Buildings Without Congregations – Congregations Without Buildings

On the flip side, congregations without buildings are a significant part of my rabbi experiences this past quarter. HaMakom, the progressive, renewal-ish group in Santa Fe, recently began renting space in the beautiful Beit Tikva shul, and the arrangement has been beneficial to both groups. We’ve even held a few joint activities including a Tu Bi Shevat seder and a Yom HaShoah Remembrance event. Liturgically, my regular rabbi work has involved co-leading Shabbat morning, occasional Friday night, Purim, and community seder services with Hazzan Cindy at HaMakom, and leading Friday night services at the Los Alamos Jewish Center the rest of the month. I’ve also had the opportunity to make a few remarks at various events, both sad and joyous. I struggled a lot with the right words I delivered at a non-denominational candlelight vigil following the Parkland, Texas, shooting, eventually closing my speech with a responsive “Dayenu – it should have been enough” as I listed schools where children have been slain by someone with a gun. I had fun speaking at an upshirin (first haircut for a Jewish boy, traditionally at age 3), at the opening of a session of the New Mexico State Senate, at our farewell HaMakom event in the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Santa Fe, at a Life and Legacy event in Albuquerque hosted by the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, and at a Bat Mitzvah celebration in Beijing, China. The last was a whirlwind (literally weekend) trip to share in the simcha with my family away from home, Kehillat Beijing, another congregation that is without its own building,

Perhaps it’s this wandering that makes Jews so sympathetic, in general, to immigrants and refugees. In response to recent events, I prepared a talk entitled “The Jews Are No Strangers to the Stranger in our Midst: Jewish Texts on Immigration” and have delivered it both in Los Alamos and at the Moishe House in Beijing just before heading to the airport. Despite, or perhaps because of our collective immigrant experience, it’s truly a small Jewish world; I was startled at the Beijing airport on my return trip to hear someone say “Hey, that’s Rabbi Jack!” About 20 high school students from the Milken Community Schools Jewish Day School in Los Angeles were on their way home after a week-long service project in China; the group had attended Kehillat Beijing’s Friday night service. I guess even if we find ourselves without synagogue buildings, we manage to find each other, and that seems more important.

The long plane flights and a little down time during Pesach allowed me to expand my reading list. Many of the books deal with the Jewish immigrant or refugee experience, and my favorites are marked by an asterisk. I’d also like to take the opportunity to promote a book by my friend, Rahel Halabe. Her biblical Hebrew textbook Hinneh is availabe in the new revised edition published by Hebrew University Magnes Press at https://www.magnes-press.com/Authors/Rahel+Halabe.aspx?name=Rahel+Halabe

B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack