So wonderful to see so many of you this morning as we celebrate our congregation as well as volunteer extraordinaire Melanie Cohen’s 80th Hebrew birthday, for which our Kiddush lunch is dedicated. As Rabbi Taff’s return from Israel was delayed, I will start out according to his example. Hopefully he will be back in time to join us for tomorrow night’s Gala.
We are blessed to have reached our 125th anniversary. 125 is no insignificant number. In gematria 125 is represented by the word חזקי, or “my strength.” This is the root that we will say next Shabbat when we complete the Book of Leviticus-be strong, be strong and we will be strengthened. In other words, our collective strength as a congregation comes from each and every one of you.
Parshat Emor reflects this strength. God tells Moses “Instruct Aaron and his sons to be scrupulous about the sacred donations that the Israelite people consecrate to Me…”[1] Each gift or donation, whether monetary, in kind, of time or of resources, is not to be taken lightly. After all, this is God’s home-each synagogue being a מקדש מעט, or miniature sanctuary, resembling the Temple in Jerusalem. There is much to celebrate and much to give this year to reaffirm our commitment to Mosaic Law Congregation.
What does the term “Mosaic Law” mean? No it is not the law of Rabbi Moses, who we are blessed to have with us today. Our synagogue’s unique name is not to be taken lightly. In fact, one of the reasons given for our being saved from the 1999 firebombing is that the brothers who committed the egregious acts thought that we were a law firm.[2] What is a strange term today was par for the course in the late 19th century. When I teach comparative Judaism in my Intro to Judaism class, I bring the Reform Movement’s Pittsburgh Platform from 1885, which uses phrases such as “Mosaic legislation” and “Mosaic and rabbinical laws.”
125 years is a long time, and I want to highlight 3 of the leaders of our congregation over those years. I hope these individuals will become household names. The first is Moses Warhaftig z”l. The Warhaftig family was one of 7 who founded Hevrat Torah Moshe-the Mosaic Law Fellowship, incorporated on February 27, 1900. Moses Warhaftig was the driving force behind our congregation. The centennial video even says that during the early years there were times when he was the only member!-though this seems a bit farfetched. Nevertheless, Moses was literally the glue that kept our synagogue together in its early years. As secretary, he signed many synagogue documents MS Warhaftig, NOT “miss” but Moses Solomon.[3] Moses’ dedication, and of course his wife Irma’s, is part of the reason that we are still here today as a congregation.
Another person I want to highlight is AJ Markowitz z”l. Randy Pollack is one of the few presidents we have had who took on a 3rd year. A select couple have even done multiple stints as president-and one will begin his 2nd stint as president in July. However, AJ Markowitz takes the cake. AJ served as president of our congregation from 1915 to 1940-from World War I through the beginning of World War II. As Executive Director and Past President Caren Rubin said, “he must have had a death wish.” Being President of a congregation is a thankless job. When things go wrong you get blamed; when things go right you rarely get credit. That is why we honor AJ’s dedication to our congregation today.
The third congregant I want to highlight is Arlene Pearl z”l, the first female president at any conservative synagogue. What a challenge to be the first! In a movement which was not egalitarian (though starting to become so) which did not allow female members of the clergy, we had a female president-and boy she was strong! While I was not privileged to meet Arlene during her lifetime, as she passed away the week following my interview at MLC, I did learn about her from her daughters Sheri and Robin and officiated at her unveiling. She had a dynamic personality and was a trailblazer for all the women following her and all those to come.
I will not highlight the MLC clergy in the same fashion. With that being said, as your 18th, or “Chai” rabbi (have to keep the gematria going), I am most blessed to preside over our congregation during this auspicious anniversary. I want to do so by not only celebrating our past but by also celebrating our future. This Shabbat we are blessed to celebrate the students in our Mercaz Religious School, for all they have learned and for all they will continue to learn-after all, learning never ends. Today our students led Barchu, Shema/V’Ahavta, Avot and Gevurot, the Torah Service, blessings before and after Haftarah and Ashrei. They will also lead concluding prayers. The past two weeks combined we have been blessed to welcome 7 Torah readers trained by Cantor Rachels-another example of celebrating where we are at and what is to come. Thank you Cantor for having trained so many new readers over your 2 years here. We are blessed to have you and we are all going to miss you.
As our celebration continues this weekend with Musaf, Kiddush, a special Torah Study on what it means to be holy and the Gala, I want each of us to think about 1 or 2 new things that we can contribute to Mosaic Law Congregation. For some it might be offering to host a first meeting for one of the Dor Hadash Havurot I continue to set up; for others it could be to volunteer to make Kiddush lunch a few times during the year; for others perhaps joining the leadership of our Men’s Club or Sisterhood; others might find joy volunteering in our Mercaz Religious School or Sisterhood Gift Shop; others could be inclined to help greenify our campus or join with Kayamut to have a more sustainable campus. We are as vibrant as the sum of our parts, and each of you is an integral part of what makes Mosaic Law Congregation great. Thank you for your dedication-חזקי-may each and every one of us be strong.
[1] Leviticus 22:2
[2] Other reasons I have heard are that they had the wrong phone number and that they didn’t get down to M alphabetically in their list of synagogues. For more information on the firebombings, see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AZz5UPZ-wYWhHe3PJoIPeA9JtrRqvOWG/view?usp=drive_link
[3] Thank you to Judy Persin, Chief Archivist of MLC, for her help with this.
Meet Rabbi Herman 