A Rabbi's Role

A bit of nostalgia: My first sermon (Beverly, Norwood, N. Adams).

Millennia ago Moshe rabbenu descended from Mt. Sinai after meeting HaKadosh Baruch Hu.  With him, he carried the Tablets of Stone, luchot, engraved by the finger of God.  Moshe was not just the FTD man of the ancient world; he was much more.  And the item which he carried were far more precious than anything the world had ever seen.  Moshe was acting as more than an errand boy delivery a thing from point A to point B.  He was an expounder.

After the Revelation Moshe’s task was to teach masses of Israelites the meaning of the words God scribed.  That is why we call him Moshe rabbeinu, our teacher, our rabbi.

In Mishnaic times, roughly 1900 years ago those who taught the Law that Moshe brought and taught, were given the title of Rabbi, meaning “my teacher.”  

This is what a personal teacher is, a rabbi, a mentor.  And like all other teachers a rabbi has concrete priorities and techniques that have been handed down through the generations.  Like the “old school” they can be reduced to the three R’s; reading, righting and ‘rithmatic.

In Great Britain, where I went to college, people asked what I studied in rabbinical school.  I answered, “Political Science.”  When I asked what they studied they responded something like, “I read English.”  “Yes, I understand,” I would then say.  “But what did you do?”

“I read English,” they insisted.

When students in England go to university they “read” a subject.  We have a  “major.”  A “reader” is a more descriptive title since it implies that learning is a process, not a destination.

In this regard the role of the rabbi is much the same as a reader.  One must be an avid reader, gobbling up new ideas and nuances alongside ancient notions. A rabbi needs to be a perpetual student.  As the Mishna observes, d’la mosif yasif.  Loosely translated it means, “Use it or lose it.”  (It literally means, “One who does not add, loses”).

A rabbi is a reader because there are only so many message one person can deliver and teach without enlarging their sphere of knowledge.

I hope as the years pass what I say and believe will change as I grow and mature.  With ongoing expansion of knowledge I can share newfound insights with my community.  After all, for us learning has been the bedrock of our people for thousands of years.  Many would argue that it has been the breath, which has kept us vibrant and alive through the long centuries.  I agree.  Learning for the sake of growth.

What does good preaching and teaching sound like?  It ought to grab and secure the attention of the listener along with exercising the imagination bringing it towards thoughts that are familiar towards ones that have not been considered.  It is also the responsibility of the preacher to involve the community in the joy of the learning process, growing, blossoming within the context of our tradition.

This is where the individual reader moves from the inward to the collective, the whole.  In life there are always shades, varying perspectives on all issues.  That is because no two situations are exactly alike.  Life is not black and white, it is gray.  My task to to show how all things can been seen in a different light too through the lenses of generation upon generation of learned scholars and rabbis.  Hindsight is only wonderful when it illuminates the present.

That is why I am a reader.

This leads me to the second crucial role of a rabbi, that of righting (or correcting).

There is an old Hasidic tale of a man who taught his students that something can be learned form everything, from the most profound to the most mundane.  “Even man’s inventions can instruct,” said the master.

“What can be learned from a train?” asked one inquisitive student.

“That in a single moment you can miss something critical.”

“And from a telegraph?”

“That every word is counted and changed.”

“And what can be learned from a telephone?”

“That what we say here is heard elsewhere.”

“Righting” involves taking a situation out of its visual context in the moment, where judgments are made instantaneously and look at the context and event through the lens of Jewish ideals. 

“Righting” is when we speak to a family or person about the merits of keeping a kosher home.  Or speaking against insider trading or prejudices.  Righting means talking with people, not “reading” them, and attempting to have an impact by throwing a Jewish perspective on the matter.

There are two avenues of “righting.”  The first is as a group, a community, a congregation or gathering.  The second is through personal contact; being an influence by example and personal connection.

Finally there is the arithmetic.  This is the most trying of all.  As the late great Rabbi Milton Steinberg once said of his profession, “You suffer from a sense of defeat and frustration.  You may find yourself unable to effect your ends, but you will never feel that what you are doing in not worthwhile.”

Arithmetic is the end product, the hope desire that we might effect real, meaningful change.  It is the sum of a rabbi’s lifelong efforts.

I cannot possibly hope to reach everyone, to have an effect on the whole.  But, in the final analysis, the arithmetic is the judge of the success of a rabbi.

A farmer has to be intimately familiar with his implements, a hoe and plough.  A rabbi must be equipped with the tool of reading, righting, and arithmetic.

This is the message that I bring today.  Reading is my initiative and responsibility.  Righting is our joint task.  Arithmetic is our heritage and our future.