December, 2022 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
It’s Thanksgiving morning as I write, my first without Mickey. Don’t worry, this won’t be maudlin—my head is pointed toward the feast this afternoon. But, probably like a lot of us, I’m thinking about days gone by and days to come, how things don’t change and how they do.
I first came up here in 1984 (38 years ago!) for a weekend to lead a service. I was living in downtown LA, driving my light blue VW Fastback up Highway 128, wondering if I would ever get there, wondering how in the world people could live so far away from ANYTHING. That weekend, I met Jews like I had never imagined: they lived in school buses, built their own houses, grew giant gardens and cooked amazing food from those gardens.
I was impressed to see one woman watering her garden naked, stopping to shower in the warm water from the hose lying on the ground in the sun. I hadn’t seen Jews doing stuff like that in LA!
They were cobbling together this sweet little Jewish community way out in the woods. There was a Torah school, a weekly minyan, a few of the holiday services. I was so inspired by the spirit of making it happen, of welcoming whoever came, and sharing in whatever Jewishness they knew, of delighting in the produce of the garden and the beauty of ocean and sky. I think I fell in love that weekend. I met some of the people who are still important in my life, among them Donna Montag and Joan Katzeff, who were both on the board of the emerging Jewish community (then known as the Mendocino County Jewish Community, encompassing, as it did, our friends Inland as well).
The following fall, to my delight, I was invited up to lead High Holy Day services. It might have been that year, or maybe the next, that a new family arrived—Mina Cohen and Jeff Berenson, with a tiny Elana and, if I remember right, Mina round with soon-to-be Yael. Mina had a broad Jewish education and a commitment to raising her daughters in a Jewish community. She joined the board soon after.
I moved up here to be the rabbi in 1989. That year there was a heart-rending death of a beloved young woman. And, in an act of surpassing generosity, her mother, Harriet Bye, joined MCJC’s board soon after. Donna, Joan, Mina and Harriet have been the strong spine of our beloved MCJC all these years. Donna has been the steward of our finances for many of these years, while maintaining her deep vision of what life in community can be, how we can care for each other, welcome each other, make life better for each other. Joan organized the practical aspects of the High Holy Days for many years and an infinity of other practical matters large and small; she brought her passion for justice to our goings-on and her kindness and respectfulness and sense of doing things properly and well.
Mina has educated a generation-plus of Jewish children, tutored b’nai mitzvah students, taught us adults, added arts and culture to our lives, was the instigator of Alephnet (ask Mina or me sometime!), centered our Friday night Kabbalat Shabbats for many years, led an MCJC Israel trip, started the Mitzvah Freezer, and added depth to our Jewishness in many different ways. Harriet has brought her characteristic spark and joy and endless curiosity, shepherding the Women’s retreat for all these centuries, organizing parties and cultural events and fundraisers, and bringing friendship and laughter and her probing mind.
This is just a tiny shred of the ways that these four teachers and leaders have shaped our lives as a community over decades. We are who we are as a community because of the beautiful soul and passion of each of them, not just because the particulars of what they have done. Speaking of which, I can’t even begin to describe how much plain old work they have all done as well, everything from list-management to chevra kadisha management to buying paper towels to fixing broken windows to sorting mail. It is epic.
Mina left MCJC’s Board several years ago; Joan a couple years ago, Harriet and Donna more recently. Each of them served our community for three decades or more, Donna for 45 years! All are still involved in our community, still offering their energy and wisdom. I would like to stop and think about how blessed we have all been by their generosity, their vision, and their energy. I would be a very different rabbi, Jew and human being were it not for the ways that each of these beautiful teachers and instigators has shaped me. And we would live very different lives together.
Others have stepped into the stream of leadership over the years. I won’t name all those heroes who have been part of MCJC’s board over the decades (though I have to send a special shout-out to Mark Zarlin, who watched over MCJC’s finances for nearly two decades), but here is who is at the helm of the ship now: Marnie Press is part of that early generation of Jews who moved to this land. She’s been an active part of MCJC for all this time and joined the board several years ago (I’m fudging on dates because I can’t remember WHEN things happened, but I do remember how important they are),
Susan Tubbesing moved up here after she and Sarah Nathe retired from full lives in the Bay Area, and has served over a decade on our board. Lou Mermelstein had a second home up here for years and more recently has made the Coast his full-time abode. Ali Sabin and her wife, Nancy Drooker, have made their second home up here just about full-time and Ali has stepped into a MCJC leadership role. Raven Deerwater, Lisa Fredrickson, and Nina Ravitz are all younger than I am and still work in the larger community. This crew is all meshing together in new, energized ways, also working ferociously hard, also devoted, also visionary.
Each of them has passions as deep and wide as those who came before them, and I am gratefully aware of how they are shaping my life and our lives with their particular energies. I’m also aware that, Ali, Lew, Marnie, and Susan notwithstanding, our community is at a time of generational change. When I look around a room (these days often a Zoom room), I sometimes think about who I have known since the very beginning of my life up here and who I’ve come to know more recently. The ratio gradually shifts, as I suppose it should.
Continuity is precious, especially when what continues is itself precious. Change is unnerving, destabilizing and also precious, bringing new life and energy and, well, change. I feel excited about the present and about the future of our beloved Jewish community—more than I have in years. It feels alive, full of possibility. Its core values of welcome, generosity, equality, support, love, integrity, and spiritual devotion are all still deeply held.
As are some of its eccentricities! At the same time, I think we are expanding our pursuit of social and climate justice, becoming more available to our larger community, hearing more of each other’s voices, incorporating the best that technology has to offer, meeting a younger generation of Jewish and Jewish-interested folks, and learning from and building relationships with them.
As I have come to understand in my personal life this past year, we are shaped by what continues and by what changes. We can love and be grateful for what we have had and been, and we can look with curiosity and hope to a changing future. As we say, Ad meah v-esrim (“to one hundred-and-twenty!”) to Donna, Joan, Mina and Harriet, to our sweet community, to all that has been created, all that is emerging, and all that will yet be.
As our days continue to get shorter, this new Hebrew month of Kislev knows how to fill our pockets. The longer nights of Kislev invite us to pay attention to our dreams a little bit more than usual. This might mean taking advantage of the extra darkness when we wake up, or before we go to sleep, to be with our dreams more before we jump into the doings of our day—to listen to our dreams, maybe analyze them, maybe even share them with others.
During this month, the Torah gives us myriad examples of this, from Joseph interpreting Pharoah’s dreams (Breishit 40-41), which we shall read about for the next two weeks, to Jacob’s dream of angels ascending the ladder, which we read this week in Parashat Vayetzei (Breishit 28:12).
Think about how many dreams we have all had in our lives that, if we had not just jumped straight out of bed and forgotten them, might have given us insight into something as profound as a looming famine—literal like in the Torah or an emotional or spiritual one. Our subconscious knows, but our consciousness does not always seem to pay attention.
We all walk through life with many pockets. When praying, our spirit-pocket holds the liturgical words of our ancestors, along with the unique relationships each of us has to the Divine. When foraging, our mind-pocket holds all of our identification knowledge that we have acquired over the years, along with our knife and brush. When dreaming, our heart-pocket holds all the metaphorical connections to our various relational dynamics and decision making. One translation of Kislev is “heart-pocket”—kis meaning “pocket” and lev meaning “heart.” Whether this month feels less extroverted due to the increased darkness, or more extroverted due to the many holidays, may our dream worlds, Hanukkah lighting, and any other personal practices fill all our pockets, especially our heart-pocket.
מודה אני, paige
