From the Rabbi's Study

For as far back as I can remember I have been fascinated with concepts of time. That’s probably just as well, since Judaism seems almost obsessed with it. “Our” calendar (which is far older than most) is different from “theirs”. Our months are shorter; there are often more of them in any given year. We’ve been formally counting the years for longer than almost anybody, so our numbering system for years is different from almost everybody else’s, too. We care – to the minute – about when religious observances start and finish, and we even take one complete day a week and call it “holy” time. Some of “we”, that is. 

For the rest of us pretty assimilated Jews, we’ve pretty much assimilated “their” calendar as well. So we say, like “they” do, that the High Holy Days, Chanukkah, or Pesach are coming “late or early” this year, depending on how the calendars match up in a specific year, basing our approach to time on “their” calendar. After all, we reason, we live in a secular society, so why should we bother ourselves with  two calendars when we can obviously and easily get by with just one?  

One answer to that question is  answered by the fact that a very important meeting took place at Temple Israel just days before this Bulletin reached you. On April 30th people (I’ll call them stakeholders) from every facet and aspect of our Temple met to work out the Master Calendar for the Temple for the year that begins June 1st of this year. Anyone who wanted to have anything at all on that Master Calendar for the coming year needed to submit their dates for consideration to the “open” committee at this meeting. This included listing each and every Jewish holiday and holy day and their worship services, each session of Hebrew and Religious School, each meeting of every Temple committee and auxiliary, each bar or bat mitzvah’s service(s) and all other “special” services that we hold, requests for time and space from those who rent space at the Temple, space and dates for educational and social programs, and much, much more. 

But then comes the part over which we have no control, and which – every single year – causes more conflict and heartache than all the effort that goes into working out the details of the Master Calendar in the first place. The people whose lives are most directly affected by that calendar don’t seem to take notice of it, and get upset when what is on it conflicts with plans that they have made that happen to fall on dates they hadn’t thought to check out on a Jewish calendar first. 

For example, the most common problem we encounter is that people occasionally realize “at the last minute” that they have booked vacation plans for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, or realize that they will not be at services to say Kaddish for their loved one on the date of his or her yahrzeit. And they get upset with us, as though we should have forced them to plan their time more consciously around the Jewish calendar.

 For better or for worse, the leadership of the modern liberal Jewish community no longer has the authority or the desire to exert coercion on any Jews. So we cannot and we will not force anyone to do anything they aren’t willing to do themselves. But we will continue to create a calendar for our congregation that is based on the Jewish calendar, that includes all of its ritual events and as many of its educational and social events as we can cram in during any particular year. And at the same time I urge each of you to plan ahead, to think about when Jewish observances occur, both communal and personal, over the course of the year, as you plan your own personal calendar for the year ahead, so that you can be with your community for holidays and holy days, for yahrzeit, Yizkor, and other personal observances and celebrations, and not have to scramble at the last minute to find a Jewish community that is not your own – or worse, not be able to do what you should or would like to do Jewishly in the year ahead. 

And, as always, I look forward to seeing you and to sharing the Jewish year with you at every opportunity at our beloved Temple Israel.

rabbi@templeisraelalameda.org