From the Cantor - May 2005

"Five is the age to study Torah, ten to study Mishnah, thirteen to become obligated to observe the mitzvot, fifteen to study Talmud, eighteen to marry, twenty to start a career, thirty to attain full strength, forty to acquire experience and fifty to give counsel." (Pirkei Avot)

May is a time when we look to the end of school for all of the culminating activities. Even those of us who are not on a "school schedule" are affected by the activities that keep us busy this time of year. I have spent my entire life, until last July, governed by a school calendar and all it represents. I have studied the basics, including Torah and Mishnah. I became a Bat Mitzvah. I studied Talmud, got married (although not at age eighteen), started my first career, studied and continued with my second career. Though I have spent many years giving counsel in a variety of ways, the depth of my understanding increases every year. Why do I bring this up? This month I will turn fifty. As it states in the opening quote from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Sages), at age fifty we are eligible to give counsel. The rabbis understood that when you reach fifty, you gain a perspective on life which makes your words, sometimes even those you've spoken before, carry true merit. As I turn fifty this year, I am keenly aware that listening, observing and attending help me to develop the perspective to which I think the rabbis were referring. Counsel isn't always "counseling." Often times counsel is the life experience that gives us a sympathetic understanding of the ability to reach some sort of relationship with God. Music can ease that path, and help facilitate that relationship. Careful selection of music and liturgy may be one of the best types of counsel I am able to give. Even something as simple as selecting the melody for closing prayer can put all that has gone before in the service into a personal focus. As we look at the closing of the school year and closing of all activities throughout the year we can positively affect the way we view that which has come earlier by helping turn the focus of our culminating activities into a celebration of what is sacred and special in our lives.

Though the instructions from Pirkei Avot continue through age one hundred, I am satisfied to pause at fifty, to take a deep breath, and be grateful for all that is so special here at Congregation Albert.

To quote the great Albuquerque Rebbe, "May this birthday, (or end of year activity) be the best birthday (or end of year activity) there ever was."

B'Shira,
Cantor Barbara R. Finn

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