Monday, June 18, 2012

Traditionalists


I stand at the reader’s table with a yad in my hand, ready to read Torah for the first time. The gabbai is a woman named Amy, whose lilting voice I have heard reading Torah or Haftarah almost every week for the months that I have been a member at Ohev Shalom in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. She smiles and whispers in my ear that I’ll do great, her hand gently resting on my shoulder until the blessings are said and I open the Torah to begin. I can’t remember if I made a mistake or not. I only remember Amy’s calm presence and big hug afterwards.

For the next four years, we would be part of a small team of people who did a lot of Torah reading. Small and medium-sized communities can go through “all hands on deck” periods where there are very few volunteers to keep ritual life going.  My years at Ohev challenged me to step up continually, and, at the same time, was the single most supportive environment for me to learn and grow Jewishly. My friendship with Amy and many other “Ohevites” continues, even though I have moved out of the community.

I asked Amy how she learned to read Torah and Haftarah, and where she got that steady presence on the bima. Her answer was immediate: “My father was my Haftarah teacher and my role model.”

This year I had the chance to work on a project with her father, Dick Wissoker. As a volunteer on United Synagogue’s Israel Commission, Dick was part of the committee that made decisions about grants for Israel education and advocacy. When he visited Amy this weekend for Father’s Day, he asked if we could meet in person.  

It turns out that Amy’s role models are both of her parents, Dick and Barbara Wissoker. As we chatted on Amy’s sun porch, they told me the story of their Jewish journeys, beginning as children in New Rochelle, NY, winding their way through the Midwest, and landing in Lexington, MA.  

They have always been volunteers. Barbara said that she told Dick when they moved to St. Louis that if they were going to join a synagogue they had to be active. “There’s no use belonging if you can’t contribute something,” she said. So Dick held leadership positions on committees and the board while Barbara became board secretary. She laughed at the memory of board meetings, “that lasted until 1:00 a.m., with cigar smoke so thick that you had to hang out your clothes in the fresh air when you got home.”

Their story wraps around and through the history of Conservative Judaism in the mid to late 20th century. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught and prayed at their shul in New Rochelle when they were young. They recall the move to egalitarianism and the effect on their four children. Amy’s bat mitzvah was the last one in the community where girls were confined to Friday night services while boys held the Saturday morning slots.

Dick still leads services regularly at Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA, and he and Barbara admire the new generation of rabbis who lead their kehilla. On her iPad, Barbara shows me the weekly YouTube videos that Rabbi David Lerner and Rabbi Michael Fel produce, sent out to the congregational listserve. They are fun, engaging, and community-building in a way that Barbara and Dick never imagined in their younger years.

Much has been said and written about Barbara and Dick’s age group, the “traditionalists.” Their generational portrait is marked by the feeling of responsibility. They joined congregations, they built synagogue buildings, volunteered on committees and showed up when they were called to help. They found kehilla from belonging and supporting.

In Barbara and Dick’s family, their Jewish legacy continues in their baby boomer children and grandchildren. Their example of kehilla leadership lives on in Amy. Like her mother, Amy volunteered to be recording secretary for Ohev Shalom’s board. Like her father, she leads services, reads Torah and Haftarah, serves as gabbai.


And now she is in line to be president.



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