Somebody out there is missing their 15 minutes

While I was talking to a classmate of mine at the URJ Biennial last week I got a call from Cathy in the office. She told me that I just received a letter from the White House. I had her read it to me. It did not seem like the kind of thing that could wait until I got home.

The letter was in fact an invitation to the White House Hanukkah reception on December 6th. Martha and I are both invited.

Let me check my calendar.... are you kidding? Of course we are going. How many times (if you are not our friend Murray H.) do you get invited to the White House?

John Lennon said it best: “Strange days indeed. Most peculiar, mama.“

Another 15 minutes

Celebrity is as celebrity does. Remember that.
                                                        Gilderoy Lockhart

On Sunday, November 13th I attended an AIPAC event at the home of Mark and Linda P. Soon after I arrived the regional director of the Houston AIPAC office came over to me and had the following conversation.

“Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“You know, the Forward.”

“What about the Forward?”

“You were named to the Forward Fifty.”

“The what?”

“The Forward Fifty most influential Jews in America. You are Rabbi Zamek, right? There isn’t another one, is there?”

“No just me.”

“Then you are on the list. Here I’ll email you the link.”

After a Treo to Treo zap (this seems to be the weapon of choice among Jewish professionals---the biennial was a giant Palm product placement) I read the list and sure enough there I was. My name was spelled incorrectly and the name of the congregation was slightly off, but it was a positive ID.

This is very flattering, I suppose, but also embarrassing. I am on the list in the “Community” section. The entry deals with my role in Katrina relief. The problem is that from reading the Forward you might believe, unless you were there, that I did all the work myself. I did do my bit to the best of my ability, but the record needs to be corrected.

The Baton Rouge Jewish Community as a whole responded to the crisis. I took part in an effort that included Beth Shalom, B’nai Israel and the Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge. The Jewish Federation was the coordinating agency for our response. It is true that Martha and I called in our family so that we could work continually on the project, but many other people made sacrifices as well.

At any rate, now that the record is corrected here is the text of the Forward blurb on this guy “Zemek”:

Stanton Zemek
The feds might have taken their time responding to Hurricane Katrina, but the Jewish community was on the ground immediately, and few were more in the thick of things than Rabbi Stanton Zemek of Temple Beth Shalom in Baton Rouge, La., 80 miles north of New Orleans. When the storm hit, Zemek quickly turned his synagogue — one of two in Baton Rouge — into a processing center for the evacuees pouring out of the flood zone. Zemek had relatives come live with him so he could work around the clock, rounding up supplies and mapping out relocations. A few weeks after the storm, Zemek himself went into New Orleans to gather stranded Torah scrolls. Outsiders followed Zemek's struggles on a Web log he set up, and he was singled out in a September 21 speech by President Bush reviewing Jewish responses to the hurricane. The communal relief efforts involved thousands of efforts like Zemek's, and most went without any notice. Just days after Bush's speech, though, Zemek experienced the other side when his synagogue was hit by Hurricane Rita, flooding the sanctuary and driving the congregation to a local Baptist church. Working just as hard to save his own shul, Zemek had his congregation back in its sanctuary soon after the High Holy Days.

Dr. Bob went a bit batty about this Forward 50 business. When we bumped into URJ President Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who is legitimately one of the 50, he made a point of mentioning the list. Of course, the most significant thing about the whole episode is being mentioned in the same column as Jon Stewart.

Thanksgiving 2005

I am feeling particularly thankful this Thanksgiving. After all the upheaval we have been through this year, I am grateful for the resilience and strength of my congregation. We worked ourselves hard in response to Katrina and were slammed by Rita but are still doing what synagogues do.

This weekend we will have our first post-hurricane simcha in our wounded sanctuary---the Bat Mitzvah of wonderful young lady. Steve W. and Randy G., visiting from Colorado, took it on themselves to drape the grim gray walls with white cloth. Steve also repaired the damaged light fixtures. Thanks to them the sanctuary will be bright again.

I am thankful for the honor of training our Bat Mitzvah. Some years ago she was stricken with a life threatening illness. She has had to endure suffering and fear that no one her age should know. Baruch HaShem, she is well and will be called to the Torah on Saturday morning. Blessed is the One who is good and who does good.

I am thankful that I had the privilege of representing the congregation at the URJ Biennial in Houston last week (more on this later). Bob K. and I told the story of our congregation many, many times to people from all over the country. Our brothers and sisters in the movement know what you did.

Baruch HaShem for my wonderful family. They are visiting the relatives in Tulsa this weekend. God bless all of them also. Without Justine and Nathan’s personal rescue mission to us I do not know what we would have done.

Many blessings to the Beth Shalom chevre and to our many friends and supporters around the country.

Yom Hoda’ah Sameach!

Sacred by Design

If you remember, shortly after Rita I spoke to Larry Hoffman of Synagogue 2000 (now Synagogue 3000 actually) about the restoration of our sanctuary and social hall. I asked Larry if he could help me get in touch with Richard Vosko, a much sought after architect/sacred space design consultant and a member of the Synagogue 3000 faculty. As it happened, Richard was scheduled to speak at a sacred space design conference sponsored by the Indianapolis Center for Congregations. Synagogue 3000 arranged for me to attend this conference at their expense.

The conference was an incredibly rich experience, impossible to summarize with blog-like brevity. I do, however, want to report a few highlights.

Fortunately for me, Richard Vosko was under the mistaken impression that the conference was specifically focused on synagogue design, so one of his presentations was entitled Imagine This: A Virtual Tour of the Ideal Jewish Place of Worship. I am distributing copies of my notes to our design committee and can make them available to other members of the chevre on request.

Here are some of this key ideas:

* Religious buildings are metaphors of the community’s identity and message. They are not just containers for religious people and objects. This tells us that while the building does not make the community, the design of its sacred space matters a great deal.

* Architecture for worship begins outside the building. One should have the sense of being on a pilgrimage when approaching the space.

* There should be a “gateway” element, so that people feel they are entering a different world, where anything is possible--- loneliness becomes belonging, sickness becomes health, and death becomes eternal life.

*Vosko advocates returning to older conceptions of Jewish sacred space which place the prayer leader among the people and allow the congregation to see one another. He urges congregations to break out the stage/spectator model.
* Sacred space should have natural light. It brings both beauty and a sense of the presence of God.

* There should be a blend of the old and the new.

I brought back a stack of materials, including a monograph by Richard Vosko. I happy to share this material with any interested Beth Shalomite

Ron Wolfson was also a presenter at the conference. He wanted our chevre to know that Synagogue 3000 will do whatever it can to help us. The staff of the Indianapolis Center for Congregations also want to be of help and I will be in touch with them.

In the Good and Welfare department, I had dinner with Jon and Sandy Adland the night before the conference. Sandy Adland was formerly Sandy Chapman and grew up in Baton Rouge. She and her mother, Norma send their regards. Sandy has been following the doings at her home congregation through our website and this blog.

Many thanks to Ron, Larry, and Synagogue 3000 for making my trip possible

The New Normal

It was a normal day at Religious School yesterday. There were no special events and all the students spent the day in their classes. Of course “normal” these days means a 10% increase in the number of students. We have had to be adaptable. Kids are studying in the vestibule outside the Sanctuary and in the social hall. My confirmation kids cram into my study. I am doing this out of necessity, but I actually like it. It feels a bit like inviting the kids into my home and I have easy access to my music library for our “Yeshivah of Rock” segment.

The setting may not be ideal right now, but if my class is any indication, the kids are engaged and learning. We spent a wonderful morning talking about Madonna and the Kabbalah (with a quick excursion to the Kabbalah Center website, so the kids could see religious hucksterism in action), listening to Terri Gross’ interview of Arthur Green, reading an article about the crypto-Jews of the American Southwest and studying some Talmud (one of concentrations for the year).

While my class went on break, I wandered the school a bit. There is such life in our little shul! The place was crawling with kids having a great time learning Torah. Many thanks to Rabbi Martha and our talented faculty, who are all doing superior work, more than overcoming the challenges we have faced this year.