From the Rabbi - August 2004

Dear Friends,

I am entering my 18th year in the Rabbinate. - a fairly significant accomplishment. And yet, in all of the years that I have been on the pulpit - with the myriad experiences that I have undergone, I am rapidly approaching an event for which, I can honestly say I am totally unprepared: becoming the father of a Bat Mitzvah. During the past 17 years, I estimate that I have officiated at over a thousand b'nai mitzvah ceremonies. I have been privileged to bless, tutor, coax and cajole boys and girls on the brink of adulthood as they celebrate their Jewish selves. At the same time, I have seen otherwise sane and stoic men and women break down into uncontrollable heaps of emotion when kvelling about their children and describing in front of the congregation what it means for them to celebrate this milestone in the life of their son or daughter. While, in the past, I could grasp the intellectual rationale behind such parental sentimentality, I must confess that I never really related to the true impact of watching one's child become an adult member of the Jewish community. At times, truth be told, I even found a small pleasure in trying to predict which parents would melt on the Bema and which would not.

Well, to butcher an old saying: the cliché's are coming home to roost. The thought of my daughter chanting from and teaching Torah, leading the congregation in prayer and taking her place as a `Daughter Of The Commandments' fills me with a multiplicity of emotions. I feel like Tevye in Fiddler on the roof singing: "Is this the little girl I carried…"

Each time I meet with families during the course of B'nai Mitzvah preparation, I tell the students: "This day is about you - not your parents." And it is. But truth be told, I have yet to meet a father or a mother of a bar or bat mitzvah who is not saying to him or herself- secretly or openly: "What happened? I'm not old enough to be the parent of a teenager!"

For Sue and me, there are other issues that arise as August 28th approaches. We, like any other b'nai mitzvah family, want to kvell and celebrate with our family and friends. But we are also a clergy family. There are times when Rabbis and Cantors feel like jugglers. Instead of manipulating multiple objects, we take on multiple and simultaneous roles, expectations and schedules. We are also public figures with private lives. Elana's bat mitzvah will be a time when the public and private merge and we will share our pride and our joy in our daughter with the entire congregation.

We understand this. Elana, like most 13 year olds, wants her bat mitzvah to be like everybody else's. She wants her parents and her rabbi to be on the Bema with her as she reads from the Torah and leads the congregation in prayer. As such, I find myself in the role of both Rabbi and Father. I'm still not sure how these dual roles will play out, but there is one thing of which I am absolutely sure: Elana will show me the right thing to do.

I look forward to celebrating this simcha with you on August 28th.

B'Shalom V'yididut,
Rabbi Joseph R. Black

P.S. I also want to say, once again, how thrilled I am to be welcoming Cantor Barbara R. Finn, her husband David, and their children, Elizabeth and Daniel, to the Congregation Albert family. If you have not yet had a chance to meet the Finns, reach out to them and welcome them to New Mexico. You'll be glad you did.

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