Rabbi, be nice!

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a shul rabbi, asking for advice on dealing with a particular type of congregant. The characterics of such a congregant are that (s)he is: influential in the community, known to be a baal chesed (generous person), and eager to spread complaints and gossip about the rabbi behind his back. The congregant doesn't complain to the rabbi, such that the rabbi could address the issues directly. So what can/should the rabbi do?

My advice was for the rabbi to ignore the gossip and be nice to such a congregant, for the following reasons:

1) You won't win a mudslinging fight, both because you know better and because you will be seen as defensive;

2) Trying to hunt down the mudslinging will be frustrating and ineffective, and make you look unhealthily weak and insecure even if that is not reality;

3) People who see that you are good to him may come to recognize that his comments are unfounded;

4) You see yourself as a baal chesed - it's one of the reasons you entered the rabbinate. Pursuing this with hostility will only make it hard for you to look at yourself in the mirror;

5)  In time, being nice to this person will help you come to see him in a positive light, and his comments will bother you less.

I don't know that this is the best advice available, but it's what I can come up with. What would you advise?

Wanting to do the right thing

Today I saw a Forward article on a rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue in Maine, Akiva Herzfeld, who wanted to 'do the right thing' for Rabbi Goldfinger, formerly of a Reform temple, who had suffered a terrible brain injury and lost her ability to form short-term memories. Here's a brief excerpt:

“I tried to imagine what it would be like for me to be a female Reform rabbi. I thought, what if I were her and she was me? I would want him to ask me to lead services,” said Herzfeld, 34, who joined Shaarey Tphiloh, Maine’s oldest synagogue, five years ago. He spoke effortlessly, almost motionlessly, his red hair and pale skin standing out against stained-glass windows behind him. Goldfinger sat nearby, listening to the man who helped guide her spiritual ship of state. 

“Women’s issues in Orthodox Judaism are controversial,” he said bluntly, “but it was important to do this for her — for our synagogue to know that we have a rabbi coming and we will respect her, and realize that she continues to be a religious leader even if she doesn’t have the position of rabbi of a large synagogue.”


Goldfinger stared at him with a mix of amazement and deep gratitude.

“I never would have expected you to do that, and the fact that you did —” She paused, sniffling. “You are a bottomless well of empathy.”


Portland is home to a small, close-knit Jewish community where rabbis from the area’s one Reform, one Conservative, one Modern Orthodox, one nondenominational and one Chabad synagogue often work together. That’s exactly what happened on a Friday evening in November 2011, when Herzfeld and Goldfinger stood side by side in Shaarey Tphiloh’s cavernous sanctuary. Seats on both sides of the mechitzah, which separates the men from the women, filled with at least 100 people, far more than the handful or two the synagogue typically draws on Friday nights. With her children standing nearby, Goldfinger led parts of the Kabbalat Shabbat service welcoming the Sabbath, as congregants sang along, helping when her memory failed.

I was there, numerous times, when I was in the shul rabbinate. You want to help someone, you believe you should help someone, but the most meaningful help you can envision is halachically questionable. In a synagogue world where the rabbi is generally "to the right of" the community, this comes up all the time.

Shaking a woman's hand to avoid embarrassing her, or holding it by a hospital bed to comfort her...
Participating in a funeral service in a Reform temple...
Attending a wedding at which the food is not prepared under kosher supervision...

It can be hard to keep your moral compass, and to feel confident that you are making the right decisions. When is it appropriate compromise, and when is it selling out?

Over the years, I found myself asking a simple set of questions: To what extent am I doing this because I think this is the right thing? Of what influence is my desire for people to be happy with me? Might the latter be blinding me to other options?

Of course, answering these questions is harder than asking them...

The rabbi's addiction

The other week, in preparing a talk on "Clergy Burnout", I came across an old blog post of mine on the topic, with this quote from Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski:

We all need emotional sippuk [emotional satisfaction]… What are our sources? I’m going on record as saying that more than 50%, or perhaps 75% of our emotional input, should come from non-work-related sources, such as family, friends, learning Torah, mitzvos, whatever. Some of us have hobbies, some of us have kinds of things that we like to do for relaxation, whatever. But the work should not be expected to provide – we have a job to do, we have a tafkid to do, fine. But we should not be dependent on our work for the lion’s share of our emotional input, because if we do then we are going to reach burnout… Don’t expect the job to give you the greater part of your sippuk. The greater part of your sippuk should come from other sources…

Rabbi Dr. Twerski then compared a job which is expected to provide fulfillment to a flat iron that is expected to double as a griddle and a space heater. Use an iron as an iron, and the filament will last for ten or twelve years of occasional operation. Use it for these constant purposes, and it will burn out immediately.

My point in citing this was to concur with Rabbi Dr. Twerski, and to add another reason for not seeking emotional satisfaction from the rabbinate, or any job: Because you might not hold that job forever. And yes, I speak from personal experience; stepping away was my choice, but I have been dealing with the difficulty of replacing that satisfaction ever since.

But there is another side to the coin. As much as a rabbi might try to find his satisfaction in his family life or hobbies, the reality is that a healthy rabbinate offers so much that is satisfying. Working with kids, comforting mourners, exposing people to new ideas and new texts, counseling people, distributing tzedakah, getting to know individuals, getting to know a community - every day brings new opportunities for satisfaction, and it can be addictive.

Case in point: While preparing that talk on burnout, I received an email from someone, thanking me for something I did more than ten years ago. I can't divulge the specifics here, but it involved my participating in a Chanukah celebration in a non-observant setting in 2001. The person who wrote to me said she was not observant at the time, but is observant today. While I can't imagine that anything I did at that time was truly transformative, she thought enough of it that she remembered it, and emailed me more than a decade later, so I guess I did something.

Was that email satisfying? You bet! I remember that Chanukah night. I travelled for about an hour each way to participate for only a few minutes. I had been invited as part of a letter that went to every rabbi in the region, and I was the only rabbi who went. I didn't know anyone there. I didn't know whether I would ever be invited back. And I remember wondering, when I left that celebration, whether my participation had been meaningful, or would lead to something meaningful.

So it was great to find out that my presence had meant something to someone. That was real satisfaction. And it made me miss the shul rabbinate all the more.

 

And therein lies the problem – as I said, I can preach, "Don't seek satisfaction in playing Rabbi," but the satisfaction comes around anyway, and it's addictive…

The Rabbi Shrugs

You know the old joke: "Why do Jews have short necks?" Followed by a deep shrug of the shoulders, the head sinking between them.

Rabbis respond to questions with a shrug quite often – I certainly did in my pulpit years - but the rabbinic shrug conveys different messages, depending upon the context. Here are a few examples of possible meanings, but I'm sure there are more.

A. "That would be a really long discussion, and I don't have the sources/time right now, so I'll leave it with 'I don't know'"

This isn't meant to be rude, it's just a recognition of reality. Hopefully, the Rabbi will come back later with sources, since disappointing a congregant who wants to learn would be criminal. [Case in point – my exchange with bratschegirl here, which was the trigger for this post.]

B. "That has no resolution"

Sometimes the questioner has a very good point, but we still don't accept his point of view.

For example:
Questioner: Praising Pinchas encourages zealotry!
Rabbi: This is a very good point – but we still praise Pinchas.
Questioner: Why?
Rabbi: Because zealotry is an important value in certain situations.
Questioner: But most real-life cases involve the wrong situations!
Rabbi: [shrug]

C. "I have a personal view, but that does not require a psak."

As the Rambam said regarding purely philosophical eschatological issues, we have no need to issue halachic rulings in certain areas. So why do it? [But see "A" above – the rabbi certainly should offer to discuss the various views.]

D. "There is another way to look at this, but there is no way that you would accept the second side if I would present it, and it would only result in you being angry with me, so I'd rather leave it be."

I can't count how many times I have gotten into trouble by explaining a point of view with which I didn't agree, just for the sake of being honest about both sides in a given issue. No matter how extensive the disclaimer, people tend to assume that you sympathize, at least on some level, with the view being presented. On issues like Talmud study for women (I endorse it where it is done seriously and for students who do want to learn it - just for the record), for example, it can be safer to shrug than to explain the opposing point of view.

I'm sure there are other meanings for the Rabbinic Shrug, but that's all I have time for right now. It's a classic Type A case -

"Rabbi, aren't there other meanings for the Rabbinic Shrug?"
[shrug]

Shofar Practice

[I wrote this five years ago, in a different venue, when I was still a synagogue rabbi. It's one of my favorite posts, so I decided to bring it over here. I edited mildly, to preserve anonymity of anyone mentioned in the original post.]

Rosh HaShanah is coming; I know, because Shofar Practice started today.

Shofar Practice - it's like MLB Spring Training without the steroids, NFL Mini-Camp without the salary holdouts, NBA pre-season without the high school kids who all think they're the next Jordan. When Shofar Practice starts, there is no drama; it's just you, and the horn.

("Just let it happen, be the horn. Be the horn, Rabbi. You're not being the horn, Rabbi."

"Well, it's kind of difficult with you talking like that."

And I must include the song here, as well.)

Batten down the hatches, Rosh HaShanah's here. It's been here, coming closer, for weeks now, but as of today it's really here.

I know it's here, because I had to pull out the shofar and practice for Elul this afternoon. You can pretend there are five weeks left in the Shiva d'Nechemta, but I know better. Rosh HaShanah is knocking at the door, and it isn't going to care whether I answer or not. It's going to huff and puff on the old shofar and blow my house in.

When I was eight or nine years old, I used to live in dread of Summer Camp; I vividly remember nights when I went to sleep hoping I would die before the summer, so I wouldn’t have to go to camp. My dread of Rosh HaShanah doesn’t move me quite that far - but perhaps only because I have my own children to think about now, and I would hate to do that to them.

How can a tokeia (shofar blower) concentrate on his own teshuvah while he blows the shofar? Obviously, they’re all much better at this than I am. I spend those moments worrying about the mechanics, about generating a clear sound, about not embarrassing myself. Which is why I blow only for Elul, not for Rosh haShanah.

Rosh HaShanah: The day when I have to find a way to motivate hundreds of people to take their judgment seriously.

Rosh HaShanah: The day when the fate of my community of so many physically needy, financially needy, emotionally needy, religiously needy, will be determined.

Rosh HaShanah: The day when I have to be judged, myself.

A lot of the trick is just in getting the Shofar seated properly. If it’s in wrong, all the blowing in the world won’t help. If it’s in right, the gentlest puff generates a smooth, powerful sound. There’s a nimshal (allegorical lesson) in there somewhere.

Soon I'll get the phone calls asking, "I'm five months pregnant, do I fast?" "I'm nursing, do I fast?" "What about my asthma medication?" "Heart medication?" "Insulin?" "Prozac?" I'm glad they ask, and I'm grateful to those who actually ask before the morning of Erev Yom Kippur, but each question puts my nerves a little further on edge, makes me a little more tense.

I put the Shofar to my lips and blow the first blast, and it's tentative because my lips vibrate and they kind of jump back, startled, from the weird feeling of these vibrations. I get nervous, against my better judgment; will I be able to blow well, or will I have trouble?

I spoke to our Lulav and Esrog vendor last week, to lock in prices. We’ve set the shul schedule through Yom Kippur; tomorrow, I’ll work on Succos.

I want to blow Shofar with the tallis over my head, befitting the solemnity of the moment, but my nerves get in the way.

Rosh HaShanah is coming. I am so not ready.

The other day, someone remarked to me that Elul is coming early this year. I think he must have been joking; Elul comes early every year.

Happy Rabbis!

Several years back I kept an anonyblog for a while, and every once in a while I enjoy looking at those old articles. Here's a fun one from mid-2007, mildly edited. Keep in mind that I wrote it with Pesach's stress fresh in my mind:

I know it's hard to believe, but the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago says it, and they have a long name with catchy initials and lots of researchers researching the opinions of lots of centers, so they must be right.

So stop the presses, print banner headlines, notify the long-lost Renegade Rebbetzin and shout it from the rooftops: The happiest profession is CLERGY!

I feel like emailing Dave Barry, the idea is so ridiculous.

Maybe they polled a bunch of rabbis, asking "How do you feel," and the rabbis all said "Thank G-d," which the researchers took to mean they were actually happy.

Happy? As in waking up smiling in the morning, nodding in a friendly way at joggers, drinking the morning coffee with a grin? As in whistling a peppy tune while waiting for the elevator, throwing caution to the wind and going for a walk without a coat, feeling generally satisfied with the way life is going?

What rabbi planet do you live on?

I suppose it could be the priests are really happy, and they just outnumbered the rabbis in the survey... cuz I'm pretty sure it's not the imams saying "I rate my personal happiness, on the scale of 1 to 10, as an 11!"

Roofers, apparently, are not happy at all; they're the absolute bottom of the list. This is interesting; there must be a connection between the dissatisfaction of workers who sit on rooves, and the satisfaction of rabbis who feel like jumping off rooves. Is jumping off a high structure the key to happiness? Or just dreaming of it? Or is it that roofers have the same dream, and are frustrated by living so close to the fantasy and not fulfilling it?

One final note: You know who was Number 2? Firefighters. This actually made a lot of sense to me. Because the next-happiest people, after rabbis, are totally people who run into burning buildings for a living.

Dissed

[After a two-week hiatus, this week's Haveil Havalim is here]

Last week, I spent two days at YU in a conference for the future members of the YU Torah miTzion Kollelim in Chicago and Toronto, and at one point I had the opportunity to address a group of students from RIETS (the rabbinical school affiliated with YU). Knowing that I was following 5 or 6 significant speakers and this was only a brief lunch, I didn't want to speak for any length of time, but I did want to leave them with an impression of what they could accomplish, were they to join a program like ours in the future.

I thought of two stories, one positive and one somewhat negative. I went with the positive one, talking about how I initially entered YU's semichah (ordination) program only in order to have a program of structured Torah study while pursuing a Masters in Computer Science at NYU, and how I decided midway through to go into the rabbinate, and how this has allowed me to make a difference (I hope) for many people in various communities. Of course, I'll never know how I might have altered lives had I taken a different track – I likely would have finished WebShas by now! – but I'm satisfied with my decision.

Here's the negative one, that I didn't tell: After my junior year in high school, prior to shipping off to Kerem b'Yavneh in Israel, I spent a summer in a program of Torah study. I was still finding myself at the time. My hair style owed something to Buster Poindexter or Elvis. Pretty much every day that summer I wore a jeans jacket on which I had hand-painted a New York Rangers symbol. Clearly, I felt I had something to prove to someone.

As part of the program, younger and older students were paired to learn together in the afternoons. One of the rebbeim took me over to an older fellow one day during the first week, and asked him to pair up with me.

This guy had a reputation for bekius – for covering a lot of ground, very quickly, and having a great memory for it. I suspect we would have learned well together; I was always more into that kind of study (intimidated by the complexity of in-depth analysis, I think). I had completed mishnah a couple of years earlier, and thought of myself as somewhat capable. This fellow didn't agree, apparently. With me standing there, he looked at me, presumably taking in my hair and clothes, and laughed and declined.

Dissed. I was put out, to say the least. It soured me on the chavrusa I ended up having, and it contributed negatively to several decisions I made in the months and years that followed.

I actually know that person today. He's a senior figure in a leading yeshiva, quite respected for his learning, and we have occasional dealings. I've never gone back to him with the story, though; recalling it to him 20+ years later seems petty. But I haven't forgotten it, and the way I felt.

The moral of the story, to me, is more than just to be nice to people. It's to remember what that older fellow could have accomplished, had he said Yes, and what he instead accomplished by laughing and declining. I try to use this as positive motivation when offered the opportunity to learn with people, or to teach.

As I said, I went with the more positive story when I spoke to the group last week… but I think there is an equal amount to be learned from the latter one.

The Weakness of the Rabbi’s Business Model

[I hope to return to the Netziv translation in a bit, but this has been sitting on my plate for a while.]

In my opinion, a synagogue rabbi doesn't need all that many ingredients in order to do a good job: He needs a head, a heart, and a work ethic. And yet, it seems to me, based on anecdotal reports, that North American synagogues and rabbis part ways at an alarming rate, often in the first few years of a relationship. Why is that?

There are many reasons, of course. It’s not always that congregants are evil. (heh) And it’s not always that rabbis are ill-suited for their shuls. And part of it is the North American rabbinic job description.

But part of it, I think, is that the rabbi-shul business model is inherently challenged by five factors:

1. The rabbi's product must satisfy a large percentage of the customer base, providing their needs, as a basic definition of successful performance.
Contrast this with food producers, who need to satisfy a much smaller percentage of the market in order to be considered a success. Coca-Cola, for example, has a 17% market share, and Diet Coke is #2 at 9.9%, followed by #3 Pepsi at 9.9% – Imagine a rabbi with that kind of “success”!

2. The rabbi's product is served to the customer base daily, or with even greater frequency, so that there is a high rate of producer/customer interactions, opening the possibility of occasional failure to satisfy.
Contrast this with attorneys and stock brokers, who meet with their clients only occasionally.

3. The rabbi's product is marketed directly to the customer, with little investment by the rabbi or by any middle man in promotion.
Contrast this with makers of just about any commercial product, who invest in promotion directly or through a middle man or vendor who has an investment in successful promotion.

4. The rabbi's customers are highly connected, and communicate virally, so that negative feedback is spread quickly.
Contrast this with clients of professionals, or customers of stores, who are far less connected even in today's age. I don’t know anyone else who drinks Boost Plus, or eats Liberte Yogurt, and could not communicate a critique to any of them other than via an at-large tweet or blog post.

5. Alternative products are easily available in many markets.
Contrast this with the airline industry.

Indeed, the rabbinate isn't the only 'business' to face most of these challenges, and to have trouble as a result. Consider the following three industries which experience an oft-noted high turnover rate, due to challenges inherent in their industries as well as many of the factors listed above:

• Restaurants (60% fail in their first three years) - Challenged by factors 1, 2 and 5

• Airlines (Take a look at Warren Buffett's quote re: airline investing) - Challenged by factors 1, 2 and 4

• Politicians - Challenged by factors 1, 2, 4 and 5

I don’t know how to change this. Promotion can be solved, I suppose, but that’s it. Shuls are never going to want rabbis who satisfy 17% of their congregants, since they can’t afford to hire other rabbis to reach the remaining 83%. Rabbis will continue to have a great many regular interactions with congregants. The viral communication remains, as does the existence of alternative ‘products’.

So is there any hope for the rabbinic business model?

Dancing in the middle of the circle

[Post I’m reading: Richard Goldstone: I’m a loser at The Muqata]

During my first year of study in Israel, when I was eighteen or so, I celebrated “chutznik” Simchas Torah at what was then known as the Laromme Hotel in Jerusalem, along with a few hundred other Anglo students. We davened, we sang, we danced, we ate, it was wonderful.

We were yeshiva-student males, so most of our dancing consisted of concentric circles, with the more energetic working their way into the inner rings until they tired. I was among those in the center for quite some time, until I was tapped on the shoulder by a more senior student, who said something along the lines of, “You don’t always need to be in the middle.”

I don’t think I even answered him; as I recall at twenty years’ distance, I simply melted sheepishly into the outer circle and stayed there for the rest of the dancing.

I don’t remember who the killjoy was; I don’t know that I ever knew his name, actually. But his words stayed with me, and the doubt they generated remained strong over the years, in arenas far from Simchas Torah: Why am I in the center? Am I looking for attention, for approval?

This is a substantive question for a shul rabbi, and it bothered me greatly when I occupied the pulpit. Even as I knew I was doing a lot of good for a lot of people, I was always dogged by that doubt: How much of what I do is not to satisfy the Divine, but instead to satisfy the people around me? Do I visit, speak, teach, advise, eulogize, dispense assistance, sit in boards and on committees and so on because I know it’s the right thing to do, or because I want people to admire me? And it did cause me to back out of the spotlight, from time to time.

Of course, everyone must admit that there is an automatic element of self-service in their world-service. Human beings are insecure and seek approval. Human beings want the respect of others. Human beings enjoy praise. To deny this would be foolish. But I wanted to know that there was also a genuine altruism, a desire to do right for right’s sake.

So I found opportunities to lock off parts of my activities, keeping them away from the public eye. I suited up as Anonyrabbi, so to speak, doing favors and taking care of people’s needs without anyone knowing who had done it. Flowers for Shabbos, a tuition bill paid, a kiddush augmented. This way, I could prove my own sincerity to myself.

But that’s not necessarily a good long-term strategy for a Rabbi – because if a rabbi’s activities are under the radar, if the rabbi succeeds in avoiding the spotlight, then people start wondering why he isn’t involved in X, or taking care of Y. The rabbi needs to publicize his activities, unfortunately; he needs to dance in the middle of the circle, for utilitarian reasons, and live with the self-doubt that generates.

I thought leaving the pulpit would help me deal with this self-doubt, but I still hear that voice challenging me when I am in the center. I suppose I always will, because (1) Most things we do involve, to some extent, that search for approval, and (2) Many things we do are public.

On the other hand, it’s not a bad thing, being troubled by this question. It keeps me honest; I can hope that as long as I am asking the question, I won’t stray too far from the right answer.

What does your rabbi do all day?

[Post of interest: Liveblogging the Chidon haTanakh at the Muqata]

You know the classic joke about the kid who asks the rabbi what he does all week, right?

Starting in 2002, I began keeping a low-tech, text file “to do” list of items on my schedule for each day. I would print out a hard copy, and I would keep it as a record of what had happened that day. Of course, it didn't include last-minute changes - someone dies, someone goes into the hospital, and so on - but it was close enough for my purposes. Part of the motivation was my pack-rat mentality of storing data, and part was to have a written record for consultation.

Yesterday, to remind myself of what the shul rabbinate was like, I looked back and found the following on December 7 of various years. I include them here, for your amusement and because I haven't had time to write a new blog post in the last few days:

Tuesday December 7, 2004
7:45 AM Daf Yomi
8:45 AM Send out daily Torah Thought and daily Jewish Law emails
3:45 PM ______ (bar mitzvah boy)
7 PM Yachad U Year Two class at ______’s house, Week 9
8:30 PM Gemara Beitzah class at ______’s house
Talk to Chulent Contest contestants about guidelines
Look up the issue of the corners of ______________’s tallis
Purchase power bar to plug in chulent contest crockpots
Jobs from yesterday’s day school Education Committee meeting
Unwrap shul’s new crockpots
Get back to ______ from her call
Call ______ to talk about her daughter remaining at the day school
Deadline to send in shul events to HaKol (local Federation newspaper)
Prepare Thursday’s Yachad U class
Prepare “teshuvos” dvar torah for Friday night
Kasher shul ovens for meat
Prepare Parshah Aggadah/Halachah class for Shabbos – Dreams; Taanis Chalom
Do text for __________ headstone
Write Derashah for Shabbos
Prepare Beitzah shiur for tonight
Finalize class for Yachad U tonight

Wednesday December 7, 2005
7:45 AM Daf Yomi
9 AM Send out daily Torah Thought and daily Jewish Law emails
12 PM ______ at shul; Kuzari, and talk about setting up HFL board meeting
2 PM Meet _____________ to talk about day school website
7 PM Pastoral Relations Committee meeting
Send out weekly Jewish Events email, and send it to the Allentown Times (עליו השלום) as well
Deadline for announcements for HaKol (local Federation newspaper)
Talk to ____ about possibly cancelling Friday night's program because of snow predictions
Prepare materials for PRC meeting
Article for shul Chanukah Hamodia bulletin
Check in with ______ (supermarket vp) about progress in bringing bakery up to LVKC standards
Prepare Shabbos noon class - Add Rashi's connection to Chachmei Ashkenaz predecessors
Brainstorm ways to become more involved with high school kids
Look into use of Multiple Intelligences approach in teaching children chumash

Thursday December 7, 2006
7:45 AM Daf Yomi
9 AM Send out daily Torah Thought and daily Jewish Law emails
9:30 AM Learn with ____________
Put two pizzas in shul refrigerator for parent/child program
10 AM Prepare materials for 3 PM class at Country Meadows – Tehillim
10:45 AM Teach Yachad Grad class
12 PM Kitchen duty for kiddush preparation
3 PM Tehillim at Country Meadows
5 PM Parent/Child learning program with pizza
7 PM _________ (bar mitzvah boy)
Call ______________ in hospital
Call _______________ to confirm that I will help (I think this was benevolent fund assistance)
Add new biweekly shul calendar to website
Purchase food for Sephardic Oneg and Seudah Shlishis for this Shabbos
Deadline for HaKol (local Federation newspaper) article
Check in with ______________ (he had not been around in a while)
Email kiddush committee regarding kiddush and seudah shlishis arrangements for 12/16
Find out when ______________ (local caterer) wants to cook in the shul kitchen for bat mitzvah
Send letter endorsing _________________ for Covenant Foundation honor

Friday December 7 2007
6:30 AM Put _________’s chulent in the fridge (this Shabbos was our annual Chulent Contest)
6:30 AM Send daily emails
7:45 AM Daf Yomi
8:45 AM Upload Daf audio
8:45 AM _________ comes in for chulent prep
9 AM Call ___________ to check in (this person’s father had passed away recently)
9 AM Call ____________ to check in (this person had agreed to give his wife a get, reluctantly)
11 AM _________ puts up her chulent
2 PM Put up _____________’s chulent
Email friends of the person above whose father had passed away, to ask them to check in with her
Fix Eruv pole – Liberty and Albright corner
Call ______ about his late monthly check for his ex-wife
Call _______ at the hospital
Call _______ at hospital and check in with her husband
Check in: ___________ (person undergoing chemo), _______________ (person living alone), _______________ (person whose husband had passed away a few months before, ________________ (another person living alone)
Prepare chulent contest baskets and ballots
Blog: Birkas haChamah
Provide HaKol with pictures from our Israel Fair
Eruv email and infoline notification
Revisit derashah – Make the hope point more complex, perhaps with an illustration from Tanach
Yahrtzeit reminder calls for 5 Tevet
Move Chanukah sefer torah into big shul, and menorah into big shul
Leave lights on in the shul’s downstairs rooms
Turn off the hot water for the kitchen sink (we only had one control for the hot and cold water, and people easily slipped into hot water by accident)
Set up new blogs to host daily emails

Ah, the memories this brings back…

The Large Rabbi

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here]

Last night I attended a celebration for a rabbi’s retirement, after three decades of serving a shul. Aside from the fact that the evening was beautiful, it also reminded me of one of the things I love most, and miss most, about the rabbinate. A shul rabbi is forced to become Large.

I watched the rabbi walk through the room and interact with people, shaking hands and exchanging hugs and receiving well-wishes, and I thought of all the things he knew about these people, perhaps even more than they knew about themselves. He remembered their celebrations and their shivah houses, their disputes and their reconciliations. He knew their children and their grandparents, and their uncle who liked to receive shishi when he visited. He knew their businesses, and he knew how close their businesses had once come to collapsing, until he had come up with a last minute loan arrangement. He knew what they had said at the funerals of their loved ones, and he knew what they had not said as well. He knew which shiurim they had attended, and with whom they had connected. He knew the committees they had served on, what they had done, what frustrations they had encountered and what successes they had achieved. He knew beside whom they sat in shul, and what they discussed before, during and after the derashah. He knew their favorite food and drink, and whether they lingered at the table after shabbos lunch or whether they went for a nap as soon as they could.

And, as was noted last night, he had loved all of them. There is no way a shul rabbi survives without loving them all, whether in a shul of ten members or a shul of one thousand members. You can’t fake it, and you wouldn’t want to try; the needs of all of these lives are too consistent, too all-encompassing, too permeating of every aspect of life. To be the rabbi of a shul is to expand beyond yourself, to include a community in your soul.

The shul rabbinate makes you large in another, internal dimension, too: It forces you to grow up, or, again, you won’t survive. To learn discretion, to squelch indignation, to develop patience, to abandon the idea of a comfort zone, to organize your thoughts and find ways to explain your mind to the world. To help people who will never acknowledge what you’ve done, and who may not even recognize it. To learn sound process and administration, and practice it. To swallow hard when something is against your grain, but you know it’s necessary. To push yourself to the limits and beyond in diligent effort and in emotional strain.

I assume the rabbinate is not the only experience that does this for a person. On some level, of course, marriage does it, as you welcome another into your soul and as you accept a new and less selfish way of doing business in order to build the relationship. And having children does it, too, in a bigger way than marriage. And public service of any kind does it. My point is not to claim that the rabbinate is the only way to experience these kinds of growth.

But there’s no denying it: The Rabbi is large.

139

[Post on my mind today: Another Elementary School Closing, at Orthonomics]

The other day, when I turned to Hallel in my siddur I saw the following code pencilled in: 632 AS / 565 B / 139 Goody.

My shul rabbi readers, certainly those from shuls which welcome people who have less background, may be able to parse the first two-thirds of the code. 632 is the page number for Hallel in the Artscroll siddur, and 565 is page number for Hallel in the Birnbaum siddur. I always announced the page number, to the point that I had them memorized, but I was concerned about forgetting them and so I inscribed them in my siddur. But what is 139 about?

The third number was from Goody Miller’s siddur. Every month, when I was in Allentown, I would say, “Hallel is on page 632 in the Artscroll siddur, 565 in the Birnbaum,” and Goody would lift a finger and say, “139, Rabbi,” because that was the page number in his siddur.

Seeing that code was poignant for me today, because Goody passed away several weeks ago; this was the first Rosh Chodesh since his death that I used this siddur, and saw the notation.

Goody was in his 90s – probably 94 or 95 – and until a couple of years ago he came to shul every day, regardless of the weather, in his old pickup truck. A gentle man, always grateful for any small favor, never complaining about his ill health (although he wasn’t happy if the heat in shul wasn’t working properly), quick to smile and greet people. Colds and deafness and snow and rain rarely stopped him until he finally moved to be closer to his kids. He passed out, at least once, in shul. He was the unsinkable Goody.

Shuls around the world are blessed with “Goody”s. In my shul in Rhode Island we had Yankel Faust and Joe Zalusky, both now of blessed memory, both with incredible life stories and a devotion to making the minyan. In Allentown we had, in addition to Goody, an incredible man named Leo Ritter, of blessed memory. (I can still hear Leo, our nonagenarian gabbai who passed away seven or so years ago, asking, “Has anybody yahrtzeit?”) And there are more, those who have moved to the next world and those who, thank Gd, are still with us… I would expand here, but I’m not certain what people want to keep private.

We would benefit greatly if someone would take it upon himself to write a book, or at least create a website, dedicated to these octagenarians and nonagenarians who keep minyanim going in communities far and wide. They daven, they serve as gabbai, they inspire men one-third their age, and they make sure the tenth will be there. That would be a great book, a snapshot of these minyan anchors from a moment in time.

Just make sure Goody’s listing is on page 139, please.

Gifts to give your Rabbi

Like many bloggers, I occasionally skim through the keywords that bring people to this blog; they can be amusing.

Looking at Google Analytics, I find that in the past month, three people came to my blog by searching for "best ever rosh hashanah 2010 ecard", and another three by searching for "parshat shoftim 2010 elena kagan". One person was looking for "tefillin talmud shabbat fly" and another for "yosef albo bps director of marketing". Huh? And another for "Can a rabbi drive a honda". Weird, but the answer to that is yes, I think. Then there was "yoda in judaism" and "science update about radiation 2010" - hope you found what you were looking for, whatever that was.

Of course, at this time of year I tend to get quite a bit of rabbinic traffic, via searches like Rosh haShanah derashah, Yom Kippur derashah, sermon. Feel free to use my writing, folks. כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאולה לעולם.

My favorite recent search was this: Gifts to give a rabbi.

I like that idea, so let me help you out. Please excuse me if this list is somewhat depressing and cynical, though; I’m in the middle of a campaign to remind myself of why I don’t want to leap back into the shul rabbinate. (As though Elul wasn’t enough.)

Here goes, with a month-by-month list of appropriate gifts for rabbis:

Tishrei – Anxiety pills. Or throat lozenges. Or throat lozenges laced with anxiety medication. Or a prescription for medical marijuana.

Cheshvan – Babysitting and a gift certificate for two to a restaurant, so the rebbetzin can get out one night and bring a friend. The rabbi won't be available due to the crush of post-Succos meetings and shiurim, but that's all right; she deserves it more, anyway, and so does the person kind enough to be her friend while she's tearing her covered hair out managing the family throughout Tishrei.

Kislev – A life-sized mannequin to use at minyan when he can’t find a 10th man because everyone is either away on vacation or snowbound at home. And antibiotics, because his lack of sleep and poor diet make him vulnerable to every bug and bacterium perched on the banisters of the hospital stairwells.

Teves – A set of Comedy CD's. Statistics show that January sees a spike in deaths, and the rabbi will need something to pick up his spirits after each funeral.

Shevat – A wall mural of the Kotel, or a sandy beach, or Paris, so he can feel as though he’s going on vacation like all of his congregants.

Adar – Book of 101 Purim Costume ideas, so he can use his mind for more important things, like censoring the Purim Shpiel of lines that will upset people.

Adar II – More anxiety medication, for the moment he realizes that even a Leap Year can’t postpone Pesach forever.

Nisan – Before Pesach: A new set of elbow-length rubber gloves to protect him when he kashers your sink.

Nisan - After Pesach: See Cheshvan.

Iyyar – A punching bag, for ridding himself of his frustrations in the guise of engaging in vigorous physical exercise. The one you got him last year is already toast.

Sivan – No-Doz – Because he doesn’t have the Shavuos-night option of going home at 1 AM, or of dozing during one of his shiurim. Even the one you’ve heard once before, which he’s heard many more times than you have.

Tammuz – A gift-certificate to a good seforim store, so he can get to work on preparing for Elul/Rosh haShanah/Shabbos Shuvah/Yom Kippur/Succos/Hoshana Rabbah/Shmini Atzeres/Simchas Torah. Not that he will actually get to work on it, but having a pile of sefarim that look like they could harbor good material will set his mind at ease during his family's annual four-day summer getaway.

Av –Ties (after Tisha b’Av, of course). It’s the only way his daf yomi will be spared staring at the same scenery, day after day, and it will spare him from missing a couple of hours of work to purchase something new for himself for Yom Tov.

Elul – A book of derashos, or a CD of shiurim from www.torontotorah.com, because by now it’s too late for him to start reading those sefarim he bought in Tammuz...

Why Rabbis Stop Believing

Following on the heels of last week’s Orthoprax Rabbi discussions, I thought I’d add a more general note on the problem of Emunah in the Rabbinate. Specifically: There are few professions which are worse for one’s belief in Gd and Judaism than the rabbinate.

Certainly, there are reasons why a pulpit rabbi should have greater faith than others do: Training, regular exposure to wonderful people in their congregations, chizuk [reinforcement] from colleagues, the ability to spend much of the day involved in Torah study.

Nonetheless, I reiterate: The pulpit rabbbinate is bad for Emunah.

It’s not [only] because of the practical joke that Gd played on rabbis by creating the month of Tishrei; it’s a deeper, and more serious, issue. Here are the problems I see:

• A rabbi who really engages a community lives his life under theological siege, constantly facing people’s questions and challenges against faith. It’s like water sitting on a roof; eventually, some will seep in;

• A rabbi sees all sorts of tragedy and pain, and no one comes along to reassure him as he reassures others;

• A rabbi has no time for emotional bounceback, let alone philosophical bounceback, from the pain he sees;

• A rabbi lacks the space to step back and work through his theological challenges; he gets no religious Time Out. Whether they are right or wrong, other people can and do drop out of minyan or shiur for a few days, but the rabbi has no such option;

• A rabbi normally devotes little time to read works of hashkafah that might reinforce his belief; all of his time goes into the community. Reading it in order to teach it doesn’t count!;

• A rabbi sees the weak reasons behind some people's belief;

• A rabbi sees how some people turn to Judaism not out of strength, but out of absence of anywhere else to turn;

• A rabbi sees the professed believers who act immorally and corruptly, and knows what others get away with.

[Interesting: I imagine these items apply equally to priests,ministers, imams, etc.]

Clearly, there are ways to deal with this. Many rabbis, like myself, have found ways to manage. A rabbi can and should deal with a lot of these problems by scheduling time to learn mussar and machshavah (ethical instruction and Jewish belief), as well as scheduling vacation. But this definitely requires a certain mindfulness, an awareness of what is happening to him, why it’s happening, and how to address it.

There are a lot of pitfalls in this business.

On the Orthoprax Rabbi, Part II: Would you buy a used car from this man?

[This week’s Toronto Torah is here; enjoy!]

I’ve been asked to flesh out one point from Part I regarding The Orthoprax Rabbi: The unethical and unhealthy character of serving as a rabbi while thinking that Judaism is wrong.

Some have compared the rabbi to any other tradesman or professional, like a lawyer who renders technical legal advice regardless of his own faith in the legal system. But as I see it, a Rabbi is not only a technical functionary, a suited officiant; a Rabbi is also a marketer for Judaism, a salesman, on two levels, and on both levels a salesman must believe in his product:

• The rabbi markets practice: The rabbi is a role model, his example proving that the lifestyle he promotes can actually be lived. He’s like a car salesman who can proudly state, “I drive one, too.” And a rabbi who is not practicing is selling people a lifestyle he isn’t actually living. The Honda dealer is telling people he drives the Honda he is selling, but he actually drives a Chevrolet.

• And the rabbi markets belief: The rabbi is a resource to answer questions of philosophy and resolve Judaism’s internal conflicts. He’s like a car salesman who explains how the car operates and resolves any doubts about its function. And a rabbi who justifies pesukim and resolves doubts while not believing his own answers is like a car salesman who insists the transmission is fine while hiding a defect in the engine.

This is an unethical proposition; would you buy a car from this man? No one would want to buy from a salesman who thought his product was poor quality, who lied when he said that he drove the car, too, or who concealed defects from the consumer.

And this is an unhealthy proposition, because a normal human being who makes a living marketing defective products as though they were high quality will ultimately come to despise himself.

I suspect that this conflict is also what has led The Orthoprax Rabbi to start his blog. If I may play pop psychologist for a moment, I think he’s trying to find a way to vent what’s inside, to convince himself that he is living an honest life on some level. I don’t think it will work, though; doing it anonymously, and part-time, will not suffice as an outlet for a life of dissembling.

What could he do? Certainly, there are non-salesman aspects to the rabbinate. The Orthoprax Rabbi could become an officiant-for-hire, or an academic, or a writer of sefarim. But he should get out of Sales, for his shul’s sake and for his own, until he resolves his doubts to the extent that he achieves some level of personal confidence.

On The Orthoprax Rabbi

Last night Isaac referred me to The Orthoprax Rabbi, a blog claiming to be the words of a non-believing, publicly-observing rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue, and asked me for comment.

To be blunt: That situation is my worst rabbinic nightmare. In my first year in the rabbinate, I nearly left the field out of concern that The Orthoprax Rabbi might someday be me.

Let’s unpack that a bit.

It began with a normal, healthy maturing process:

As a child, I - like many children - always took it for granted that there were experts who ran the show, making everything work as it should. From painters to plumbers to publishers to actors, the people who designed and produced my world seemed to possess perfect knowledge and tools, since everything around me looked as (I assumed) it should. Even as a teenager, I continued to maintain that assumption, for the most part. Doctors, judges, political leaders, rabbis, all of them most know what they’re doing.

Then my first name changed to Rabbi, and I began to learn the truth that all of us must learn as we mature: That many of the people given titles and respect are just like everyone else, muddling their way through. When people began to call me a talmid chacham and look to me for advice and decisions, I got scared. Is this what the world is like? Are people like me (as in, imperfect people with imperfect knowledge and tools,) the ones running business, government, Judaism?

That revelation led me to seriously reflect on the fallibility of many of Judaism's architects, and on the less-credible aspects of Judaism and Torah, and on the great masses of people who thought Jews were living an illusion, and on the somewhat smaller number of people who were relying on fallible me as I had once relied on fallible others.

And that led me to want out.

I wanted to have the freedom to work out these issues without having a responsibility to a community, without concern that my ultimate decisions would damage my shul.

I wanted to know that fear of harming a community, or hunger for a paycheck, wouldn’t force me to live a hypocritical life, pretending one thing to the world and living another in my heart.

In essence, I wanted to avoid becoming what The Orthoprax Rabbi seems to have become.

I didn’t exit the rabbinate. And I didn’t become The Orthoprax Rabbi, either. Instead, I spent years thinking through my doubts and concerns, resolved the great majority of the big ones and left a couple as standing questions, and continued onward with an awareness that I have yet to reach my ‘final’ understandings, and that I will likely spend my entire life oscillating between poles of conviction.

I feel bad for The Orthoprax Rabbi, who seems to have gone further in his certainty than I ever did. Such certainty is stultifying.

I also feel bad for The Orthoprax Rabbi because I believe he experiences great internal pain in living this split identity. Despite his insistence that there is no inconsistency in being an unbelieving rabbi, the fact that he must conceal his disbelief is proof otherwise. And I am convinced that psychologically healthy human beings naturally wish to live a unified life, sincere and honest, and are pained by concealing their souls.

Definitely my worst rabbinic nightmare.

Does that answer your question, Isaac?

Yom haZikaron, Yom haAtzmaut, and something larger than ourselves

I always cry on Yom haZikaron [Israel's Memorial Day], and this year was no exception as I listened to Cheryl Mandel, mother of Daniel Mandel z"l, speak at our local commemoration.

I am always moved to joy on Yom haAtzmaut [Israel's Independence Day], and this year was no exception to that, either.

But I did learn something new this year. I think I now understand a little bit more than before about why these days grab at me so, why aliyah grabs at me so, and even why the rabbinate grabs at me so.

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski talks about how people harbor a hunger to give of themselves to others, to be more than just a machine that eats and sleeps and takes care of a myriad physical functions today in order to do them again tomorrow. (Or maybe he doesn’t talk about that, and it’s just what I’ve made up, hallucinating he said it. But it rings true regardless.)

We want to be part of something greater than our own small survival, and the feeling grows as we age and realize just how inevitably doomed that small survival is. It's a feeling that inspires people to build families, to volunteer for organizations, to give philanthropically, and so on. It's what some people call a 'search for meaning.'

I feel that. I get seriously depressed when I think about a self-centered existence, my own as well as that of others. It’s so… futile.

I think that’s one of the major reasons I went for the rabbinate, to be a crucial part of families and a community, something greater than myself.

And I think that’s one of the major reasons why aliyah calls to me: the desire to be part of that ambitious enterprise, the return of our people to our home.

I know the feeling of “part of something greater” wears off pretty quickly for an oleh as he gets cut by another "part of something greater" on a long line, or deals with the bureaucracy of "something greater" in an office, and so on, but I’m on the other end right now, and from here the idea of being part of this nation Israel is very attractive.

It tugs at me on Yom haZikaron, and Yom haAtzmaut. I am jealous; I want to be part of that greater entity, with all of the pain that it brings, as well as the celebration, the crying as well as the joy and dancing.

Oh, but these days are a great antidote for my inner cynic.

The Joys of Shul-Hopping

One of the big advantages of Life Outside the Rabbinate is the shul-hopping experience.

To be sure, we have a main shul, where we pay dues and do the things that members do. Nonetheless, we're taking advantage of the chance to minyan-hop within that shul, and beyond.

When I was a shul rabbi, people would describe their experiences elsewhere around town and beyond, but I couldn’t really relate: I had no experience davening in any other congregation. This was certainly true regarding Shabbos davening; we spent one Shabbos per annum in my Rebbetzin’s home community and one in my own, and that was it.

Now, in Toronto, we are the proverbial starveling at the buffet, and we’ve taken advantage of it. We’ve davened at pretty much every minyan that has a women’s section in our main shul, and we’ve also gone to almost every other shul within 30-minutes’ walk for a Shabbos morning, and we’ve also had shabbatons in other Toronto neigborhoods. Those neighborhood shuls we have not yet attended are on the list for a visit soon, since the weather is warming up; this shabbos we’re trying another one for the first time, actually.

This is an interesting experience, all that I had hoped it would be. More than just pursuing variety, we're learning; we’re seeing the way others do things, observing their methods and adding them to our own.

There is, of course, a down side to this impermanence (like sitting in someone else's seat every week and watching the people around you as they try to figure out how to say something rude in a polite way...), but for now the trade-off is worthwhile. We’re seeing yeshivish davening, chassidish davening, youth-oriented davening (our main Shabbos morning experience), choral davening, speed davening, early-morning davening, outreachy davening, and, of course, experienced-davener-rushing-to-kiddush davening.

Our adventure this past Shabbos was a perfect example of the benefits of shul-hopping: We spent Shabbos at Adas Israel in Hamilton, Ontario, where we had two particularly positive davening experiences. Kabbalat Shabbat was an outstandingly spiritid sort-of-Carlebach experience, led by a chazan with true koach (energy) and joined by a minyan to match. At the other end of Shabbos we had an absolutely beautiful Havdalah, energetic and musical and inspiring. The whole Shabbos was great, but those two parts were, for me, the definite highlight, and they added to my own inventory of ideas and experiences.

If I do return to the rabbinate one day, it will be with the richness of this experience very much in my mind. For now, I’ll take advantage of the chance to build the wealth.

Of Rabbi Blogs and Rebbetzin Blogs

Yesterday I spoke to several shul rabbis who were in varying stages of preparation for Shabbos haGadol and Pesach. All of them exuded stress in waves; I could feel sympathy tension in my back and neck, and a powerful, drummed-in Nisan reflex to check my To Do list and wonder what I was missing.

Among the things I did every Pesach for the last dozen years, and I did not do over the past two weeks:

• Answer questions about urns and coffeemakers and Lactaid and eggs and heirloom china and canola oil and peanut oil. (On the other hand, I did answer a lot of questions about quinoa - repeat after me: Ask. Your. Rabbi.)

• Kasher people’s kitchens

• Wonder when I was going to kasher our own kitchen

• Canvas supermarkets to determine what kosher for pesach products were available

• Pursue people to make sure they contracted with me to sell their chametz

• Drive to New York to pick up Shatzer Matzah for the shul

• Arrange the communal chametz-burning and men’s mikvah times

• Write derashos for the first days of Yom Tov, for Shabbos Chol haMoed, for the last days of Yom Tov

• Check shul lockers for random chametz

• Take care of other random shul pre-Pesach chores

• Arrange sedarim and yom tov meals for college students

To be honest: Yes, I miss a lot of it, and I suspect I will return to it one day.

But! That didn’t stop me from turning my eyes heavenward yesterday and saying with a full heart, “Baruch… SheLo Asani Rabbi!” [Thank You, Gd, for not making me a Rabbi.]

One thing I did do in the past week was canvas the blogs of rabbis and rebbetzins of various flavors, to see what they were saying as Pesach approached. Along the way, I picked up on a few differences between Rabbi Blogs and Rebbetzin Blogs.

Most noticeably, Rabbis tend to blog as an extension of their rabbinate and Rebbetzins tend to blog in spite of their rebbetzinate. In other words: Rabbis tend to write like rabbis, even when writing about personal matters; Rebbetzins tend to write like bloggers, even when writing about Torah matters.

There are a whole host of reasons for that difference, of course. Some of it is gender; the women rabbi blogs tend to read far more human than the male rabbi blogs. I think that more of it, though, is that Rebbetzins are human beings rather than clergy.

A few Rebbetzin blogs as Exhibit A:
Redefining Rebbetzin
Rebbetzin Man in Japan
The Rebbetzin Rocks

And a few Rabbi blogs as Exhibit B:
NY’s Funniest Rabbi
Velveteen Rabbi
Or am I?

The Rebbetzins sound like people. The Rabbis sound like, well, rabbis. As I suppose I do, for that matter.

But enough of this. I may not have Pesach to prepare, but I do have post-Pesach shiurim to work on… Chag kasher v’sameach, and may we merit to bring the korban pesach in a unified Yerushalayim!

This is a shul, Rabbi!

One of my strongest shul-related childhood memories is of crossing a leg over my lap during the rabbi's speech, and my father telling me that this relaxed position was inappropriate for shul. [Update: My father has explained to me that he learned this lesson from the great Rabbi Leo Jung, z"l.]

This mental photograph has been very helpful to me over the years.

A dozen years in the rabbinate means that for a dozen years I entered and exited the shul [meaning the sanctuary, the actual room in which we daven] several times each day, and used that space for any number of non-davening purposes from rolling sifrei torah to preparing the room for davening to I don’t remember what. In the years before that I spent more than ten hours each day in beis medrash, as I do now in my new kollel life.

Bottom line: I have lived in “sacred spaces” more than I have lived anywhere else, and as a result I am perpetually on the verge of losing sensitivity to the kedushah [sanctity] of a shul and of a place dedicated to learning Torah.

One danger in this numbing is halachic: I’ll see nothing wrong with walking in there to shoot the breeze with someone, an activity which is prohibited. I’ve seen it happen; I’ve seen shul rabbis, holy individuals whose achievements dwarf my own, people I could not ever judge [although I suppose I do…], use shul sanctuary space for communal meetings, personal conversation and telling jokes.

In truth, some of those activities may be halachically justified by the fact that shul sanctuaries are often designed to be multi-purpose rooms. But the risk of desensitization is about more than the halachic Yea or Nay; there is also the greater effect on the way we experience shul activities – davening and learning Torah.

On this deeper level, desensitization to the shul space is part of a process of taking Gd out of davening and out of learning Torah. Davening and learning, without an awareness of Gd, become tasks, checklist activities, or even self-centered activities, rather than cornerstones of a profound relationship.

So I try to be careful to say Mah Tovu every time I walk into the shul; to relate to my children in a manner that also honors the space; to dress properly; to keep my speech limited to topics that are appropriate for the space.

And, of course, not to cross a leg over my lap.