Temple Torat Yisrael

Community.  I write, teach, speak about community a lot.  To my mind, קהילה / kehillah, community, is at the heart of the Jewish experience.  Community is about mutual respect and about seeking fellow travellers to enrich our spiritual journeys.  Community is about gathering familiar faces around us as we celebrate and as we mourn. 
    This past month, we have seen our Torat Yisrael community rise to unprecedented challenges. Within a matter of weeks, TY volunteers sorted, packed, tossed and stored six decades worth of furniture, records, office equipment, books, bibles, teaching materials, dishes, prayerbooks, bookshelves, memorial plaques, pots and pans, mahzorim (high holiday prayerbooks), tallitot and kippot, dedication plaques, gift shop inventory, cleaning materials . . . . 
     Our congregation met a seemingly impossible deadline (to move out in time for an April 30th closing) through impeccable planning and an endless stream of volunteers with sleeves rolled up and ready for work.  
     The sweat and the dust and the strained muscles may not have felt very spiritually elevating in the moment, but as Torat Yisrael's rabbi I was deeply moved and inspired by the spirit of collaboration and teamwork, the selflessness and generosity of spirit it took to meet our deadline.
     In September of 2009, I remember feeling a small shock run through me as I saw the big red and white "For Sale" sign up in front of our TY Cranston building.  Today, May 1, 2012, I drove past that same building and felt that same shock again . . . this time, because there is no big red and white "For Sale" sign in front of not-our-TY-Cranston-building.  A different member of the clergy has the key.  I would now be Pastor Allen Pangburn's guest were I to walk through those doors again.
     Although we are a congregation in transition, we seem to be drawing strength, cohesion and a growing sense of community from the challenges of uprooting ourselves and waiting to put down roots in our new home.  In lieu of a building to define our community,  our spirit, our commitment and our passion that define us.  In lieu of walls to shelter us, our concern for each other, our responsiveness to each others needs, our love of our tradition and our people nurture us.  
     Welcome to the historic, evolving, engaging community of Torat Yisrael.

There are many themes associated with Pesah/Passover:  springtime, freedom, God's loving relationship with Israel . . . and there is one other theme that is particularly evocative for us here at Torat Yisrael this Nissan:  for Pesah marks the beginning of the Israelite journey from Egypt to the land that God has ordained for them.  We at Torat Yisrael are embarking on a journey as well.  On the first day after Passover, we will gather as a congregation and vote to sell our Cranston building.  The next few weeks will be full of frenetic activity as we quickly pack up 60 years worth of books, records, furniture, plaques, Judaica . . . and prepare for the journey that will lead us to our next physical and spiritual home in East Greenwich this winter.

I can't help but remember the haste with which our ancestors packed up to leave Egypt as we quickly sort through and pack up our Cranston building!

There is, of course, one hugely significant difference between the Israelite journey and ours:  For this sweet neighborhood in Cranston has been a haven for us, not a place of oppression in the least.  Here in this lovely little corner of Cranston, our congregation has grown, thrived and evolved.  As I have walked to services on Shabbat and holidays, everyone in the neighborhood who I pass has a friendly word for me (and often a pat on the head for whichever dog is walking with me, too!).  

I am pleased that our building will continue to house a congregation serving the same God of Abraham that we acknowledge as Source of Life, Source of Inspiration, Source of Strength . . . our Partner in covenant since Sinai.  I feel as though I am bequeathing this very sweet neighborhood to Paster Allen Pangburn and his wonderful congregation:  a congregation deeply committed to work we would call "Tikkun Olam" / repair of the world.  The Praise Tabernacle Church is on their own journey, too.

There is so much communal and personal history wrapped up in the walls of 330 Park Avenue.  All these cherished memories are an integral part of who we are as a congregation: these memories will accompany us to our new spiritual and physical haven in East Greenwich and we will continue to weave together our past and our future as a forward-looking, vibrant Conservative congregation.