Shofar Sivan/Tammuz 5770
Jewish Family Congregation www.jewishfamilycongregation.org
June 2010
From the Rabbi’s Desk By the time you read this, the 20th anniversary of my changed a lot since I was a student. But the best learning rabbinical ordination will have come and gone. And that experiences were my student pulpits, where I learned by means that it has been 25 years since I went to Jerusalem doing, and these remain at the core of rabbinical training. to live for the first year of rabbinical school. How time Sometimes, ever since school, I have found myself wishing flies! that I had paid more attention, or elected different opI left a career in the Canadian civil service to go to rab- tions, so that I would be better prepared to do specific binical school. I worked for the Department of Transport, parts of my job. But I suspect that I would have felt the Air Administration, as a trainer (the Canadian government same way, regardless. favours promotion from within its ranks, and provides the The most important part of the job of a 21st century Retraining in-house to bring employees up to standards for form rabbi is something for which there is no training supervisory positions), and was at the point where, to fur- ground. I consider it my primary function to convey the ther my career, I would have had to take an immersion beauty and depth of Judaism, and to do so with joy. I see program to become fluent in French, so that I could work around me too many Jews who grew up learning about the in both of Canada’s official languages. I chose instead to restrictions and limitations that (Orthodox) Judaism imlearn Hebrew, in rabbinical school! poses, so that they have never reached the delight and Many people have asked me…from richness of our heritage. These people the day I announced my plan to beJudaism is relevant to every part of remind me of the secular Israelis, who come a rabbi… why I did this. It was, our lives, and that does not mean reject Jewish religious practice because after all, a long time since I had been in the only version of it they see as legitiadopting an Orthodox lifestyle. school, and I had a career and a life. mate is Orthodoxy. But the truth is that the things that really matter to me I want to teach that Judaism is relevant to every part of were relegated to the periphery of my life because my our lives, and that does not mean adopting an Orthodox job, which I actually enjoyed, did not address those lifestyle. I came to Reform Judaism because I saw hypocthings. And I wanted to make the important things cen- risy around me in the practices of those who claimed to be tral to my life every day. “Orthodox” or “Conservative”, but violated the absolute So I went to rabbinical school. The first year, in Jerusa- requirements of those branches of Judaism by driving and lem, was a tough slog because I was challenged by the shopping on Shabbat, eating treyf outside their homes, and school to learn Hebrew in the most advanced class, and so on. Reform allows us to make choices about our pracwhile I struggled, I know that it paid off handsomely in tice so that it can be consistent with our intellectual posilater years in the program, and ever since, too. I remem- tions. ber when we came to the middle of third year, and we had It saddens me to realize that so many Jews today cona “hump” party, since that is the middle of the five year sider religion somehow “old-fashioned”, irrelevant to their program. We also concluded, that evening, that “rabbi” lives. They are missing out on the extraordinary intellechas five letters, and that we acquired one each year; but tual adventure that Jewish texts provide, and the beauty that night we only had the top half of the first “b”!! that rituals can add to life. As it says in Gates of Prayer There are a lot of things that one doesn’t learn in rab(our old prayerbook), “there are many days off, but few binical school, of course, even though the curriculum has (Continued on page 18) From the Rabbi’s Desk The President’s Message Service Schedule Oneg Schedule Early Childhood Center The Religious School Social Action Committee Donations to JFC
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