June 2016
“On a daily basis, Shul Rabbonim listen and see families living paycheck to paycheck and struggling with the high costs of tuition”, explains Yehuda Friedman, Associate Director of Synagogue services for Long Island and Queens for the Orthodox Union.
This is why, he explains, the idea percolated to have “Rabbonim from across New York State travel to Albany to share the stories with legislators about the tuition burden facing their community”.
This past March Ami reported extensively on this OU mission to Albany in support for additional yeshiva funding. Jake Adler, director of government affairs for Teach NYS, explains further. “The teach NYS mission to Albany this past March was a classic example of what our community can accomplish together. This was the largest mission to Albany that our community has ever undertaken and it made waves. When the community mobilizes -together, for a common cause, elected officials and policy makers notice and our families benefit”
They could not have said it better. While rabbanim are offered to go on many missions and to untold conferences, there is simply not enough time to attend many. However, for this trip a significant number of rabbanim from Queens felt that this was a cause worthy of showing support for not just from the pulpit but in person as well.
And indeed, the mission was met with some successes; an additional five-million dollars in funding in yeshiva STEM funding.
I mention the above so as to give what comes next some context.
A week before the trip, one of the members of my community, David Weprin, himself an Assemblyman in Albany, approached me with an interesting opportunity.
“I hear you will be going to Albany on this mission. How would you like to do the invocation?” He was referring to the speech the opens the session in the New York Assembly.
If the reader is wondering what exactly an ‘invocation’ is, here is the definition as given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
1a :the act or process of petitioning for help or support; specifically, often capitalized :a prayer of entreaty (as at the beginning of a service of worship)
1b :a calling upon for authority or justification
2a formula for conjuring
In short, an invocation is when a person-often a member of the clergy-opens up an otherwise non-religious event with a prayer and a focus on grander priorities.
While I have had the opportunity to present invocations in the past (at secular dinners, etc.) I have never done so in such an official and important setting.
In preparation, I spent a little time reading a few invocations of others, and realized that I would have to actually read my speech –something that I was not used to doing. To be clear, one does not have to read their speech, rather that to be presented in the most respectfully prepared and clear manner, this is what almost all before had done.
That morning in Albany, I quietly left the other rabbanim and schools that came to the State capitol to be taken to the actual chambers.
Just the walking to get there was an experience, what with underground tunnels and elevators and even more security than I was expecting.
On the final elevator ride down to the bowels of the capitol building, I saw another state legislator who seemed to have dirt on his forehead. Being a kind gentleman, I was just about to inform him of the stain on his head. Thankfully I realized in the nick of time that this was far from an accidental stain –rather that day happened to be ‘Ash Wednesday’, when religious Christians have ashes placed on their forehead.
I was not nervous yet for my speech, but that was about to change. I was brought not just inside the chamber –a room with what seems like a 500 foot ceiling – but placed on the dais, seated together with two other high officials about twenty feet above-and facing-the other legislators.
This I was not expecting. Nor was I anticipating an official introduction to who I was etc.
By the time it was my turn to open the session I was very, very, nervous.
Walking up to the mike, I needed to break the tense feeling (that only I felt).
Although I was not planning on opening with a joke (obviously) I said:
“Only in New York would our greatest house allow a rabbi to perform the invocation on what happens to be Ash Wednesday –what a diverse and free state!”.
This got a wonderful laugh and applause.
With that I was able to read my invocation with ease, presented below:
“A-might Gd, Creator of heaven and earth. We open today with profound gratitude from our hearts and the deep thanksgiving of our souls, for our democracy.
“We beseech You, Oh Gd, that we as a people, and we here today as leaders of peoples, shall never tire nor take for granted this gift and blessing of our Freedoms and Democracy, the gift of this Country, these United States of America, and its state, the greatest and most diverse of all in the Union, The Great State of New York!
“We entreat You, Oh Lord, that You protect her and guide her. We plead with You, the One and Only Gd, to bring peace of mind, health and clarity of vision to:
“Our Speaker, Carl Heastie; Majority Leader, Joseph Morelle; Minroty Leader Brian Kolb. And special mention to my own Representative, Assemblyman David Weprin.
“For our dear Governor Andrew Cuomo, we pray for Gd’s Grace to shine through him, for, as our Talmud teaches, You, Gd, lend from your mighty throne cherished charm and potential power to our leaders.
“May Gov. Cuomo continue to use these gifts for the betterment of all denizens of this state. May You shine unto Gv. Cuomo only good health, strength of spirit and the continued ability to be guided by Your Light.
“May these hallowed halls, and all of its duly elected members, be protected always, be a lighthouse to all citizens of this State.
“As someone who has been blessed with the good fortune to serve as a rabbi upstate in Buffalo, and now Downstate in Queens, and to have traveled and traversed her valleys and mountains in my field of Kashruth, from its farmlands to the metal jungles of her glorious cities,
May we so find:
“That from southern corner Richmond County to the northern tip of Clinton County, From Chitaqua to the West and Saratoga and Washington Counties to the East, and all of her counties in between, only unity where there is unholy divide, fine commonality from within our differences, and our shared humanity in our various backgrounds.
“May your decisions here today be wise and guided by the values of those that came before us, so that we may bequeath to those that come after the same bounty we received.
“May we always remember that we are all living in some distant futures past.
“May Gd protect this great state, and bless us all, forever and always Amen!
And then, my biggest surprise came two weeks later, when I received a check in the mail from the Assembly paying me for my speech! What a great State indeed!
I handed the check to my wife and jokingly said, “We better declare this in our taxes, I fear it may be a trap!”
May HKBH indeed bless our state and our country so that we may continue to thrive here in Torah in peace until moshiach’s arrival.
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