Remarks at Retirement Gala

Rabbi Mark Joel Mahler

June 3, 2018/20 Sivan 5778

            Before I offer my prepared remarks I must note that I had hoped to have the opportunity to express my gratitude personally and directly to everyone who has come this evening.  Try as I may, I managed to do so with only perhaps half of you.  To the other half, please accept my regret but more important please accept my gratitude that you have come this evening.

            How well I remember that Dr. Solomon Freehof described the rabbinate as a “happy profession.”

            For weeks after I sent the letter announcing my retirement to the congregation, my mind wandered back and back again to when I first  decided to become a rabbi.  Every remembrance was a happy remembrance about a happy decision.  I also recalled how happy I was when I was accepted to rabbinic school.  I trust that my all of my clergy colleagues here this evening felt the same elation when they were accepted to seminary, as we all felt elation greater still when we were ordained.

            Tomorrow, I will mark the fortieth anniversary of my ordination, so this evening I have the perfect vantage to confirm the accuracy of Dr. Freehof’s description.

            Temple members should remember that I’ve been pondering such a notion for the past forty-five years, ever since I dreamed a dream in Jerusalem shortly after I arrived for my first year of rabbinic school in the summer of 1973. The dream ended with me an old man getting ready to go to festivities at my synagogue on the occasion of my retirement. In the dream, my mood is pensive and kvetchy, but with me are three sons sitting in my bedroom, joking with me and lifting my spirits.  Of course when I had this dream in 1973, I had no sons nor daughters, but I did have Alice.

            While getting ready to come here this evening, I asked my sons Ari and Moshe and my future son by marriage Ed to sit down on my bed and pose for photographs. I then asked my daughters, Shani and Shira and my daughter by marriage Lacey to join them for more photographs. Here I must add that I love the expression, “son or daughter by marriage,” an expression I learned from Rabbi Bill Sajowitz, of blessed memory, especially here at Temple Emanuel.  Alice and my sister Jackie then joined in the photographs.  Altogether it was a happy prelude to this evening’s Gala.

            Temple members may also remember that this dream began at a party in Weehawken, New Jersey, hosted by a Genie who said to me, “Mark, you will have everything you want in life.”  Such an extravagant promise stunned me.  “Everything?” I asked.  “Everything,” the Genie replied.  He then dipped a cup in a punch bowl, handed it to me and said, “Drink this.”  I drank.  Suddenly I was that old man in his bedroom getting ready for festivities in honor of his retirement, pensive and kvetchy, with three sons sitting on his bed, lifting his spirits.

            When I awoke that morning in Jerusalem, the dream perplexed me.  If indeed I would have everything I wanted, why was I pensive and kvetchy at the end of the dream?

            The Talmud teaches that just as there is no wheat without chaff, so too there is no dream without nonsense.  This evening, I believe that I can separate the wheat from the chaff of this dream.

            First, I am not nearly as old in reality as this dream portended.  Indeed, one of the great blessings of my forty years in the rabbinate has been my remarkable good health.  Thank God.  In this regard, Dr. Freehof was right.  Yet perhaps the Genie was also right that a long life awaits me.

            Second, forty-five years after dreaming this dream, I’ve realized so much of what the dream foretold, and more.  A beautiful wife, with beautiful children – daughters as well as sons – with grandchildren the cherry on top.  And more.  Thirty-eight years at a congregation I was proud and honored to serve.  Good friends and respected colleagues here and across the community.  And much more….

            The God of our people, who is ever-present, under the Chupa with bride and groom, manifest in the mutual endeavors of professional staff and lay leaders, in the naches we all shared in Temple’s amazing children, and in the comfort we found when many of you and I walked together through the valley of the shadow of death.  The imminent God, the shepherd God, happily proves Dr. Freehof and the Genie right. And still more….

            The God heaven and earth, the transcendent God, the indescribably awesome God, now proves the wisdom of Rabbi Ely Pilchik, who first guided my application to rabbinic school and then installed me as Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in 1985.  When he was president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Pilchik gave a presentation on “Finding Religious Awe in the Rabbinate.”  Rabbi Pilchik began, “Each time I must speak to the Jewish people, I am gripped by the sense of awe that nowhere is God more present than in the presence of the Jewish people before whom I stand.  This sense of awe overwhelms and humbles me.”

            In the history of the Jewish people, who stood in the presence of God more than Moses?  Who had to speak to the Jewish people with greater urgency and surely more lastingly? Therefore who knew this sense of overwhelming awe better than Moses?  No wonder that yesterday’s Torah portion described him, v’ha-ish Moshe anav me’od, “And this man Moses was very humble, more so than any other man on earth.”

            Dr. Freehof and the Genie were right: the rabbinate is a happy and fulfilling profession.

            Rabbi Pilchik and Moses were also right: The rabbinate is also deeply humbling, perhaps more so than any other profession on the face of the earth.

            Every time I had to speak to the Jewish people or about the Jewish people, I was gripped by a sense of overwhelming awe.  …Never more so than this evening.  So I have done my best to muster these grateful and humble words.

            Thank you to our lay leaders who impressed upon me that this evening is indeed important to them as well as to me.

            Thank you to everyone who participated in this evening’s program, starting with M.C. and past president Mel Vatz, colleague and friend Rabbi Danny Schiff, so many Temple presidents, and dear Temple member Deb Levy for the time and effort you devoted to preparing and the appreciation and affection you’ve given me.

            Thank you to Susan Hommel, and to everyone who helped you plan and put together this evening.  Please understand that if I cannot name all of you by name, it is because this committee was very good at keeping me as far away from this loop as I should have been.

            To our professional staff and our support staff for whatever assistance you offered in making this evening, thank you.  Since I also thanked our superb support staff  in detail in my May Temple Bulletin article, I look forward to offering further thanks to Temple’s professional staff – Rabbi Locketz, Leslie Hoffman and Iris Harlan – at next Sunday’s annual congregational meeting.

            Thank you to dear friends, rabbinic and clergy colleagues and Jewish professionals who have come from across greater Pittsburgh.

            Thank you to our “surprise guest” Dale Gonyea.  When he entertained us in 2015, I was so impressed with his talent, wit and creativity, that I told him I hope we can bring him back sometime in the future.  How wonderful that this evening became that occasion.

            Thank you to beloved family who have traveled from far and wide.

            Thank you to all the well-wishers who expressed their regret to me that they could not be here this evening.

            Thank you to every one who is part of this wonderful congregation, but most especially thank all of you for coming to this singular and memorable evening in my life.

            Finally, thank God for holding off the rain until everyone could get here safe and dry.

“Who is a Jew? Amiens, France, 1940-1945”

A set of photo identification cards of Jews from Amiens, France is now on display in Temple Emanuel’s “Thou Art” Gallery (near the Pollon Family Library). This new exhibit, “Who is a Jew?” is the product of historian David Rosenberg’s research.

As a member of the Adult Education/beit Hamidrash committee, Dr. Rosenberg — who is also a long-time Temple member with his wife Davant — offered to create this exhibit, which explores how French Jews self-identified when forced to register during the Nazi occupation of World War II. His research provides a chilling glimpse into the past and a reminder of a time in history that must never again repeat.

Speaking about the exhibition, Dr. Rosenberg says, “The lessons of the Shoah are important for Jews and non-Jews alike. This research has led to some hopeful developments abroad, including the dedication last October of a commemorative plaque by the city authorities of Amiens at the site of the WWII-era synagogue.”

Stop by Temple anytime during normal business hours to view the exhibit or call ahead to arrange a guided tour for three or more people.

Read more about the exhibit in the Jewish Chronicle. There’s even an article in German that’s mostly based on the Chronicle piece.

Thank You Shabbat Five

March 23, 2018/8 Nissan, 5778

Synagogue Sine Qua Non – Volunteers

Rabbi Mark Joel Mahler

This Shabbat is the fifth of nine Shabbats leading up to my retirement that I’m devoting to offering my thanks to different groups of people whom I have served and who have helped me serve our congregation and community over these thirty eight years at Temple Emanuel. This Shabbat in particular, the recipients of my gratitude are so vast that in order to fully express my gratitude I must first offer a forward, followed by an introduction and then a preface.

The forward….

Ever since I announced my retirement come June 30th, people have asked me the natural question, what do I plan to do? I have several items on my retirement agenda, but the answer I offer most often is to get back to writing “my book.”

During my summer sabbatical of 1996, I began writing a book to update the 613 mitzvot of Jewish tradition that begin in the Torah. Given at Mount Sinai, these laws comprised the constitution of ancient Israel and the spiritual and ethical backbone of biblical Judaism. Throughout Jewish history, the 613 mitzvot have been updated as changing times necessitated. Alexander the Great’s conquest and hellenization of ancient Israel created the need for an Oral Law to interpret the Written Law of the Torah. When Rome destroyed the Second Temple and crushed two revolts by Judea, the Oral Law itself was then written down in the Mishnah, followed by the Talmud. Over the ensuing centuries, the 613 mitzvot have been transmitted in various iterations of codes, commentaries, and rabbinic responsa, again as the ups and downs of Jewish history dictated.

I had many good reasons to begin writing in 1996. For one, the most recent Jewish law code, per se, is the Shulchan Aruch, written in 1565. To this day, the Shulchan Aruch remains authoritative among Orthodox Jews. In the 1840s, the authority of the Shulchan Aruch was precisely what the founders of Reform Judaism roundly rejected. With the Holocaust and the creation of the modern state of Israel, Jewish history has changed dramatically in the last seventy-five years alone, how much to more so since 1565 and the 1840s.

When my summer sabbatical concluded in 1996, I had compiled an updated list of 613 mitzvot with biblical citations, along with commentaries on approximately ninety of the mitzvot, and an introduction that clearly described my book’s intentions.

The forward now leads to the introduction.

A central point I make in my book’s introduction answers the question, what exactly is the meaning of the word “mitzvah?” If you asked the average Jew on the street, he or she answer would answer a “good deed” or a “commandment.” Both answers are right, almost.

A mitzvah is more than a “good deed” because it is good not only in and of itself, it is also something that God asks of us. A mitzvah therefore asserts God’s presence here on earth, God’s goodness and caring for humankind. A good deed is certainly good, but a mitzvah is also holy. During these often profane times, when the word “holy” has all but vanished from common parlance, let alone exists as a virtue that people live by, the full meaning of mitzvah is all the more timely and vital.

A mitzvah is also less than a “commandment” as well as something more. A commandment is an edict, a fiat, a decree that must be obeyed, or else! Starting in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the Bible is rife with episodes when people defy God’s decrees.

A mitzvah is what God asks of us, but a mitzvah is something we do out of free will. Thereby keeping a mitzvah is an act of mutual love, reciprocal love, of God’s love for us in giving us the mitzvah and our love for God in doing it. So a mitzvah is something less than a commandment because it lacks the power of a commandment, but it is something more than a commandment because it is motivated not by power and authority but by voluntary love.

My book’s introduction now takes us to the preface for expressing my gratitude this evening.

Toward the conclusion of the Torah, Moses gathered the people before Mount Sinai and said, “You are standing this day, all of you before Adonai your God – your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer – to enter into the covenant of the Eternal your God, which the Eternal your God is concluding with you, to establish you this day as God’s people and be your God, as God promised you and swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I make this covenant not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Eternal our God and with those who are not here this day.”

Just in case you missed it, Moses concluded with a remarkable statement: Moses was speaking not only with those who were there at Mount Sinai but also with those who were not there.

Every rabbi wishes that he or she had Moses’ gift to speak with those who are not here this day. For me this is especially true this Shabbat, when I offer my gratitude to everyone at Temple who has volunteered their time and talent on behalf of our congregation. Who do they include?

They include the twenty-four members of our Board of Trustees, the chair people of our various committees, advisory boards, endowment funds, auxiliaries, along with everyone who has served on them. Yet altogether they are merely part of the many people who offer their time and talent to our congregation.

And what do they do? They sound the shofar, chant Torah, read Haftarah and lead services on the High Holy Days. They lead Shabbat services, Sunday morning minyans, Shiva minyans, Passover Seders and study groups. They sing and play instruments to enhance the beauty of our services and to entertain us at social events. They create educational and social programs, determine policies and practices, set budgets, track finances, sign paychecks. They erect our Sukkahs, decorate them and then take them down. They stuff envelopes with Temple mailings. They cook for our Memorial Day and Labor Day picnics, help with our model Seders and prepare food for meals of condolence for families sitting Shiva. They collect food and life’s necessities for the South Hills Interfaith Movement to distribute to the needy. They feed and shelter people overnight in the Family Promise program once a month. They crochet caps and knit comforters for the sick. They inspect our building to ensure its upkeep. They tend our gardens, as well as our cemetery. They maintain our website. They march here and lobby in Washington for righteous causes. They counsel the bereaved and care for the needs of the ill or the elderly, providing rides and shopping for groceries.

I am certain that I have omitted something, perhaps many things, for which I might apologize. But let me expand the circle of my gratitude to embrace every member of Temple Emanuel today and over these thirty-eight years, in other words to speak not only to those of you are here this evening, but like Moses, to speak to those who are not here as well.

For the truth is that Judaism is a voluntary religion, it always has been and it always will be. Love cannot be commanded. Love can only be freely given. Love can only be freely accepted. Genuine love, above all other things in life, is voluntary.

Especially today, anyone and everyone who belongs to Temple Emanuel, or any house of worship for that matter, is here, or there, voluntarily. Especially today when synagogue affiliation nationally continues to decline – less than one-third of American Jews now belong to a synagogue – the simple act of synagogue affiliation is indisputably a voluntary act.

Indeed one of the 613 mitzvot in my book is “It is a mitzvah to support a synagogue.” So too all of the voluntary acts of our members that I cited previously, from sounding the shofar to shopping for groceries for the ill and the elderly, are among the 613 mitzvot I include in my book. But there are many more mitzvot that could be kept and should be kept, given that the mitzvot in their entirety are the measure by which we Jews live up to being created in God’s image.

I conclude with good news and bad news.

First, the bad news. When I finished writing at the end of my summer sabbatical in 1996, I had written one-hundred thousand words. At five-hundred words per page, that’s two-hundred pages right there, including commentaries for only ninety of the 613 mitzvot. Simple arithmetic said that if I accomplish all that I envision, my book was on the way to being at least a million words and two-thousand pages long. Good luck to me finding a publisher willing to publish a multi-volume edition of a book written by a previously unpublished author!   In 2006, I sat down to edit what I had written. Instead, I quickly wrote another twenty-thousand words. Recognizing that my book was not only a matter of writing words but also wrestling with words, I put the book on the back burner until I retire.

Now, the good news….

It is the nature of the 613 mitzvot that not all of them are intended for every single person. Even when the 613 of the Torah comprised the constitution of biblical Israel, many of the mitzvot applied only to some of the people – for example, only to the kings, or priests or Levites of ancient Israel – while many other mitzvot applied to all of the people – among the many, for example, the Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, any one of us has more than enough mitzvot to do voluntarily, lovingly.

So the better news is that each mitzvah that God gives to us is an act of God’s love for us, and through us for the whole world. Each mitzvah that we keep is an act of our love for God and for the whole world. In a world where too many people are desperate for such love, or doubting and dismissive that such love exists, in a world so close to becoming everything that God created it for, yet so very far, I can’t think of better news. Can you?

I am honored to be appointed as Temple Emanuel’s Interim Rabbi for this coming year. I can’t tell you – but I think it will show – how much I enjoy the role of Interim Rabbi. I have served as Interim Rabbi for the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL and Temple Beth Am in Framingham, MA. I am currently at Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ. Temple Emanuel will thus be my fourth interim congregation.

As an Interim Rabbi, my first priority will be to be your Rabbi, there for you, the members, in all the ways a spiritual leader should be, providing all the clergy presence you have come to expect and deserve. During our year together, I, partnering with Rabbi Locketz, will be there for you to celebrate and sanctify the joyous times and to stand with you during the difficult times of illness, heartbreak, and loss. One of my strengths has been the ability to connect with people heart to heart in a relatively short time, which has served me well in officiating at life cycle events for individuals and families whom I have just met. In that regard, I know that the families of youngsters becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah are naturally concerned about a Rabbi whom they do not know working with their children alongside Rabbi Locketz and being part of this most important family life cycle event. One of my first priorities will be to reach out to the Bat/Bar Mitzvah students and create opportunities for us to get to know each other.

An Interim Rabbi is more than a clergy placeholder until you get your next Senior Rabbi. My other mission is to help Temple Emanuel through this year of transition. It will be an important time to regroup after 38 years of Rabbi Mahler’s dedicated leadership, experience what his retirement means for the congregation, to mix continuity with change, and to pursue the search for the Rabbi you believe will best serve your needs and begin with you the next chapter in the life of Temple Emanuel. The fact that Rabbi Mahler has had such a long and energetic tenure at the Temple is a precious blessing. It says a great deal about him, about the Temple, and, most importantly, about the relationship between Rabbi and community. Of course, the blessing of a long-term rabbinate also presents a challenge. What will Temple Emanuel be like without Rabbi Mahler at the helm? How will the Temple change and how will it remain the same? Without Rabbi Mahler, will it still be Temple Emanuel? (Not to give too much away, but the answer is yes.)

In one way or another, Temple Emanuel faces the same challenges that most synagogues and churches face: demographic shifts, financial concerns, a shrinking volunteer base, and a general cultural climate in which “I” over-shadows “we.” But from what I saw and what I learned from speaking with people in and out of the congregation, Temple Emanuel is well-poised to meet these challenges in positive and creative ways. I am looking forward to partnering with President David Weisberg, Rabbi Locketz, Leslie Hoffman, Iris Harlan, and the rest of the dedicated Temple leadership and staff.

Just to be clear, the term of an Interim Clergy is one year. I have no intention of becoming your “settled” Rabbi nor would it be appropriate. My job is to serve the clergy needs of the members for this year and to set up the congregation so that it can find the best clergy fit for its future.

Prior to my interview visit, I had only been to Pittsburgh once for a rabbinic convention. The Pittsburgh area looks to be a wonderful place to live – small enough to be manageable, but large enough in vision to offer a treasure-trove of cultural resources. Fran and I are looking forward to living in the community, making new friends, and taking advantage of all that Pittsburgh offers!