Home About Us Become a Member Programming Newsletter Education Youth Group To read Rabbi Feingold's past messages, click a date below. August 2008
Rabbi Dena Feingold
As I sit looking out my window at the snow gently falling, providing a February “snow day”, it occurs to me that a sabbatical is like an extended “snow day.”
While a snow day can have its inconveniences, to many it is an unexpected gift: An opportunity to get some needed “r and r” and to catch up on any number of pursuits that have been set aside. On this snow day, I imagine that all over southeastern Wisconsin people are baking cookies, cleaning out closets and drawers, calling old friends, reading a book, catching up on e-mail, playing in the snow, writing that article they‘ve had in mind, taking time to reflect on what is really important in life, and more. My sabbatical over these past three months has been all this and much, much more, and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for this gift of time.
Truly I am fortunate to be in a profession that encourages time off for rabbis to recharge, review, reread, rekindle passion, reconsider interests and priorities; in short, to reassess ourselves and our rabbinates. Most rabbis I know do have sabbaticals, in one form or another, but few have stayed in the same congregation as long as I have
and been granted this same gift over and over again while the congregation is taxed to use its own human resources to fill in the gaps.
Beth Hillel is indeed a special community - to be able to make this happen so gracefully. At one of the conferences I attended during the sabbatical, I met a rabbi from a “mega-congregation” in California who expressed surprise that a “solo” rabbi could manage to arrange a sabbatical. This rabbi told me that he and the four other
full-time rabbinical colleagues on the staff of his synagogue have never been granted sabbaticals because they (both the lay people and the rabbis) cannot imagine who would take over the tasks for which each rabbi is responsible. The rabbi was floored to hear that, for the most part, lay people fill in for me when I am gone. Apparently, it is built in to the culture of that mega-congregation that their rabbis are indispensable to the ongoing functioning of the congregation.
Perhaps by necessity, our culture is very different, and that is something of which we can all be proud. Not only did Beth Hillel not close up shop when I was gone, but each week talented and courageous members stepped up to lead services, teach Torah and Hebrew, prepare children for their B’nai Mitzvah and Confirmation, care for the sick and infirm, deal with staff and building issues, consider the congregation‘s future and more.
On the one hand, I do not wish to be “indispensable” to the ongoing life of the congregation. On the other hand, however, I hope that the sabbatical has not caused anyone to think I am “expendable!” Although I have done many self-renewing, “snow day” type activities over these past three months, such as cooking, reading books for pleasure, taking piano lessons, reorganizing closets, drawers and files, spending quality time with family and friends, (and even a little playing in the snow!), my major focus has been to renew my rabbinical skills and scholarship so that I can serve the congregation better when I return. Elsewhere, I will identify all of the ways that I have taken this on, but suffice it to say that I have learned much in the areas of worship skills, biblical studies, fund raising, building restoration and grants, “family systems” thinking, and congregation-based community organizing. I plan to use these skills to benefit the congregation in a variety of ways when I return.
By the time you read this, I will have been back at the synagogue for a couple of weeks. At this moment, however, I am still anticipating my return, and as I sit looking at the untouched blanket of snow in the yard, It makes me think of the fresh new start I will enjoy when I walk up the steps of Beth Hillel next week. I look forward to making a fresh imprint.
Rabbi Dena A. Feingold
© 2008 Beth Hillel Temple
