More Than a Bulletin

Every Thursday afternoon, after the week’s visits have been made, emails answered, sermons revised, and the rhythms of synagogue life begin to settle into the anticipation of Shabbat, I sit down to prepare what many would consider one of the most ordinary tasks of the rabbinate. The weekly bulletin.

For fourteen years, almost without interruption, I have prepared that bulletin myself. Most people understandably see it for what it is intended to be: a practical guide to the coming Shabbat. It contains announcements, birthdays, yahrzeits, upcoming programs, a Torah reflection, and artwork inspired by the week’s parashah. It is designed to serve for a few days before making room for the next week’s edition. Or so I thought.

Recently, it occurred to me that something else has quietly been happening. Those hundreds of weekly bulletins have become far more than a means of communication. Together, they have become the living chronicle of my Synagogue. Within their pages lives the story of our congregation. There are the names of children welcomed into the covenant and of B’nai Mitzvah standing before the Torah. There are weddings, anniversaries, and dedications. There are the faces of beloved friends we have mourned together. There are the difficult months of the pandemic, the anguish of October 7, celebrations of Israel, community milestones, and countless moments of joy, uncertainty, resilience, and hope. Week after week, without intending to do so, we have been writing the history of a sacred community.

Looking back through those pages, I made another discovery. They have not only recorded the life of the Synagogue. They have also recorded my own journey as your rabbi. The earliest bulletins reflected a younger rabbi eager to explain the Torah. The more recent ones reveal someone increasingly fascinated by a different question: How does the Torah help us see ordinary life differently?

Today, a World Cup ceremony may become a lesson about ritual. A family saying grace before a meal may open a conversation about gratitude. A treasured heirloom may become an invitation to reflect upon what truly endures. The Torah has not changed. I have! Or perhaps, more accurately, the Torah has continued changing me.

People often imagine that the work of a rabbi consists primarily of preaching sermons, officiating at weddings, comforting mourners, and teaching Torah. Those are indeed among our greatest privileges. Yet I have never believed that the sacred ends there.

Long before I entered the rabbinate, I was captivated by technology, communication, design, photography, and the many ways ideas could be presented beautifully and thoughtfully. Rather than leaving those interests behind, I gradually discovered they, too, could become instruments of Jewish life. Designing a bulletin. Creating educational presentations. Producing artwork. Maintaining our website. Preparing newsletters. Even solving the occasional computer problem. None of these appear in the traditional job description of a rabbi. Yet I have never experienced them as distractions from my calling; rather, they have become expressions of it.

Over the years I have come to believe that there are no insignificant acts of service. Preparing a sermon and adjusting a projector before services may seem worlds apart. To me, they belong to the same sacred task. Both are acts of hospitality. Both help create an environment in which people may encounter Torah.

There is a beautiful verse in Bereshit describing Abraham and Sarah as they leave Haran. The Torah tells us they departed with their possessions and with “the souls they had made in Haran.” Our sages understood those words to mean the people whose lives they had touched, the relationships they had cultivated, the faith they had inspired. I have always found that image deeply moving. The measure of a life is not ultimately what we accumulate. It is the people we gather. The relationships we nurture. The community we help build.

As I write these words, we are already preparing for another High Holy Day season, another year of learning, worship, celebration, and discovery together. The calendar will soon turn. Another quarterly bulletin will be filed away. Another year’s worth of weekly bulletins will quietly join those that came before. Most will appear ordinary. I hope, however, that many years from now someone will leaf through those pages and discover something more. Not simply announcements. Not merely schedules. But the story of a congregation striving, week after week, to build a sacred community. For that, ultimately, has always been my hope. Not simply to prepare bulletins. But to help build a synagogue where Torah is studied, lives are shared, friendships deepen, children and grandchildren find their place, and every person who walks through our doors knows they have come home. 

For in the end, I have never thought of my Synagogue as simply the place where I serve as rabbi. It is the community in which I have grown alongside all our members. And for that privilege, I remain profoundly grateful.