One at a Time

Right after college, my oldest son and his friends left Burlington, VT in a small Kia SUV and drove out west, where they explored Utah, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Montana.  They drove through the Midwest as fast as they could.

Pardon the analogy, but some people think of the Torah portion we read this morning the way that my son and his friends, rightly or wrongly, thought about Ohio.  You just have to get through it on your way to something more interesting…

Today's Torah portion, Tazria, features discharges, skin rashes, ritual purity and several varieties of mildew.  It would be easy to glide past it, waiting for the scriptural equivalent of the Rocky Mountains to appear.

When I was in rabbinical school, Rabbi Harold Kushner spoke to our class about this portion.

First he told us not to ignore any part of the Torah.  If you pay attention, you can learn something even from passages that seem odd or remote.

Second, he said, these passages have a lot to teach future rabbis about how to relate to people.

He focused in particular on a passage about how the ancient priest, the Kohen, would treat the person who had a skin ailment.  The passage describes how the Kohen would determine whether the person needed to be quarantined and when he could be welcomed back into the community.

Rabbi Kushner said, the Torah insisted that the Kohen, a person of high status, take the time to help one individual in need.  He left the sacred sanctuary in order to be with an individual who may have been feeling afraid, vulnerable and possibly even ashamed. 

Rabbi Kushner said to us, don’t underestimate how important it is for you, as rabbis, to spend time with people individually, especially when they are feeling afraid, vulnerable and ashamed.

I want to speak for a bit about rabbis, but then I want to open it up, because the Torah’s lesson actually applies to all of us.

I’ve quoted this before and I’ll quote it again.  In his intro to the volume prepared in honor of his Jubilee at Temple Israel, Rabbi Waxman wrote about the role of the rabbi.  He described the extensive challenges that rabbis face and at one point wrote, I’m paraphrasing, that the rabbi will have achieved a valuable insight when he understands that his job is impossible.

Now we all know that rabbis are expected to administer a professional staff and interface with lay leadership, to preside over conversations about education, program and community building, to preside over multiple public functions within and beyond the synagogue, to speak frequently to hundreds of people, to teach classes to people of all ages, to raise money for worthy causes, including the synagogue, to navigate internal and external politics, projections and transference, to counsel people in a variety of situations, to present an ancient tradition in a compelling way, to be the sort of person you can respect and also want to hang out with, to do cameo appearances in various performances, and this may be a good time to break into a chorus of Dayenu.

Speaking only for myself, I will say that while I find much of the public role of the rabbi compelling, I generally feel more effective and fulfilled when I’m with people one on one. 

Praying with someone in a hospital bed; serving as a sounding board for someone looking to figure out a complicated moment in life; exchanging a l’hayim with the parent of the bride or groom awash in mixed emotions; sharing a frustration or a great accomplishment with a member of the congregation or our professional staff.

At moments like this, I realize that I didn’t become a rabbi because I like meetings or to say, please rise.

In this regard, I have learned a great deal from my colleagues.  In particular, this week I want to acknowledge a colleague who profoundly understood the value of relating to people one-on-one.  Many of us were privileged to get to know Rabbi Stanley Greenstein, who served as a congregational rabbi for many years and also achieved the professional credentials that allowed him to offer individual psychological counseling. 

There is so much that can be said about Rabbi Greenstein’s accomplishments, but I want to point out that he played a decisive role in coordinating the program of the Hillel Institute, designed to introduce prospective converts to Judaism. 

Rabbi Greenstein worked extensively on curriculum, but he focused in particular on the emotional dynamics at work with individuals and couples where conversion to Judaism was being pursued.   Again and again, he urged his colleagues not to lose sight of the challenges that individuals and couples face in general, and especially when a decisive change like conversion comes into play.

Among other things, Rabbi Greenstein reinforced for me that people need to be reached one at a time.

This is not just important for rabbis to consider, since there are many factors at work that impede this goal.

Medical professionals and teachers, for example, are burdened with external pressures that reward volume, rather than individual attention. 

As professionals, so many of us have few incentives to spend extra time with individuals.   And yet, we know how impactful and rewarding that can be.

The Israeli TV show called Serugim that I’ve spoken about a few times features a medical resident named Nati who can often be selfish and preoccupied.   He has an elderly patient, a woman who immigrated to Israel from Europe, who is in and out of the hospital always asking him about his social life and they schmooze while he talks to her about her health. 

During one episode, he releases her and she dies of a heart attack later that night.   He’s brought before the medical board of the hospital for negligence charges which are dismissed.  A few days later, he gets a call to appear at the office of the woman’s lawyer.

He suspects that the family will want to press charges.  Instead, the lawyer presents him with a locket that his former patient wanted him to have, with a picture of her inside of it, taken when she graduated from high school in Europe, and a note, in which the woman thanked him for spending time with her and treating her like a human being.  You healed me with your kindness and your humor, she wrote.   I will forever be grateful.

The other night, I attended SHAI’s annual dinner.  When the president, Temple Israel’s own Pargol Khadavi, introduced Bernie Kaplan, principal of Great Neck North and one of the evening’s honorees, she spoke about how he gets to know every student.  Indeed, his connection with students has been the cornerstone of his educational leadership. 

By way of conclusion, I want to offer us some concrete suggestions.

I suggest that those of us involved in various professional capacities take a few minute to analyze how we spend our professional time.  Would it be possible, by making certain adjustments, for us to spend more time helping individuals?  Is it possible, within the parameters of what’s expected of us, to redefine, even in small ways, what constitutes success?

In our personal lives, we can ask similar questions.  When was the last time we had lunch or ice cream with just one of our children or grandchildren?  One-on-one is different than all together. 

The Torah understood that.  Which is why the same thread of the Torah that speaks of the Kohen engaging the Israelite in distress, the so-called priestly document, speaks about the creation of humanity as follows:

ויברא אלוהים את האדם בצלמו בצלם דמות תבניתו זכר ונקבה ברא אותם Vayivra elohim et ha’adam b’tzalmo betzelem d’mut tavnito zakhar un’keva bara otam.  God created the human being in God’s image, male and female. 

One at a time.  Let’s try not to rush through Ohio.  Let’s try not to dismiss any Torah portion.  Let’s try not to brush past each other.   One at a time.  That’s how we were created.  That’s how we should relate to each other.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Parashat Tazria, March 29, 2014