JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY—Leaders of a center for rabbinic innovation reflect on the sacred work that happens on Rosh Hashanah, and far beyond the pulpit.
On Rosh Hashanah morning, a rabbi stands in front of you, in front of God, having spent weeks preparing for this exact moment, praying that they can somehow reach everyone sitting in front of them. They do not know who will walk through the door, but they have been hoping for you.
Maybe you are a regular, and they know exactly what this year gave you and cost you. Maybe you haven’t set foot in a synagogue in a while, and they know only that you came, carrying something you haven’t named, maybe even to yourself.
Either way, they want the same thing for you that our tradition asks of this whole season: teshuvah, literally a returning, to yourself, to the people beside you, to something larger than either. They are trying to turn a room of strangers and regulars alike into a community, and to help you walk out having moved, even slightly, closer to who you’re capable of being.
This season is when rabbis are most visible. But much, if not most, of rabbinic leadership happens out of view: in pastoral calls, hospital rooms, hours of study and preparation, and the slow work of building relationships.
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