How to leave your shul

[Purim Post I enjoyed: The Foucauldian Term Generator app (for iPhone) at the Michtavim blog]

Some months ago, I received an email from a colleague who wanted to know what I had learned from my experience in leaving my old shul.

As this colleague knew, leaving Allentown was a heartbreaker for me, and remains a heartbreaker. I loved the community, and I certainly felt loved in return. I even loved the shul rabbinate (much of the time...). It was just a matter of logistics - the lack of a high school, as my oldest child drew closer to that age.

So how do you deal with leaving your community, when it's a departure by choice rather than on a rail?

This is a slightly-doctored version of what I told him. I know some of it may seem melodramatic or over the top to a non-rabbi, but it's very real to me. I wish I had succeeded in following all of these steps myself:

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In my experience, leaving a shul is unlike leaving most other professional positions. The level of bonding with people, the integral role the rabbi plays in the community, the way in which the rabbi shares in the lives of others, the 24/7 dedication to the welfare of the community and its members, the fact (at least, I believe it's a fact) that a rabbi cannot succeed unless he falls in love with the members of his community... losing all of this, even voluntarily, is a very real bereavement.

The result is an experience of grief, very similar to the grief associated with more traditional forms of loss. And two of the primary manifestations of that grief are a feeling of Survivor Guilt and a feeling of I-don't-belong Dislocation.

What can a rabbi do about it? I have three ideas:

1. I believe a rabbi must know why he is leaving.
Regardless of what he chooses to tell other people - some things are better left unsaid, or shared only with certain people - the rabbi must know what his real reasons are, and how they are prioritized.

This becomes very important when he questions the decision, which is a natural part of the grieving process. Think of someone who decides not to pursue aggressive chemotherapy, and the second-guessing that goes on afterward if the reasons are not clear (and even if they are).

2. I believe a rabbi must know that he is leaving his community in a good position for the future.
This means knowing that the timing is as good as possible for the community, in terms of their ability to find a proper successor. It means that the timing is right in terms of communal projects.

It means that he leaves behind a thorough, around-the-year transition document - a public version for the shul president and, perhaps, executive board, and a private version, eyes-only for his successor.

And it means that he commits himself to be available for consultations going forward, even as he leaves his successor space to grow successfully into his shoes.

3. I believe a rabbi must allow himself time and space to grieve.
I'm certain you have had cases in which people tried to re-insert themselves into their work and social lives too soon after a bereavement, surgery or divorce, r"l.

That's a natural instinct for many, and certainly for a rabbi who is trying to serve a new community. But on so many levels, the grieving process will re-assert itself. That's fine, healthy and normal, but it should be anticipated and understood, and not fought.
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What do you think? What else should be included?

Of Bobby Cox and Synagogue Rabbis

I once wrote, in my more glib years:

It seems to me that rabbis are like sports coaches – they rarely leave at the right time, but instead go on and on until someone comes with a crowbar and forces them out of their chairs on the mizrach vant.

This isn’t true of all rabbis, of course. Some rabbis die in the pulpit. Some rabbis retire, due to burnout or age. Some rabbis break the communal heart by leaving on their own.

But a remarkably high percentage of rabbis, disproportionate when compared to other fields, leave by "mutual agreement" – not mutual meaning agreeing with him, but rather that the board and the congregation mutually agree that it’s time to run him out of town.

The topic is no longer as humorous to me as it once was, thanks to the experience of actually retiring and of seeing friends change pulpits themselves. But the analogy to a sports coach is, I think, apt.

It’s hard for a coach to leave when he’s on top - when the quality of the team, the bond between the coach and the players, and the coach’s love for the game convince him that next season could be as wonderful as, or more wonderful than, the past season. And the same is true for a rabbi: When you’re on top, it’s hard to leave.

But if a coach or rabbi can retire while still in love with his team/community, then as painful as it is to separate – and I know this from experience - it’s far better than the alternative.

I thought of that comparison this past week, when Bobby Cox coached his last regular season games in Atlanta. I’m not much of a baseball fan – the game is as dull as watching grass grow – but having been in Atlanta over Yom Tov, I couldn’t miss the press coverage of the last week of the season. Coach of the Braves for the past 20 years (with an earlier four year stint), made the playoffs 15 times, Coach of the Year four times, popular and a Hall of Fame career (despite having only won the championship once), he has it all, apparently. And he’s going out on top, having just carried his team into the playoffs yet again.

Nicely done, Mr. Cox. כמוך ירבו בישראל.

Oh, and one more reason I love Coach Cox: His penchant for being tossed out of games. He holds the league record, having been ejected 158 times.

A few years back, Bobby Cox and one of his players were thrown out of a game, and the player asked him what to do. Coach Cox’s reply: ‘Go have a couple cold beers and get in the cold tub or something and relax. And then you’ll probably have to write a $500 check. Or you can do what I do, write a $10,000 one and tell them when it runs out, let me know.'

Gotta love it.

Come on, Rabbi, finish what you started

[This week’s Haveil Havalim, hosted by the inimitable Jack, is here!]

We all have on-going projects – cleaning out the garage, sitting on a community committee, losing weight, helping a friend cope with life – the natural accumulations of a life lived with a sense of purpose.

However, forced to believe that fatalistic adage, “No one gets off this planet alive,” we know that we’re going to die some day and leave some of those projects incomplete.

Just as responsible non-profits don’t run in the black, so too a life well-lived includes unfinished business. If you finish all of your tasks, you’re likely not working hard enough or thinking creatively enough.

The same is true for the rabbinate; a rabbi who leaves his pulpit with all of his projects complete is either not working hard enough or not thinking creatively enough. So I’ve always known that when I would leave, it would mean that some efforts would go unrewarded.

Nonetheless, it hurts to see a project fail, or even go on hold, because of my decision to leave. Today my mind is on my Community Educator project, which is going on indefinite hold until a new rabbi comes into town.

We started this project fourteen months ago, in January 2008. The goals were admirable – everything from raising the education level in our community, to attracting new families, to providing an evening “Hebrew High School” option for kids from public schools, to presenting community role models. Others had tried and failed, but we would succeed.

I collected a first-class committee who would stick with it and make the project a success. It wasn't a set of the usual suspects who volunteer for everything, and it wasn't a group of great financial means, but rather it was a collection of people who were committed to the vision of greater Jewish education, who attended classes and learned themselves, and who would put in the hours to make it happen.

We developed a good job description, specific enough to convey what we wanted but general enough to leave the reins to a quality couple to run the program. We found a perfect institutional structure, thanks to a local 501(c)(3) organization that was willing to act as an incubator. We identified generous, willing donors, who made the fundraising remarkably easy and stuck with the program even as the economy declined.

But we only started soliciting candidates last May, after the main rabbinic hiring season was over, and for many months we couldn’t find the right fit. It wasn’t until January 2009 that we found couples we felt were right for the job – and then, at the end of February, came the job offer from Toronto.

The roof fell in. Key donors, committee members and my potential replacement as chair of the committee debated pros and cons before deciding, just a few days ago, right after we had extended an offer to our best-fit candidate, to wait until a new rabbi would come in, to see what he would want to do with the program.

I can’t disagree with them; the argument makes sense, within a certain context. So the project is on indefinite hold.

As I said before, everyone goes with work unfinished, and it’s a sign not of inadequacy but of hard work and a commitment to productivity. To make the foolishly grandiose comparison, Moshe doesn’t make it into Israel, either. He finishes lots of projects, but some things are left for others to do.

Further, I know that many others have tried to launch such projects in communities like mine, and not come nearly as close to success.

But it still hurts to see all of that work – months of getting buy-in, of planning infrastructure, of covering practical details, of interviewing candidate familes – just to see it die. Had we been a few months ahead, this would not have happened. It hurts to shelve all of this, and to wonder whether it will be revived, ever.

After I came out of our last meeting, I got in the car and turned on the radio, to hear a Van Halen song clip that was surely sent my way by the Divine sense of humor: “Come on, baby, finish what you started.”

Gd likes to laugh at me, I find, but in this I know I’m not alone.

OkayIsaidit

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

I’ve been having a hard time writing this post.

I’ve been thinking about how I would write it for a couple of weeks now, and getting nowhere.

The topic is an emotional one for me, and I have a great deal to say; it’s about news that brings me both excitement and joy, and disappointment and misgivings. It’s the sort of news that defines, and yet defies, the term bittersweet.

I can’t even begin to talk about it. I get upset when I talk to people about it locally… and so do they, for the most part.

Part of me always knew this day would come, that it had to happen, that I couldn’t possibly not end up doing this at some point. But part of me always insisted that the day would never come, that all of the pieces would fall into place so that this could be just a nightmare, a monster that never comes out of the closet, never does more than swipe a paw out from beneath the bed.

I suppose almost every rabbi goes through this at some point in his career, unless he dies on the pulpit. Some of them are probably overjoyed to get to this point, but I think many of them have the same feelings that I have.

It feels like the right thing to do. It feels like something I must do. It feels like a decision that will enable me to do a great deal to help people, albeit in a way that is different from the way I’ve been doing that for the past dozen years.

What a thrilling prospect. What a scary prospect.

Okay, here’s the deal: I’mretiringfromtheshulrabbinateandmovingtoTorontotoheadanewBeitMidrashprogramforYeshivaUniversityandTorahmiTzion.

There, I said it. I’m glad that’s out of the way.

Yes, I’m moving to Toronto, Gd-willing, this summer, to become “Senior Scholar” for a Yeshiva University/Torah miTzion Beit Midrash. I will be mentoring the members of the Beit Midrash, giving shiurim in the Beit Midrash and in the community, getting involved in the broader Jewish community and its institutions, and more.

It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be meaningful. It’s going to be a way to strengthen an already-thriving Jewish community. It’s going to be a new way for me to grow and develop whatever talents Gd has given me.

But, boy, is this transition going to be hard.

Do I have to change my blog name to The Ex-Rebbetzin's Husband?