The best and worst part of being a Rabbi

Or minister, or priest, or...

One of the things I could never have anticipated when I was ordained is how intimately clergy are involved in the lives of our congregants. We sit at their sick beds, hold their hands in the ICU, counsel them on marital problems, name their newborns, bar and bat mitzvah their teenagers, and, eventually, bury them, and give their eulogies. It’s the magic of the job, the privilege of it, entering into these moments as mediator and guide, celebrant and witness. And sometimes, the heartbreak.

Watching congregants you adore age and get sick, and sometimes die, is the cost of the job of the sacred witness. And, as you become an older Rabbi (or minister), you begin to bury people you have known for years, people who though they might have been a generation or two your senior, somehow also became friends, or that gray area between beloved congregant and friend. Yes, sometimes we bury people we barely know, especially in larger congregations, but in my congregation now, which is smaller, I know everyone: their stories and their heartbreaks, their parents names and their grandchildren’s. And with some of them, I know a lot more. Things they don’t even admit to their closest friends: shames and addictions, disappointments and ethical failings. And, also, their joys: promotions and successes, new loves after their spouse dies, or a new child after years of fertility struggles.

And sometimes, when you lose a congregant, it hits harder than other times. That happened this week. One of my favorite congregants (yes, I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to, but we have favorites) died suddenly after a long and full life. He was the child of refugees from Hitler’s Europe, who after a childhood in South America, came to the United States at 17 for college. He then received a litany of degrees from places that are notoriously rigorous, met his wife, raised a family, and spent years enjoying opera and classical music, playing tennis, reading the newspaper every morning cover to cover, and insisting on taking his young(ish) female Rabbi to lunch as often as she was able.

He was the consummate gentleman, who came from another world. A European world of chivalry and refined speech (he never swore, not ever), a world where most people spoke (at least) two languages, and he spoke more. Even when he was unsteady on his feet, he always pulled out my chair and held the door (and got angry with me if I tried to beat him to the punch) and then made friends with the waiters. He also nudged me to wear makeup regularly, and when I did, would smile largely, and make a point of telling me how pretty I looked with lipstick on (his wife told me tonight that it was because it gave him a chance to tell me I looked pretty - he loved complimenting women, in a sweet, chaste way). And he always insisted on not one cheek kiss but four, and would make me start all over if I forgot. He used to get mad at me if I refused to order dessert, and then order it for me anyway.

He also, I learned tonight, was an exceptional father, spouse and friend. Always kind, always compassionate, always optimistic about human beings, which is exceptional when it was the Nazis who reshaped his own family, and decimated his parents and grandparents worlds. I can only imagine what he thought about Elon’s stunt at the inauguration.

And though usually I’m able to maintain a degree of protective distance from congregant deaths, tonight, it feels different, and bittersweet. I am so grateful for this congregant: all the lunches and movies we shared (he loved documentaries, and insisted on bringing me to every Jewish documentary within a 20 mile radius) and grateful too, that I got to spend time with someone who, without this job, I would never have met. I learned tonight that he referred to me to his family and aide and children, for years, as “my rabbi”, or “my lovely rabbi” and kvelled about my writing. And I’m so grateful that his last years were filled with finding joy and meaning in his Judaism, even as he wasn’t observant. And I’m grateful that, just a month ago, he commissioned a piece of original art for the synagogue based on my weekly writings. He said beauty deserved more beauty. It was humbling and awe inspiring that anyone would do that, let alone someone who I was not related to. But that’s who he was. Everyone’s cheerleader, as appreciative of language as he was of opera, and foie gras (which he made himself, of course). I will miss him, but am grateful that in the years to come, I’ll get to walk by the art he commissioned every day, and be reminded of his menschlikeit.