Keys, Kiddush and Memories

To everyone on the outside, someone else’s job almost always seems like a mystery.

“What do they do all day”, “How does it work”, etc. are common questions we think but dare not ask.

Perhaps this is why certain professions, like doctors, teachers, lawyers and accountants –aside for the obvious reasons, always garner respect. We know how theyspend their day, we have their job figured out.

My oldest and youngest daughter were heard talking on the way home from shul last Shabbos.

“So, Hadassah, you know we are moving soon, right?”

“Of course I know that!” replied the five year old.

Wondering how far she has thought this move through, she proceeded to ask her younger sister about the move, and in particular, why another shul wants me to be their rabbi.

The five year-old looked up and said, “Everyone knows why! Because they need someone to make kiddush after davening”!

There it is; my job distilled down to allowing people to begin to eat!

But the truth of the matter is that she touched upon something very real. There is no job description for a rav and indeed there may be some people (hopefully just a few) who only want to encounter the rav when its time for him to make kiddush.

Others are looking for a posek. Still others are looking for an entertainer, or a master sermonizer. Others may be inspired by someone who is down to earth – in fact, recently a ben Torah told me, in all sincerity, that a rav who does not follow sports can’t be a rav in America! Yet others are looking for dry academics, someone who can get into the minutia of Tanach, dikduk and Jewish history. The list continues: the counselor, the writer, the peacemaker, and yes, the kiddush-maker.

Over the next few months I will discuss, on and off, the job of rabbanus proper. In particular, we will discuss the probah process, and how a shul and a rav choose, and how one approaches a shul that is new for the rav but is already home to its balla battim. This is both because – after my announcement Pesach time in these pages that I would be leaving my current position for another – it was requested by a few that we delve into in to this ‘secretive’ subject, and, because there is little else on my mind these days other than rabbanus, my choices, challenges and changes.

Asked once if was ever nostalgic for his youth, Yogi Berra is said to have replied with a sigh. “Ah, Nostalgia…”, now looking into the distance, “…it ain’t what it used to be”

Sometime our past confronts us, forcing its way onto our hearts and minds, demanding that we pay it heed.

I am told that I am ‘moving on’ –a term that is a misnomer if there ever was one, as one never moves on from a place that retains a piece of one’s heart and soul.

As I begin to pack up my sefarim I can’t help but feel nostalgic, wistful.

Each sefer I grab reminds me of a shailah, a shiur or a drasha for which I mined its contents.

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As I clean out my shul office drawer I find old letters and notes. The family picture that once stood on my desk of a young married couple and their, then, one daughter. The correspondence sent from a prisoner who was slowly becoming frum with the help of his weekly Ami. The note left on my desk from a visitor who questioned a psak I once made during davening and had told me he would ask his own rav upon his return to Israel- he did, his rav to my surprise was Rav Shmuel Vosner zt’l, and he, thankfully, concurred (his exact words were, “For Buffalo it was correct”). The letter I received from a member who was deeply hurt, understandably and regrettably, by something I had mentioned in a drasha; the note left on the door of the shul one day last year from a member of the New York State Highway Dept. letting us know that they accidently knocked down a lechi of our eruv, explaining further that they were fearful of fixing it themselves out of concern of making an error (amazing!!); the phone message note from a women who called one erev Rosh Hashanah just to let me know that she was visited by Elijah the night before and that she would be appointed as moshiach in a month or so (she still calls the office every several weeks).

My mind raced back in time twelve years, just a few weeks before I moved here. I was walking through the aisles of ShopRite on Highway 9 in Lakewood when I bumped into an old friend I had learnt with in Rav Dovid Soleveitchik. When I mentioned I would be moving, and to Buffalo of all places, he told me the following story about Rav Mordechai Weinberg, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Gedoleh of Montreal, and my father in law’s rebbe. I have never verified this story, but its lesson is spot-on and has never left me.

As a yungerman in Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin, Rav Weinberg was known as one of the premier yungeleit. He had a gift of dealing with younger bochurim and talking to them in learning. One day he is called into Rav Hutner’s office. The rosh yeshiva explains that his excelling has not gone unnoticed and that, as all excepted, they want to give him a position in the yeshivah.

At that, Rav Hutner reached into his drawer and pulled out a key to the dorms. “Here” he said as he handed Rav Weinberg the key “I want you to be the dorm counselor”.

Mystified, Rav Weinberg took the key. Rav Hutner noticed Rav Weinberg’s surprise, and understood that he was likely expecting a more ‘prestigious’ position in the yeshiva like shoel umeishiv or even giving a shiur of some kind.

Rav Hutner held the key in Rav Weinberg’s hand and said, “I am giving you a shlissel (key)! With this shlissel you can just be a dorm counselor or use it to begin something special. Only you can decide which door to open with it. A shlissel is a powerful thing”

There in the cereal section of the Lakewood ShopRight my friend concluded that Rav Weinberg used his shlissel to perfect his methods of dealing with young men, eventually opening up his own yeshiva in Montreal.

This is an invaluable lesson. As with any occupation or performance we can either be a seat-filler, a paycheck receiver, or a man with a shlissel that can open any and all doors. While I certainly have regrets, projects not yet finished or never started, this story has often galvanized me throughout my tenure, and I hope its lesson will never fade as I embark on a new journey.