Rabbi Janet Marder

May 31, 2009

Sunday Night, May 31, 2009

Frieda and Kathleen, thank you for those words of introduction, and for creating this wonderful evening, along with your entire committee – it is the pinnacle of an incredible weekend of celebration. It was so clear to me that every part of this festive weekend was sensitively crafted to reflect the things that I most value: beautiful singing; inspiring worship; a Shabbat afternoon full of activities that nourish mind, heart and soul; great food, including 50 delicious cheesecakes, traditional for Shavuot; the chance to hear Shelly, Betsy and Rachel speak such beautiful words; and of course, the element that you knew I would most enjoy: a slideshow, with giant pictures of me projected over an entire hotel ballroom.

My deepest thanks to all of the volunteers whose efforts brought us the gift of an unforgettable weekend; to all of you for your generous participation, for the wonderful tribute book which sustains our congregation and touched me deeply; and especially to the person who presided over this entire mammoth project with awesome organizational skills, unflagging enthusiasm and the most delightful smile: Mandy Eisner.  What a difference you have made in the life of our synagogue.

Some of you, I know, did not get a good look at my family on Friday night, and have asked that I point them out again, as you have some probing questions to ask them about my personal life. So once again I’d like to ask them to raise their hands: my wonderful parents, Alan and Irene; my aunt Barbara and her partner Mort; and my siblings Cathy, Bill, Nancy, Linda and Sheri. Thank you for your presence in my life, tonight and always.

And as for the two special guests who are with us this weekend, Rabbis Lennard Thal and David Saperstein…I must confess that words fail me. That will not stop me from continuing to talk, of course. What can you say about two men, prominent national leaders of the Reform movement, rabbis who are learned, eloquent, admired and respected by so many…These rabbis accept an invitation to come across the country to Congregation Beth Am to honor a colleague; a quiet, shy person who has known them for more than 30 years, and has worked for them faithfully, and has always looked up to them, as men who are wiser and much, much older….

As I was saying, I have always looked up to these rabbis – not in the literal sense, of course – few people could make that statement; but I have idealized them, with the most touching naivete, and put them on a pedestal…and then they come out here to California and stand before you good people on the most important night of my life and take this opportunity to mock me in front of my congregation.

There is a word for people like that, but I would not say it in this distinguished company. Perhaps “chutzpah” is the kindest word that comes to mind. Or maybe… “ingratitude”? I will have to go home and consult my thesaurus.

Later, when I have recovered from the trauma of this evening, as I trust I will, with the love and care of my family and some extensive psychotherapy, I am sure that I will be able to forgive Rabbis Saperstein and Thal. In the mean time, it seems only fair to retaliate.

It is peculiar, first of all, that the two of them are friends. They are so very different – perhaps it is their shared insensitivity that unites them. Very different, as I was saying. Very different men – and I mean this in the clinical sense, with the greatest respect.

Lenny, you should know, is a deeply compulsive person, fanatically preoccupied with details and minutiae, which give him a sense of control over his world. An assistant knows these things. Many’s the time when I would be awakened at two in the morning by a call from my boss, who had suddenly recalled that there was a semicolon out of place in a memo I had written. Again and again I would beg him to forget the trees and focus on the forest, but, as is often the case with obsessive personalities, he was impervious to reason. To survive in the Thal environment, it was necessary to collaborate in the madness and reassure him that his concerns were important, even valued by the rest of the world. Only then would he calm down and be able to function.

David, on the other hand, exists in a very different universe. Where Lenny is annoyingly focused on precision and order, David is forever teetering on the edge of chaos. As a young intern, I remember driving his car around Washington , DC – its interior a mess of old pizza crusts, piles of laundry and discarded memos from Lenny. David looks well put-together when he goes out in public, but it takes an army of personal assistants to manage the pandemonium of his inner life and keep him on track. He lives on the slippery edge of the fast lane that is the American rabbinate – and he is by far the most colorful and disreputable of those crazy characters who run the Reform movement. I won’t say that his approach to life is careless, or slipshod, except to assure you that I know, for a fact, that David prepared his remarks for this very special evening as he was mounting the podium to speak. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

How then did I manage to learn anything at all from this oddly assorted pair of rabbis? It’s a mystery. But somehow I have managed to carry away from our association, from watching them and listening to them over the years, a concern for integrity, both intellectual and moral; a genuine affection and care for others; and especially a sense of persistence and staying power.

Both of them, in their different ways, have been doing work of the highest caliber year after year; serving the Jewish people without ever growing casual or cynical or bored, mindful always of the noble purposes for which they strive. Maybe that, in fact, is what unites them and lies at the foundation of their friendship – that, and their ferocious intellect, wit and forgiving spirit. I am grateful to both of them for teaching me, and inspiring me, and honoring me tonight with their presence.

My last words this evening are about my colleagues at Beth Am, and about you. Over the course of my career people have asked me, now and then, what I find hardest about being a rabbi. I have answered, candidly, that it is a kind of loneliness. When you are a rabbi, you know that what is central and sacred for you – the practice and preservation of Judaism – is tangential to the lives of many of those you serve. They are not captivated, as you are captivated.

It is a blessing, then, to do your life’s work not alone but in the company of others who share your ideals and your commitments fully; who understand and feel what you feel, who make you laugh; who bring their energy and encouragement and all of themselves to the challenges of renewing Judaism in the 21^st century.

The people who work with me at Congregation Beth Am are a treasure, separately and together. They are quite different in their personal styles, but all of them are devoted to doing their work with excellence. They are smart and talented and kind, and they have put up with a fair amount from me – for you see, through some weird genetic mechanism I have inherited a mixture of Lenny’s annoying obsessiveness and David’s disturbing disorganization. I am very grateful to every one of them.

For the same reasons, I am grateful to you who are members of this amazing community. Because there are so many people here at Beth Am who care about what I care about, and give themselves to creating a place that embodies love of Torah, love of people, and doing God’s work in the world. Because of you I am not lonely in this community, and I have partners who bless my life every day.

Because of you I can fulfill the mandate of our tradition, which says that when religious leaders say the ancient words of Birkat Kohanim they must pronounce the blessing “b’ahava” – with love for their people. A leader who does not feel that love is not permitted to say the blessing; it must come from the heart.

Tradition also tells us that when saying the blessing we should lift up our hands because our task is to lift up the community through our own earnest effort and example. And we are taught that when the blessing is said on our festivals, such as Shavuot, which has just passed, the people are supposed to think about their dreams, and pray that all their dreams be fulfilled for good.

Ten years ago, in May of 1999, when I was about to leave my position in Los Angeles , I was honored by the Fund for Reform Judaism with another special evening. This afternoon I looked at the tribute book produced on that occasion, and I found there a page inscribed in gold with these words:

Kol Hakavod

Mazal Tov

To the many years to come

Imagining our future together

Congregation Beth Am

Los Altos Hills , California

That night in 1999, looking at those golden words offered to me by my future congregation, I could not know what you would mean to me, or how I would come to care for you. Dreams were all I had then, and dreams are what you brought to me. Ten years later we are still sharing our dreams, working to bring them about, praying that all of them will be fulfilled for our good.

Because they are beautiful dreams, I say to you tonight: my future is here, with you; and in the many years to come it will be my honor to lift up my hands and to bless you with love.

Yevarechecha Adonai v’yishmerecha

May God bless you and keep you.

Ya’er Adonai panav eleicha vichuneka

May the light of God shine upon you and within you

Yisa Adonai panav eleicha v’yasem lecha shalom.

May God be with you always and give you peace.