Well, it's happened to me yet again -- I wrote a whole column, doodled with it this way and that, then decided, "This isn't really what I want to say at all!" So I am scrapping it and starting again, with something much simpler and more true for me.
What is actually on my mind are two little observations, both noted around tables. First of all, at our community dinner at the Ledford House a couple of weeks ago, I was astonished (and delighted) to look around the room and see more than a handful of people I didn't know at all, and several handsful of people whom I know by name at best. Second (in time, not in importance) at our Board meeting the other night, I looked around another table and realized that at that moment fully half the people in the room had a close relative who was seriously ill.
I had to drive down to Santa Rosa the other day, which gave me two hours each direction to meet with myself and just think. Somewhere around Geyserville on the way back up, I found myself ruminating… Our Jewish community is changing texture. It's more diverse than it seemed to be for a long time. There are now a wonderful bunch of families with young children. And there are also a number of people who are retiring up here, energetically beginning new phases in their lives. This past Friday night -- Kabbalat Shabbat at the Fiedlers' home -- there were two families there with three generations who all live on the Coast. What a great thing! But gone are the days when all the Jews on the Coast knew each other well, when everyone was in the same boat. There are a lot of boats these days.
None of this happened overnight. But maybe because I've been away and am back, I am noticing these changes with new attention. So, as I was heading up towards Cloverdale in the late afternoon sun, about to make that magical turn onto Highway 128, I found myself thinking: this is kind of a magical time in MCJC's life, a time of shift. What could we all make of it, if we really dreamed big? I got more and more excited as I drove through Yorkville and Boonville and Philo, just imagining…
Some people see congregations as places that should do a lot of things. I'm not averse to doing things, but that's not the heart of the matter for me. I see a Jewish community as a place that uses the tools and teachings of Judaism to nurture people to live sweeter and more beautiful lives. And so I ask myself: what nourishes people's spirits?
We are all different, but I suspect that our answers to this question would be more or less the same. Being known. Being cared-for. Being included. Being inspired. Being challenged. Feeling useful. Feeling like part of a larger picture. Moments of brilliant light. But mostly being known. Being cared-for…
There is no program or project that magically builds this nexus of nourishment. No rabbi can do it alone. No Board can force it to happen. No grant of any size can guarantee it and evaluate it. This kind of nurture grows by a million gestures, small and large. It is built on stopping into each other's homes and businesses, taking walks together, drinking coffee together, phoning each other, asking after each other. It is built on rides offered and accepted, books and magazines passed on, lettuce starts exchanged. It is built on stacking firewood together and seeing movies together. It is built on birthday cards (yikes!) On gifts of chicken soup, or at least the recipe. Sharing excess apples and zucchinis. Learning the names of each other's parents, children and pets. It is also built and strengthened on clearing up misunderstandings, on apology and forgiveness, on giving the benefit of the doubt, on trying again if the first encounter didn't go well.
Even as I am writing this, part of me is protesting: I already can't keep up with my friends and neighbors, much less my family! I'm already running from birthday party to memorial service to do that little errand for a sick friend I said I'd do a week ago… I'm already dropping stitches left and right. Don't tell me I should be bringing anyone else into my heart!
Well, Margaret, I say in reply to myself, this is the real stuff of life in community. And at the same time, no one can do it all, or do it alone. You are part of a web, not the whole web.
Which brings me around to that second table, where I realized that half the people I was with, all of whom I know well and love dearly, have people close to them who are seriously ill right now. And to that long list in my mind at all times of people in our community who are ill or struggling. It is always going to be like that. There will be times when it's all we can do to get to the table, times when we are burdened and preoccupied, times when our needs will be greater than the capacity of any community to nurture us. There is a way, even from that difficult place, to help build a spirit of nurture in our community. And that is to whisper to someone something that you need, something that would help a bit. Just say it to someone. "I could really use someone to walk my dog for awhile." "I just need someone to know that I am going through this." "I wish someone would go with me when I get that test done…" Not that it's so easy, when you are really in the Narrow Place, to even do that. Maybe the rest of us just have to guess. Maybe some of our gestures will be clumsy. But hopefully in good spirit.
My dream has us making ourselves available to each other -- not just our strength and our radiance, but our needs as well. It has us each reaching out a little beyond our comfort zone, a little past our shyness or busy-ness or overwhelm. Not that any one of us will know and love everyone in that day-to-day way (not even me, I'm afraid!)
In my vision we are a community in which we nurture each other, hold each other up, support each other. Each of us taps into that nexus of nurture, contributing and receiving (sometimes not knowing which is which.) And from that strong and lovingly-held place, we each go outward to heal some part of the world.
For my own part, I would like to spend the summer visiting with many of you. I'd like to invite you to call me up (937-5673) or drop me an e-mail, and let's get together for a walk on the Big River haul road or a cup of coffee at one of my coffeehouse offices in Mendocino or Fort Bragg (or my after-school yeshiva at Frankie's!) I want to know you, or know you better! Happy summer, my dear community.
© 2007 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 05/29/2007(rge)