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Dear Haverim,
Benjamin Franklin once wrote that “the good that we can do together surpasses the good that we can do alone.” That’s what a congregation is or should always aspire to be: a community that wants to improve the lives of everyone in it and one that brings healing and love to the world as a whole.
Look at what we have all created together over more than three decades! This is what I’ve always tried to teach. Be proud of our welcoming of diversity and inclusivity. Appreciate that we care about ideas, reason, humanism and humanity, that we are unafraid to challenge “sacred cows,” and that we accept that life is complicated and ideas are complex.
We are not looking to be lulled into complacency by bromides and clichés. While traditional religious ideas often declare themselves to be sanctuaries of certainty in a world of evil and chaos, we know that good questions are better than bad answers, and that comforting simplicity is often a way to hide from reality, rather than to engage with life’s challenges.
We don’t want our Judaism to hold us or future generations back, but rather to push us forward, to do the work of “Tikkun Olam,” repairing the world. This is not a Judaism “apart” from the world, but a vigorous and engaged Judaism that is “fully part” of the world and a “partner” with others in improving our shared future.
So, please join us this Friday evening, July 26, at 6 pm for Shabbat Dinner and at 7 pm for “Shabbat Alive” services with our band for an evening of memories as I reflect on my 33 years as your Rabbi and begin my next 10 years as your Rabbi Emeritus. (RSVP Now.)
I am grateful to the Board for asking me to serve as “Rabbi Emeritus” and honored to be continuing my devoted relationship to University Synagogue. I want to always support our congregation and be here to “kvell” over its future. After all, our synagogue’s future will be built on the shared legacy of our past, for we have always been “ahead of the curve,” a “spiritual incubator” of new and daring ideas. May that vision continue to flourish!
As Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner wrote in their song “Take Care Of This House” for their Broadway musical “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”:
“Take care of this house
Keep it from harm…
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land…
Be always on call
For this house is home for us all.”
So, let’s celebrate our “synagogue home for us all” this Shabbat! Let’s enjoy the words, music and memories of our Shabbat service as well as the “surprises.” (I didn’t even know that there would be surprises till it was announced last Shabbat and I have no idea what they will be, so let’s find out together!)
Very kindly and generously that evening, there will also be the dedication of a new Reading Room right outside the library in honor of Cantor Braier and me and in memory of Shirley Sepel, donated by her husband, David Sepel (father of Heidi Kahn). The Sepel/Kahn family will be with us that evening, as well. This Reading Room will be filled with many of the books that I have read and collected over my five decades as a rabbi!
Also that evening, University Synagogue will be dedicating a seat in our sanctuary in memory of Katherine Merage, matriarch of the Merage family. Katherine was an incredible philanthropist, always devoted to University Synagogue, Israel, and the Jewish people. The Merage family will be in attendance at services that evening, as well.
What a memorable and meaningful evening it will be. I look forward to celebrating my last “regular Shabbat service” with you before becoming University Synagogue’s Rabbi Emeritus. I would be honored to have you with us.
Shavua Tov/ Have a joyous week,
Rabbi Arnie Rachlis
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