ELAINE FIELDMAN’S FINAL COMMENTS AS PRESIDENT

A Note from Rabbi Falick:

I am so happy to share my commentary space this week with my dear friend Elaine Fieldman. She originally prepared it for the Annual Meeting which was moved to Zoom after an outage at our building.

Elaine was a wonderful president in ways too many to count! I am deeply grateful for all the work she has done to advance our congregation (and movement), for her guidance and leadership, and especially knowing that she will continue to be there to support our staff and and all of us in the days to come.

I was disappointed when Mother Nature closed our temple on the day of our annual meeting. True to form, our staff and membership faced the challenge and we were able to conduct a smooth and excellent annual meeting via Zoom and elect a new Executive and Temple Boards. Of course, we missed the potluck and especially getting together as a community.

I addressed our past year and said my thank you's in the cover letter to the annual meeting materials and my Zoom remarks. In those remarks I mentioned that I had a personal story I wanted to share with the membership, but that I didn’t feel it was Zoom material. Instead, I’m sharing it now as my last president’s message.

Before writing this, I re-read Rabbi Jeff’s commentary about “how we go on” in the face of hate. We do so by affirming we are a people; a family with a shared story. As Rabbi Jeff reminded us, we are a people connected more by traditions and history than belief in miracles and faith. That is so fundamental to our Humanistic Judaism. That is why when I was recently in France and noticed a shopkeeper wearing a Star of David, I felt a connection. I didn’t care if she believed in God or went to services, I commented on her star. She looked at me with very frightened eyes and said “her son and daughter are fighting in Israel.” I said a few words and she clearly recognized and appreciated our connection. That we are a family is why when my daughter was recently in Charleston and purchasing a piece of art, the artist asked, “Are you Jewish?” My daughter said yes. The artist said, “So am I." They didn’t compare notes as to how Jewish they are—you say you are Jewish, then you are in my family. We are always looking for other members of our family. And when we find a family member we don’t typically ask are you Orthodox, Conservative, etc. No, we typically ask, “Where are you from?” and then play Jewish geography to try and engage our common family.

I remember my dad once saying to me that they all hate us. They don’t care if you go to shul, if you keep kosher, if you are observant. If you have Jewish blood, they hate you. In fact, they made laws based on how much Jewish blood you had. In other words, they hate our family, not our religion.

And yet and surprisingly some of our own family members (as often happens in families) say we aren’t real family members, because we don’t do things the way they do, even though there are many variations of how to Jewish.

I bet most of you have had this experience. I’ve had it many times. So, recently I decided to do a little something. Many years ago one of my law partners, who was a contemporary of mine—approximately the same age and joined the firm at about the same time—made a snide remark to me about my membership in Birmingham Temple. I don’t remember his exact words, but they were to the effect of why bother, it really isn’t a Jewish temple. The words stung at the time and were very hurtful. I don’t know why, but I didn’t respond. If you know me, that’s unusual. I remember there were others in the room and that may have deterred me. Although he is a smart and articulate man, he is at times a difficult person—as some would say “not a team player”—and he eventually left the firm. Over the years, not surprisingly, his personality did not change and he essentially practiced on his own.

When Rabbis Adam Chalom and Jodi Kornfeld came out with their recent book on Humanistic Judaism (Contemporary Humanistic Judaism: Beliefs, Values, Practices), I thought of my former partner. I decided to invite him to meet me for coffee and asked him for, essentially, a reverse “amends” about his remark from many years ago.

The plot thickens. I emailed him and said I’d like to get together. I said I had an agenda, but I’d prefer to reveal it in person. He immediately responded yes. We met. I arrived first. He walks in wearing a yarmulka and tzitzit hanging out. This was a new him and I’m thinking to myself, "This is perfect." He came over to the table. We hugged. He pointed out what was obvious, he is now an Orthodox Jew.

I started out reminding him how much I appreciated a couple of his great recommendations. It’s always a good idea to start with a positive. He went to the London School of Economics and considered himself expert in all things “London." In the mid 1980s, I went on my first trip to Europe, the UK. He gave me some excellent recommendations on museums and other things that weren’t on the every tourist list. He also recommended my OB-GYN. He never claimed to be an expert in all things involving gynecologists. Nevertheless his recommendation was excellent. The doc delivered my daughter and was my doctor for many years. Actually, she was involved in saving my life in 1989. But I digress. Back to the Jewish stuff.

My former partner told me he has been studying Talmud, observes Shabbat, keeps kosher, etc. His wife is supportive, but more spiritual than Orthodox. He wants to move to Israel, she doesn’t; she has a network of close friends and doesn’t want to leave. His three daughters are 160-180 degrees from him. One lives in the UK, one in California, and one in Grosse Pointe. One is anti-religion. The other two don’t really care. One daughter doesn’t speak to the other two.

After we semi-caught up on family, career, and activities over the last 20-30 years, I told him why I called this "meeting.” I brought out the recent book on Humanistic Judaism. I told my friend/ former partner that he had hurt me some 30 years ago when he essentially said I wasn’t really Jewish for going to the BT. He looked at me basically in shock. "You’ve been carrying this around for all these years,” he said (he never denied saying this). I said to him that Jews are Jewish in all sorts of ways. I told him I was loaning him the book on Humanistic Judaism and asked him to read it. I expressed that we may not do everything the same, but we do many of the same things and share a history. That doesn’t make him more Jewish and me less Jewish. We are .2% of the world population. We need everyone we can get in our tent. He expressed frustration, specifically mentioning Temple Israel members, asking why they even bother to belong to a temple. They can get what they want through other “do good” organizations. I suggested to him that maybe they find Jewish meaning in holidays or other customs. He asked if I and my daughter celebrated Jewish holidays and I said, “Absolutely.” He seemed quite surprised.

He then told me he is writing a memoir of his life. I agreed to read his memoir. He agreed to read the book. We haven’t met again. I think we will. I’ll keep you posted.

In addition to loaning the book to my former partner, I’ve sent the book to the Judaic studies departments of MSU, Wayne State, UM and Eastern Michigan universities, stating I was donating the book and that Humanistic Judaism is an important part of Judaic studies and I hoped the book would be included in their libraries. I know that other temple members have gone to area public libraries and suggested that they include the book in their libraries. We need to get the word out. This is one of many ways to do it.

My point in all of this is that not only are we all a family, but sometimes we have to remind others in the family that we are a part of the Jewish family and that the family is better for including all who want to be a part. Sometimes we have to be a bit pushy. Sometimes we have to let people know who we are “in a nice way.”

So continue coming to temple and sharing your wisdom and love. And please, if given the opportunity, become an ambassador for Humanistic Judaism and our congregation. Bring your friends and family to experience our warmth and wisdom.

And I’ll keep you posted on my little soap opera with my former partner.