Not a Normal Job
I’ve been thinking a lot about my first year in Rabbinical School 35 years ago this month. I had the great fortune this past week to be back in Israel with several of my congregants, the 7th time since October 7th. Each trip unique, each trip powerful. I left them in Tel Aviv on Wednesday as they headed up to a family wedding in the North, and then, made my way up to Jerusalem.
Like always, I took a late-night walk and visited the Western Wall and the rooftops of the Old City. Then, early Thursday morning, I made my way up the block from The David Citadel Hotel to The Hebrew Union College on King David Street and walked through the new campus entrance. There was a sign on the gate: Year in Israel Students Welcome. 35 years ago, I was that new student. As I wandered through the campus, I visited the sanctuary where I preached my first sermon, the old mail boxes to see if I had any mail from the States, (there is no need for them to even exist anymore) the Mo’adon where we would hang out and the fence along King David Street where I would park my bicycle. While wandering along the way, I stumbled upon a group of students who recently arrived and were just out of their Hebrew Placement Exam. One said it was easier than they expected, the other said it was harder. I told them both that I hoped they would be in Kita Bet, because that’s where I made my closest friends, as we were learning Hebrew. I peaked in the window and 3 were still taking the exam. That would have definitely been me, the last to finish. A few moments later, I stumbled upon a larger group of students, as some were meeting for the first time. “I’ve only seen you on Zoom, one said to the other “You are taller in person” she said wistfully.
I was immediately transported back to July of 1990 meeting my classmates for the first time. Billy looked like he walked right out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. Rick, Mark and Steve were already friends from the Bay Area. Stephan saw that I was playing with my wedding ring while talking and blurted out: “You are safe to tell that I am Gay” as we were the first class admitted to HUC that was allowed to be open. Josh was exempt from Hebrew as he had already served in the IDF and studied Talmud at Pardes. Judy, whose father was a prominent rabbi, seemed to know so much already. I remember feeling so intimidated and inadequate by everyone I met. When visiting rabbis walked through the campus, I often thought: Would I ever be one of them?
This year’s class of 25 students: 9 cantors and 16 Rabbis were delayed by a month to start their program thanks to the 12 day Iran War. My class in the summer of 1990 with well over 60 had no idea what would await us, as Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in early August and we wound up in safe rooms and bomb shelters with government issued gas masks as Scud missiles were fired towards Israel the following winter. On Tuesday morning, the day after we arrived, I was back in the shelter of the Norman Hotel at 5:47 in the morning with my congregants for the very first time in 35 years. This time we had warnings on our cell phones and received the all clear by 6am from Homefront Command. The Houthi’s had launched a single rocket, no injuries. So much was different, so much was the same.
Walking through the campus, I looked with awe at these young students meeting for the first time and realized how lucky I thought they were. Their whole lives and careers were ahead of them. They would become Clergy if they stuck with it. They were in the Holy City of Jerusalem to learn and grow and develop. They were there to challenge and question and think of who they wanted to be, and what they wanted to do, and how they would help re-shape the future of the Jewish religion. They had their entire careers to figure out how they would put the pieces of the Torah back together and re-make their own Torah by wrestling with God and with themselves. Maybe, they would learn the tools to help douse the flames of our burning world. Maybe they would be able to figure it all out. Maybe they would get to experience Peace.
Despite the challenges of the last 35 years, I am truly grateful that I am a Rabbi. While I have more questions and fewer answers than I did back then, I realize now as a rabbi, husband, father, colleague, and proud lover of Israel that I continue to be shaped by the experiences and the places that helped me become who I am. I cherish the people I met and learned from, and still learn from along the way. I walk in the footsteps of those who came before me and these students will carry on that same tradition. As we ended the book of Numbers this past Shabbat we recalled the journey the Israelites took and the 42 stops along the way. Sometimes it is good to look back to see where we are headed. For more than a decade, I carry in my wallet a laminated copy of a short essay my son Benjamin wrote his senior year of high school on being a Rabbi’s kid. He ended it with this sentence.
It’s wondering if you’d be happier if your dad had a “normal” job. And then realizing that you wouldn’t be.
Welcome Year in Israel Students. Learn a lot, have fun, stay safe, ask lots of questions and remember there is nothing “Normal” about being a rabbi or a cantor. That’s what makes this job, and this life, so interesting and so difficult.
