Paul and Rachel were part of the revival of my synagogue, Ansche Chesed in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The revival of our synagogue may have taken place without Paul and Rachel but Paul's book shone a spotlight on our synagogue and drew people to it.
During those years the synagogue was a hotbed of outrageously creative programming, all of it done on a shoestring. Rachel was its first program director. She worked officially part-time but in reality, worked the same long hours that an investment banker might. When Rachel began rabbinical school that job was passed on to my friend Arleen who worked as program director for not very long. And then I took over the job from Arleen in January of 1986.
The job was still officially a part-time job I was paid to work four days a week but in reality usually worked ten hour days six days a week. It was a fabulous job. We pulled off amazing events and programs spending no money.
During my time working at the synagogue, Rachel was running the Learner's Minyan, a service for people unfamiliar with the synagogue service. I sat in on one service because it was important to see what was being done under Ansche Chesed auspices.
I walked in just before the Torah service was supposed to begin. There were about a dozen people sitting on folding chaired arranged into a circle. Rachel pulled the Torah out of the ark and as the group sang כי מצין תצא תורה over and over they passed the Torah from person to person with the Torah scroll laying flat, as if it were a body.
Although the words chanted were the ones from the liturgy, I realized that how that scroll was passed from person to person as if it were a human body also conveyed all of the laws relating to how we treat a Torah scroll. The people in that service understood intuitively that a Torah scroll needed to be saved from a fire, just as you save a child from a fire. They understood that we treasure the Torah. I was just blown away at how Rachel was able to convey so much so simply. It was a profound moment. I have tried to use that moment as a guide for when I am given the task of teaching a big and deep concept.
There are often times when you know someone famous from afar you admire them. When you get to know them a bit better, some less admirable qualities become much more apparent and it becomes a bit harder to admire them.
Years ago as I got to know Paul and Rachel a bit better, they were actually even better up close.
Rachel's orbit shifted away from Ansche Chesed several years ago and we no longer ran into one another as often as we used to.
When I attended Paul's funeral thirty years ago my mother asked me to tell her of every detail of the funeral, to sum up each eulogy and to describe exactly what the funeral felt like. I did my best.
I am sure that I was not the only person sitting at the funeral whose head was both in the present as well as very much at Paul's funeral thirty years ago.
Yesterday, I sat with some of my co-workers from the synagogue from thirty years ago. It felt so right to be sitting together. During the funeral, as I looked at the faces of people around me I was struck by the complicated many-layered relationships I had with so many people in the room. As people greeted one another the question of how to describe how you are connected to the person you are introducing kept coming up. This is my friend who I used to hire to teach Yiddish singing but she also was in a music school car-pool with my cousin in South Jersey in the early 1960's. This woman was a participant in a High Holiday program I did for preschoolers in 1987 and she also is a dear friend of my nephew's, oh! and her father conducted my cousin's wedding.
At funerals, we accompany the dead to their final resting place. We also accompany one another through grief and mourning.
Very touching memories. Sounds like the multi-layered relationship concept was part of Rachel's life, too.
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