With my July starting date fast approaching I thought I’d write a few words to introduce myself. Some of you are friends of very long standing of course, and some of you have taken my adult education classes. But a great many of you know me only by sight. So you may not know that I entered rabbinical school in 1995 at a time in life when many are looking forward to retirement, and that it has long been my dream to serve as one of Adat Shalom’s rabbis. That wish was intensified by the excellence of the students who’ve taken my adult education classes and the gracious way they expressed their appreciation for my efforts. Now, at least for a year, I’m going to serve as one of your rabbis, along with my friend and exemplar, Sid Schwarz, and a very impressive rabbinical student whom I’ve just met, Moti Riemer. I am thrilled at the prospect. But a bit wary, too. I’m concerned about a common disease, called “NRS,” the acronym for “new rabbi syndrome.”
NRS is an almost universal phenomenon. If a synagogue member liked the “old” rabbi[s] (there is a delicious irony in my referring to Sid and Fred as “old rabbis”), then the member wants the new rabbi to do all the things the old rabbi did in the exact same way, except, of course, that the member is determined to make sure that the new rabbi doesn’t do whatever the old rabbi did that the member didn’t like. The member will be constantly on guard to prevent that. (Rumor has it that aside from Mosheh Rabeynu [Moses, our rabbi]) we Jews have never had a perfect rabbi — and even Moses had one devil of a temper.) To make matters worse, the member wants the new rabbi to do the really important things that the old rabbi somehow never got around to doing for lack of time or appetite, or both. The member and everyone else who suffers from NRS are bound to be disappointed.
Now, we were trained in the ins and outs of NRS at Rabbinical School.
The standard remedy for NRS is for the new rabbi to find out how things were done in the congregation in the past and to follow that paradigm “religiously.” That advice seems especially important for an interim rabbi, who might be seen as a “placeholder” whose principal function is to keep the congregation intact for the permanent rabbi’s return. But this is Adat Shalom. And when I apprised the search committee of that bit of academic rabbinic wisdom, it quickly foreclosed that strategy. “Innovation,” it explained, “is our goal.” We want your best ideas, they said, and we want you to put them into practice! Wow! What an opportunity. So 5764 is to be a year of innovation. Great. What could be more exciting?
I will be speaking, writing, and teaching-both formally and informally — about a new initiative in Reconstructionist thought that I hope to launch in the coming year. And I hope to inspire you to join in the venture, for if there’s one thing that Adat Shalom has in greater depth than any congregation I have ever seen it’s talent. So stay tuned.
In the interim, please try to innoculate yourself against NRS. Alhough I’m not Fred, and I’m not Sid, I’ve learned a lot from them over the years, and you certainly will find that a great deal of what I hope to do that will seem entirely familiar. But the shape of the coming year will largely depend upon your reaction to the combination of continuity and change, which, given the unusual structure your leaders have put in place, is virtually inevitable. If all goes well, and I hope and will do everything in my power to make sure it will, the coming year will mark a significant contribution to the evolving religious culture that is Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation. Let us begin!
Rabbi George Driesen