My family and I made a couple of changes to our synagogue memberships just prior to Rosh Hashanah. As many of you know, we are members of Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am, a Conservative/Masorti synagogue about 2 1/2 miles from our house. While I attend morning minyan there most days, Shabbat and chagim are difficult due to the fact that we prefer to walk to shul and the distances involved, especially in the winter, make walking a challenge.
When we moved into out present home 21 years ago, it was to be within walking distance of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda, the conservative shul where our children had grown up, where I had my bar mitzvah and first become involved in Men’s Clubs and the FJMC.
About a dozen years ago, we decided, for a number of factors, to leave the membership of Beth Emeth. We joined an orthodox synagogue that was closer to us and where we had a number of friends. Being an unrepentant serial volunteer, I even became the president of that synagogue and learned quite a bit about personal dynamics of membership and fundraising.
Recently that synagogue has become a Chabad shul in all but name. While I don’t per se mind davening with anyone, Chabad seems to be more and more messianic in action and philosophy these days, something I’m not sure that their late Rebbe would have allowed.
The changes at the orthodox shul were subtle, with increasing restrictions enabled and initiated by the rabbis, closing off the view from inside the “cage” for women (Ezrat Nashim – women’s section) to other more restrictive practices that had not been allowed under the previous rabbis.
In the last couple of years, my wife, Vanessa, and younger daughter, Jessie, stopped attending at all. (Our elder daughter Nicole lives in Jerusalem.)
I like having the family with me in shul and this was not an optimal situation.
The last Shabbat of the year 5771 was my father’s seventh yartzheit, which I share with my good friend and neighbour, Eric Goldberg, whose mother passed away on the same hebrew date, the 25th of Elul. We decided to share a kiddush in their honour at the 7:30 am (hashkamah) Shabbat minyan at Beth Emeth, where Eric is a past president and where my parents had been members. We were made to feel at home and both Vanessa and Jessie asked that I look into rejoining Beth Emeth.
The current synagogue president, Hilda Pisarek (her husband Irving, a past president of the BEBY Brotherhood has attended our conventions) and the synagogue’s past president, Sheldon Serota (also a past president of the Brotherhood) made the rejoining easy and we completed the process on Tuesday, just a day before Rosh Hashanah. Both have been among our best friends for more decades than any of us want to number, and that helped.
Going to shul on Thursday was very enjoyable. We reconnected with a great many friends, all of whom were excited and happy to see us. The changes of a dozen years were somewhat daunting on the memory as I was involved with the youth at Beth Emeth and while changes in a 40 year old are not hard to see past, it’s a bit different for someone who was 10 and is now suddenly 22 and is very happy to see you. The names did eventually come back, but it was a bit of a challenge. There is also the pleasant resumption of sitting with the entire family in shul, which I have not really done for the past dozen years. I have an uncle and a cousin who are members, so we got to do a little hugging in the aisles. Jessie was very happy; she joined me under my tallit during duchaning, something she really missed. (ME TOO!)
Speaking of tallit, Al Mervin, a past president of the Lake Ontario Region of the FJMC and past brotherhood president at Beth Emeth, had to accept the fact that his tallit was no longer the nicest in the shul, as there was now another FJMC tallit in attendance. He took it well and we declared a tie for first.
Although Beth Emeth does not currently have an active Brotherhood, this is something I am going to work on with Hilda. I have told them that I cannot be the sole resource but that I would work with the men in the congregation to rebuild what was once one of the best men’s clubs in the FJMC.
I had sent a note out to some of the people involved to let them know what was happening and have received very positive responses from friends and a very nice one from Rabbi Howard Morrison of Beth Emeth, welcoming us back.
I will still be involved with Beth David and its Brotherhood, it’s kind of interesting to have 2 shuls where you are a member. Unlike the old joke, I will attend both, just at different times. There might be a time though when my convention badge may need 2 lines for brotherhood memberships.
Looking forward to the new year, changes and all.
It’s not difficult to recall numerous ways in which I have been shaped—as a person, a father, a Jew, a man, a friend, a husband, and much, much more—by my father, Alan Eisen (z”l), whose third yortseyt I will observe in early January. It is appropriate to write this particular recollection of him for the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (FJMC) with a plaque and framed certificate nearby that testify to his “Man of the Year” awards from the Men’s Club of Congregation Emanu-El in Philadelphia. I got my musical ability from my father (my mother, a source of great influence and inspiration as well, could not carry a tune, though she did play the piano). I suspect the fact that I do not tell jokes very often, but appreciate good puns, stems from the fact that Dad told jokes all the time, and was known for a repertoire of bad puns. It gave me great pleasure, too, when my son was born, to observe that he had inherited the double-jointed thumbs that seem to go with my father’s genealogy and that of all Eisen males. The problem is not finding examples of my father’s influence on me, but identifying areas where that influence is absent. Let me mention three zones of his impact that are particularly relevant to my current work—and that of the FJMC.
