. We remembered who we are.
For me, Mitzvah Day reminded all of us at OJC that we are who we think we are. And I thank God for that on Mitzvah Day and every day.
With friendship, Rabbi Paula Mack Drill
Antisemitism Hits Home
I’ll just say it in a straightforward manner: I was completely shocked.
Perhaps I should not have been. Like you, I read every day about the uptick in antisemitic actions and bigoted verbiage on social media. Maybe I should have been shocked that I am almost 63 years old and this is the first time I have been a target of an antisemitic incident.
I was enjoying a Shabbat walk in the OJC neighborhood, strolling down Lester on my return to the Scheff house at about 3:45 in the afternoon. I looked like any other neighbor out for a walk, sneakers, shorts and a T-shirt . . . except that I had a kipa on my head.
A dark navy Jeep Wagoneer passed me on the street, windows down, and filled with teenage girls, maybe three or maybe four.
The girls screamed out the windows as they passed me, chanting, screaming horrible curse words punctuated with “Jew.” After two very long sentences were spewed, they broke into wild laughter and drove on.
Teenage girls just having a fun afternoon?
Only after they were out of sight did I realize several things. First, my eyesight was not good enough to see the license plate except to know that it was New York. Second, they were chanting in unison, in rhythm, clearly words that they had chanted before. And third, I was shaking. I felt victimized and angry. I honestly did not feel afraid, but I felt emotionally violated in our sweet, quiet neighborhood.
In my world, the words “shut up” are considered curse words. I do not like hearing curse words and tend to feel it as a punch in my body. The words that these girls used felt like a powerful blow.
It took me another short while to realize that I had just experienced a bias incident. It’s strange how our minds work, trying to protect us from the stark reality.
Today, 24 hours later, I am thinking about appropriate reactions. The incident has already been reported both to the police and to our own security team at OJC. I have made a solemn promise to carry a phone at all times, even on Shabbat, for safety sake.
And sharing the experience in this blog feels particularly important to me. If you have students in middle school or high school, please share this blog with them. The girls in that car are in their peer group. They certainly go to school with some of our children. Make sure that your children know that they should tell you or a responsible adult about anything of a biased or antisemitic nature that happens in their school or social circles, even if it seems insignificant to them at the time. Children might tell you that their “friends were just kidding.” We must educate our youth about what is funny, and what is most certainly not.
And finally, remember Rabbi Scheff’s and my teaching about being proactive rather than only being reactive when it comes to prejudice and bigotry of any kind. We can all make alliances in our own way; knowing our neighbors, participating in civic events, being curious about other minorities. We can show our Judaism proudly for the many beautiful ways in which it teaches us to be good neighbors and citizens.
I am truly fine. And I am also more motivated than ever to be a positive and educative force in our community.
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill
A little more Purim fun before she’s back
The following is a reprise (slightly edited) of a blog I published seven years ago. I figured I’d share it again in the spirit of Purim before Rabbi Drill’s return from her sabbatical tomorrow. Enjoy!
Growing up on the mean streets of New City, New York, I learned the hard way what it meant to be Jewish, short, skinny and unable to jump higher than 8 inches off the ground. In other words … wait for it . . . “scrappy” was my game. The experience hardened me to the outside world’s cold reality. A jaded, chip-on-my-shoulder, eat-or-be-eaten attitude pervaded everything I set out to accomplish. I learned to control most of my impulses, assuming a mild-mannered, soft-spoken persona everywhere I went. Everywhere, that is, except on the basketball court. Between the lines, I could be myself, let go of my inhibitions, run wild, heatedly pursue, charge at the hoop, display my bumps and bruises as badges of honor. Ironically, all that pent up anger, frustration and aggression that found its expression in my game was lauded as something good, something to be admired and copied.
Those of you who have seen me play over the years (with the 9- and 10-year-olds at recess, especially) have called me competitive, like a Mr. Hyde to Rabbi Jekyll. What you see is nothing, however, compared to the dark madness that once lurked in the soles of my high-top Converse sneakers (the white canvas ones). That’s just me having good, clean fun. Once I retired from competitive hoops at the age of 28 (the year I started rabbinical school), the cloud that once enveloped my heart lifted, and the beast was gone forever. Until . . . .
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill, who’s been with our OJC community for 20 years now, began her professional relationship with me at Camp Ramah in Nyack some 22 years ago. She was Program Director as I was Assistant Director, and Assistant Director (a position formerly also held by our own Rabbi Ami Hersh, the topic of another Purim spoof one day soon) as I was Camp Rabbi. We always had a great, easygoing, complementary style of working together. From Day One, people referred to us as the “Craig and Paula Show.” That relationship carried over into her internship here at the OJC, where I functioned formally as her mentor for the Seminary. The day she was ordained was a great day. I should have known something wasn’t quite right, however, when she informed me that her JTS GPA was .0185 higher than mine.
That single fact was the beginning of a disturbing pattern. Two-letter words like “XQ” were suddenly making their way into our Shabbat Scrabble games on triple word scores. She would casually mention to each congregant we met that she was older than me, taller than me (she took up heels), and could stand on her head longer than me. She would give her students colorful stickers and point out that I offered them nothing for their efforts. At the end of a day’s work she would ask me how many hours I had billed, as she filled my e-mail inbox with cc’s of every e-mail she sent out. I lashed back by working later, sleeping less, and leading more trips to Israel. I could feel the old Craig emerging, and it wasn’t pretty.
Rabbi Drill’s popularity has grown over the past 20 years. As has my therapy bill. But I have learned how to control the beast. Looking in the mirror each morning, I remind myself that I am good enough, that I am smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. Then I steel myself for the day ahead, trying to appreciate how good each day can be with Rabbi Drill at my side.
And then I pray . . . for the moment I will get her on the basketball court.
Happy Purim to all, and welcome back Rabbi Drill with us this Shabbat! Rabbi Drill, Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise–I’ve missed you and the many ways in which you enrich each of us and our community!
Rabbi Craig Scheff
Humans Plan and God Laughs
I look forward to every Shabbat, but I was particularly excited for this past Shabbat. My daughter Sarah was flying in with baby Carmel and they were planning to come to synagogue with us. During services we were celebrating the auf ruf of Marisa Kelly and Josh Rappaport whom I have known since they were young. And I had prepared a sermon about Lekh L’kha that I was excited to give.
Humans plan and God laughs, they say. Sarah arrived with Carmel at Newark Airport at 3:45 am. We were so happy to greet them, but as the day continued, it became clear that Sarah‘s congestion was not a simple cold. As she felt worse and worse with what turned out to be a serious nasal infection,* it became clear that we were not going to Orangeburg and would be staying home in West Caldwell for Shabbat. “Don’t worry,” I told my friend Sharon, the groom’s mom. “I’ll be logged in to the webinar so you’ll know I’m with you.”
On Shabbat morning, as I approached my computer screen for morning services, however, I realized something was the matter. Once again, humans plan and God laughs. The screen from the synagogue was on mute and the service was completely silenced. I realized that there must have been a disruption to the zoom webinar overnight and proceeded to pray by myself. Of course, I was disappointed not to hear the blessings recited by Marisa and Josh, and sad to miss Rabbi Scheff’s words of Torah. But I quickly came to terms with four interwoven truths. 1. It was Shabbat. 2. There are limits to technology. 3. We are still living through a pandemic. 4. We are a community committed to halakha.
These four points describe the creative tension, the push-me-pull-you nature of OJC and these strange times in which we are living. Throughout the pandemic, we have pushed the halakha to its outer boundaries to enable our congregants and guests to gather and still maintain the integrity of our sacred community.
I understand the disappointment of all those who want to gather for Shabbat. This past Shabbat is not the first time that service has been interrupted for virtual worshippers. Why couldn’t a mistakenly muted microphone be fixed with one tap of a finger? So many of us know intellectually that the answer is clear: in our synagogue, we don’t use electricity, a modern adaptation of the original command to light no fires on Shabbat or holidays. We understand that every opportunity has been protected for those of us who want to gather virtually and maintain this basic Shabbat law.
It’s in our hearts and souls that we don’t want to accept the “imposition” of halakha. Emotionally, it certainly feels that the gathering itself is the ultimate value.
To those of us who respond in this way, I ask the following questions: What is it about OJC that calls you to gather with us and what does gathering really mean?
Think about it… we choose to participate, support and identify with OJC for some reason. What is it?
For me, OJC’s call is anchored in the eternal values that constitute our mission: Torah, prayer and loving kindness. We hold up those values in service to God and community. But the magic of OJC is that we live the mission and the values with integrity. I believe that our synagogue is a beloved community because we stand for something bigger than ourselves and our own individual desires.
And whether it’s in person or virtually, why do we gather at all? Why is it so important to us that we are very disappointed when we are not able to gather? Author Priya Parker (priyaparker.com) defines gatherings in her acclaimed book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Her words describe the OJC. She writes: “Why do we gather? We gather to solve problems we can’t solve on our own. We gather to celebrate, to mourn, and to mark transitions. We gather to make decisions. We gather because we need one another. We gather to show strength. We gather to honor and acknowledge. We gather to welcome, and we gather to say goodbye.”
Our gatherings are essential. Zoom minyanim, Kabbalat Shabbat in the Lot, Sisterhood programs, Men’s Club tailgates and Na’aseh events, Kulanu classes and Shabbat morning in synagogue – all allow us to connect to God and to each other face to face or through our virtual grid.
There are limits to our virtual community, as our failed technology last Shabbat proved to be true. There are also limits to our community in person, as we await the time when all congregants are safe to gather once again.
As we continue to figure it all out and to negotiate the push-me-pull-you of health and halakhic requirements to preserve our sacred community, two things remain true: First, it is worth the struggle because we at OJC love to gather. And second, I imagine that God takes pleasure in watching us struggle to find our balance as we try to get it all right. I can imagine God saying, “Now there’s a community involved in debate L’shem Shamayim, in the name of heaven.”
(*A special note of gratitude to Dr. Jonathan Lesserson whose professional skill and healing, gentle kindness put Sarah on the road to a refuah shlayma, a complete healing.)
Shabbat shalom, and may it truly be a Shabbat of peace,
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill
A kingdom of priests
Do I turn to God more often from a place of distress, or from a place of contentment?
For three weeks in January, Lindsay Goldman, a third-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a long-time member of our synagogue community, challenged her students (that includes me!) to consider their relationships with God. In her third session, she posed the question above. Nearly all the participants, not so surprisingly, responded that they turn to God most often when they find themselves in need.
These past months have presented so many painful moments, and I can certainly understand why people would be moved to prayer for Divine intervention, healing and equanimity. Our traditional liturgy reassures us that “God is near to all who call, to all who call upon God in truth” (Psalm 145). In those moments of distress, we are given words to use when “Help me, God” doesn’t come so easily: “From the narrowest places I have called out to You; answer me in your Divine expansiveness” (Psalm 118). And the tradition reassures us of God’s presence: “God is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit” (Psalm 34).
As we call to God from our pain, we are told that God is near us, embracing us in our pain. Yet, while we may be assured that God hears our prayers, God’s reply is more difficult to discern. Does God intervene to relieve us of our suffering? Does God bind our wounds? Or is God’s answer to be found in our knowing that we are heard, that we are not alone, that our “healing” at some level will emerge from the relationship we share with God?
I have revisited my response to Lindsay’s question numerous times in the last days. And on a snowy day in February, I return to my answer again. Safe and warm, with a stocked refrigerator and a phone that can connect me to the other side of the globe, with family and friends who offer voices of support and comfort, I turn to God in gratitude.
Personally, I rarely call out to God from a place of distress. When I am in need of strength or comfort, I turn first to the other people in my life—my family, my friends, my community. They are my strength, my comfort, my healers. Their presence lifts me, and their love is the source of my resilience. I don’t call out to God in need, perhaps because I recognize that God has given me—in the form of the people in my life—everything I need to endure, find meaning, heal and persevere.
Perhaps I choose to put my faith in others in my times of need because my personal experience has been one of others putting their faith in me. In my role of rabbi, I have been charged with the responsibility, and have been granted the privilege, to step into many of those moments when others find themselves in pain. Although even friends and family are left wondering what they can do, I am empowered by the ritual of our tradition, the wisdom of our sages and the trust of a community to be among the primary responders to people’s crises. My experience has reinforced my belief that, in the midst of hardship, people must step into the breach to bring relief. God’s listening ear brings one measure of comfort, but the work of our hands will deliver God’s love. Especially for those who feel alone in the world, it is incumbent upon each of us to offer those hands in care and kindness.
In this week’s parsha, Yitro, God expresses the hope that we will be to God “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). The Hebrew word for “priest” is kohein, and is more accurately translated as “minister.” Like that English word, the Hebrew word carries the connotation of service (as in “to minister to the needs of others”). God, then, expects us to be a community of individuals who minister to each other’s needs. In doing so, we become holy. In my mind, being holy means that we carry with us God’s presence. It is this holiness I choose to make note of in my world, day in and day out, in the simplest of kindnesses and the most common of beauties.
It is this practice of gratitude—acknowledging God in moments of peace and thanking God when I recognize blessings—that has conditioned me to see the presence of God through the goodness of others.
In the Talmud, we are taught: “And I shall pray to you God at a time of favor. When is it a time of favor? When the community prays” (Berachot 7b).
I find my comfort, contentment and calm in community. I find my energy, uplift and inspiration in community. I thank God for you all every day, whether we connect personally, virtually or at the level of the soul. From a place of love, appreciation and joy.
Rabbi Craig Scheff
Under the Wings of the Shechina
It is a unique command of Judaism that we not only remember but must experience history as if we were a part of it. The Passover seder instructs us about the Exodus from Egypt as if we ourselves were slaves in Egypt. Soon at Shavuot, we will once again stand at the foot of Sinai to receive Torah. At each moment in our Jewish lives, ritual bypasses our intellect and goes directly to our hearts, requiring us to remember and re-experience. We fulfill this mitzvah of remembering well, we Jews.
But then Yom Hashoah arrives each year. The command to remember becomes so painful that it takes our breath away. We weep for what we never knew, or as Sister Maureen of the Dominican Ministry said today as we gathered to dedicate our Shoah Memorial, we feel physically ill. With regard to the Shoah, the command to remember requires opening our hearts only to have them broken.
When Rabbi Scheff began teaching his sixth graders about the Holocaust this year, he brought them to the front door of the synagogue and asked how we remember things that we never experienced. He showed his class our memorial, then under construction, and asked them how we should remember.
Today, one hundred and fifty of us dedicated our memorial, thanking Dr. Larry Suchoff and the Holocaust Remembrance Committee for their perseverance and passion to see the project to fruition. Survivors, children of survivors, guests, nuns from the Dominican Sisters, congregants old and young, all gathered to hear shofar blasts and to dedicate ourselves to ensuring that we remember as a community. “Never again” is a goal toward which we will continually strive.
Today, Rabbi Scheff’s sixth graders showed how well they had learned the lessons he taught them. Students read short biographies they had written about survivors who are or were members of the OJC. Each student ended his or her brief statement with: “It is an honor to know you.” Spouses and children accepted the simple statements of these eleven-year old children as gifts. I watched the faces of Frieda and Marie as they listened to their stories being told, and I saw fresh grief, but also validation and hope.
From today forward, we will sit on the benches, reminiscent of train tracks. And we will look at the mosaic which depicts either six candles or six chimneys, depending on your understanding. We will teach and meditate and rest in the sunshine. And we will cherish the wall art chosen for the memorial where under the wingspan of the flying bird, our OJC logo, we read: tachat kanfei haShechina, under the protective wings of God’s Presence. And then, we will enter into our sanctified home knowing that we must act in every moment with remembrance in our hearts.
Through the night and all through tomorrow, we will pass by the memorial and quietly enter the sanctuary where six memorial candles burn as we fulfill our ritual of Keepers of the Flame.
For how long do we need to read and teach about the Shoah? Until the end of days. Until then, we will follow the command to remember m’dor l’dor, from generation to generation. Today’s sixth graders will one day teach their own children.
May Yom HaShoah call us to actions of love and understanding and the overcoming of hate and fear. As Frieda Seidner said, as quoted by her biographers today, “The key is to love all people, but love our people most of all.”
May the memory of six million be sanctified and remembered. Rabbi Paula Mack Drill
Read more and watch the video on LoHud News: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2017/04/23/orangetown-center-dedicates-holocaust-memorial/100695178/
Making a Minyan because of Kindness
My teacher, former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Dr. Ismar Schorsch, likes to say that the requirement of a minyan is the secret of Jewish survival throughout the centuries of dispersion.
Every week in News You Need to Know, we remind you to fulfill your obligation to attend a morning or evening minyan.
Every OJC member is assigned a number which represents the day of the month that one is required to attend the minyan at the synagogue.
With regard to a prayer quorum, we singularly use the language of obligation and responsibility. On the one hand, these words are appropriate. Gathering ten to say prayers that praise God’s name publicly is a mitzvah, a commandment of Judaism. On the other hand, perhaps we should instead employ the language of loving kindness. Gathering for a minyan provides a setting for chesed (loving kindness). How so? One of the most painful elements of modern life is a sense of isolation and loneliness which it can foster. A minyan just might be an antidote. I formulated this idea over the past week as I davened with different kinds of OJC minyanim.
Last Tuesday morning, ten of us gathered at Esplanade on the Palisades to make a minyan for Estelle Sollish, our much loved congregant who recently moved there. Bringing the minyan to her was a sign of devotion and our desire to ease her transition to a new living situation.
On Thursday morning as we stood at the Torah, one of the people of the minyan added the name of a loved one during the prayer for healing. The tears in his eyes bespoke a concern and worry that he was not yet able to articulate. But the minyan allowed him a safe space to be vulnerable.
On Saturday afternoon I chanted the words of the memorial prayer on behalf of a congregant’s mother whose twentieth yahrzeit falls this week. As I prayed that her mother’s neshama would have an aliyah, I saw that the gathering of fellow congregants gave her permission to express her grief even after all these years.
Last night there was a minyan at a shivah house. As the family gathered close for comfort, the arrival of fellow congregants brought the sure sense that they were not alone.
Admitting what we need, asking for help, showing our vulnerability — can lead us out of isolation and into community. A twenty-minute prayer service can accomplish all that. Mark Nepo has written: “As water fills a hole and as light fills the dark, kindness wraps around what is soft, if what is soft can be seen.” It is indeed the obligation of a community to create minyanim so that people can pray together. I have no doubt that Dr. Schorsh is correct in his estimation that the minyan has kept the Jewish people together. But perhaps the most important reason for a minyan is that gathering together allows others to be vulnerable, to know one another, to seek a path away from loneliness. Gathering to be one of ten allows us to be our very best selves through this act of loving kindness.
Purim fun, or not?
Growing up on the mean streets of New City, New York, I learned the hard way what it meant to be Jewish, short, skinny and unable to jump higher than 8 inches off the ground. In other words … wait for it . . . “scrappy” was my game. The experience hardened me to the outside world’s cold reality. A jaded, chip-on-my-shoulder, eat-or-be-eaten attitude pervaded everything I set out to accomplish. I learned to control most of my impulses, assuming a mild-mannered, soft-spoken persona everywhere I went. Everywhere, that is, except on the basketball court. Between the lines, I could be myself, let go of my inhibitions, run wild, heatedly pursue, charge at the hoop, display my bumps and bruises as badges of honor. Ironically, all that pent up anger, frustration and aggression that found its expression in my game was lauded as something good, something to be admired and copied.
Those of you who have seen me play over the years (with the 9- and 10-year-olds at recess, especially) have called me competitive, like a Mr. Hyde to Rabbi Jekyll. What you see is nothing, however, compared to the dark madness that once lurked in the soles of my high-top Converse sneakers (the white canvas ones). That’s just me having good, clean fun. Once I retired from competitive hoops at the age of 28 (the year I started rabbinical school), the cloud that once enveloped my heart lifted, and the beast was gone forever. Until . . . .
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill, whose thirteen years with the OJC we are celebrating this Purim, began her professional relationship with me at Camp Ramah in Nyack some 15 years ago. She was Program Director as I was Assistant Director, and Assistant Director (a position now full-time held by our own Rabbi Ami Hersh, the topic of another Purim spoof one day soon) as I was Camp Rabbi. We always had a great, easygoing, complementary style of working together. From Day One, people referred to us as the “Craig and Paula Show.” That relationship carried over into her internship here at the OJC, where I functioned formally as her mentor for the Seminary. The day she was ordained was a great day. I should have known something wasn’t quite right, however, when she informed me that her JTS GPA was .0185 higher than mine.
That single fact was the beginning of a disturbing pattern. Two-letter words like “XQ” were suddenly making their way into our Shabbat Scrabble games on triple word scores. She would casually mention to each congregant we met that she was older than me, taller than me (she took up heels), and could stand on her head longer than me. She would give her students colorful stickers and point out that I offered them nothing for their efforts. At the end of a day’s work she would ask me how many hours I had billed, as she filled my e-mail inbox with cc’s of every e-mail she sent out. I lashed back by working later, sleeping less, and leading more trips to Israel. I could feel the old Craig emerging, and it wasn’t pretty.
Rabbi Drill’s popularity has grown over the past 13 years. As has my therapy bill. But I have learned how to control the beast. Looking in the mirror each morning, I remind myself that I am good enough, that I am smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. Then I steel myself for the day ahead, trying to appreciate how good each day can be with Rabbi Drill at my side.
And then I pray . . . for the moment I will get her on the basketball court.
Happy Purim to all, and I hope you will join our community in celebrating Rabbi Drill’s 13 years with the OJC and the many ways in which she has enriched each of us and our community!
Rabbi Craig Scheff
On the third night of Chanukah, my rabbi said to me…
A past-president of our synagogue, Nohra Leff, once said to me, “I don’t just believe in miracles, I EXPECT THEM!” What a great way to go through life. Expecting miracles means that we engage in behaviors that ultimately create an environment where what some perceive as the “miraculous” becomes that much more possible.
In the fall of 1995, I took a job as part-time cantor at the OJC. Still a full-time student and father of two young boys, I treated the job like it was the fulfillment of a dream. A year later, I was negotiating my first contract to be Student-Rabbi and to stay on as Rabbi after my ordination. I was advised by people “in the know” to avoid such a commitment. After all, the synagogue had gone through so many rabbis in its relatively short history, and I “could do better,” according to the more experienced. Three years later, another past-president, Michael Scolnick, would ask me how long I thought the honeymoon could last. I am glad to say that, even in my 20th year, I still feel like we met just yesterday. Okay, maybe just the day before yesterday.
When I speak to rabbinical students in their final years at JTS, I try to emphasize that every synagogue community has the potential to be a place that can be transformed and re-dedicated to Torah, service and deeds of loving kindness. That can only happen, however, if the rabbi is willing to see him or herself as spending the rest of their professional life serving that one community. If we invest ourselves in a plan believing that we have only two years to work toward achieving our goals, then we doom ourselves to failure; but if we invest ourselves planning for the long term, we can create an environment where the seemingly impossible is indeed achievable.
In the midst of Chanukah, we consider the nature of miracles, and the role that “dedication” (the literal meaning of the word Chanukah) plays in making one day’s worth of oil last for eight, or in leading one small band of soldiers to victory against overwhelming odds. I am so proud of what we have achieved and how we have continued to grow as a Conservative egalitarian community. Beyond our impressive numbers, we have attained a level of learning, service to the broader community, participation and spirit of which we can all be proud. The dedication that has brought us to this place in our history, however, has also given us the wisdom to understand that we must continue striving to build and to deepen relationships; to reach in to our membership and to reach out to those still searching; to develop more pathways into our OJC community, into a life of purpose and meaning, and into relationship with God; and to lookto the future with faith, optimism and vision. Some people might call our success a miracle. Perhaps we have witnessed something miraculous as a community; if so, the miracle only happened because of the wise people–presidents, boards, volunteers, congregants, professionals and clergy–who were looking for one, who expected one, and who acted to create the environment where such a miracle could take root.
Chag Urim Sameach,
Happy Festival of Lights,
Rabbi Craig Scheff
Mitzvah Mission 2014, Day 5 – Israel is real
Amid such a day of recognizing that Israel is indeed a real country with real problems, our final stop was among our most rewarding. We descended to the southern end of the Western Wall as an egalitarian community. We prayed the mincha (afternoon) service together, adding prayers for our congregation, the State of Israel, and those suffering illness. We sat together among the ancient stones and offered blessings of thanksgiving for the experience we had shared, we shed a few tears, and we offered each other warm embraces.
Before any of us had departed for the airport, we had already begun planning the mission for 2015. It will be celebrated as a special mission, in light of the fact that it will be our 10th consecutive annual trip. And just in case you wanted to know, the dates are November 15-20, 2015. Wanna come?
Two Rabbis, One Voice, Three Opinions 
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