The other side

I’ve been tough on my Modern Orthodox community in several recent columns. Although I stand by what I wrote, I also understand that communities, like people, are not one dimensional; they’re complex, nuanced, and multifaceted, with strengths and weaknesses. So despite some serious personal disappointments, this column will concentrate on some aspects of my community that fill me with pride or touch me in some deep way. Importantly, those aspects are not necessarily purely MO. Indeed, sometimes the pride I take is partially because, as discussed below, the MO community participates in some worthwhile matters with other Jewish communities, thus tightening both inter- and intra-community ties.

This idea hit me hard about two weeks ago when my spinal stenosis took a turn for the worse and made walking quite difficult. As Shabbat approached, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to walk to shul, even using my cane. And it wasn’t a Shabbat when I could simply sleep in. Rather, it was Parshat Zachor, the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim, with a special Torah reading. “Zachor et aher asah lecha Amalek” — remember how Amalek attacked a famished and weary Jewish people on their journey after leaving Egypt (Deuteronomy 25:17). And so God enjoins us, “Timche et zeycher Amalek” — blot out their memory…. Do not forget! (Id. 25:19). This injunction is interpreted as a positive commandment, a mitzvah, telling us to listen to this Torah reading on this particular Shabbat.

So I had to be in shul. (And before you ascribe to me an undeserving degree of piety, I’ll confess that my synagogue also had a special kiddush that Shabbat — a Kiddush Royale — that I didn’t want to miss.) What to do?

If you’re from Bergen County, as many of my readers are, you might have already figured out the answer: TeaneckShuls, our Jewish community’s superb email list, that so often comes to the rescue when rescue is needed. I simply posted a short TS request to borrow a wheelchair, and literally within minutes I had almost 20 responses offering to lend me a wheelchair or providing information how to borrow one from a large number of different local groups. I thus was able to make it to shul, hear the required reading, and enjoy a kiddush-lunch in the company of dear friends. How wonderful to be part of a community that has a TS, numerous giving and kind people, and many blessed gemach (charitable deeds) organizations.

TS, of course, is much broader than wheelchairs. To note just some of its good works, it has raised more than $300,000 in charity via fundraiser sponsorships, helped kickstart local kidney donations between strangers, served as information central during Hurricane Sandy, has readers who can say “I got my job through TS,” and even facilitated connections to help make a minyan in Wroclaw, Poland (which, I guess, must be an unofficial suburb of Bergen County). It’s a warm and welcoming face to Teaneck’s (broader) Jewish community, run entirely by volunteers (who certainly don’t deserve the criticisms they are sometimes subjected to).

But my community helped me beyond the physical wheelchair. My rabbi, having seen my request (I guess he reads TS too), called me, and after learning I already had one, offered to find someone to push me to shul. I took R. Strauchler up on his kind offer, and at 8:20 the next morning, Josh, my teenage neighbor from just two doors down (and the grandson of a HILI elementary school classmate), appeared at my front door. It was a great way to get to know him better (as a retired litigator, I’m an inveterate asker of questions, especially of young people), with, of course, him doing all the work while I sat.

That’s part of what makes a close-knit community feel friendly and comfortable — organizations like TS that provide services at no cost and with no questions asked, the presence of rabbis who think of their congregants beyond shul and class attendance, and fine, friendly, helpful (and strong) young men like Josh, who are awake and ready to assist when an extra 20 minutes of sleep still beckons.

Another community service I cherish is the plethora of available adult education opportunities. They are especially useful to a retiree like me, who has more free time now that I don’t have to write motion and appellate papers or respond to a last-minute order to show cause. And while I deeply appreciate my shul’s terrific adult ed programing, it’s not exceptional in this regard because many MO shuls and other institutions also provide easily accessible similar programs. What makes my shul’s program exceptional, perhaps unique, however, is a joint MO-Conservative Torah learning program and community building experience. This Rinat Yisrael–Beth Sholom program is now in its 10th year, with this year’s gathering scheduled for Shabbat afternoon, May 2, at 5 p.m. at Rinat. Please join us even if you’re not a member of either shul.

Another MO adult education experience is the Beit Midrash of Teaneck, geared (mainly) to retirees. It’s held three days a week at the Jewish Center of Teaneck/Yeshiva Heichal HaTorah, with no charge for its top-notch education delivered by top-notch educators (though donations are gratefully accepted). Both the learning experience as well as the camaraderie created by spending many hours studying together and shmoozing at the breaks and over coffee and cake not only broaden the mind by turning free time into useful time, but are also more bricks in building and strengthening community.

One last example (though there are more) that is personal to me as well as to the paper I write for. Indeed, it is that paper, the New Jersey Jewish Standard, that I’m specifically thinking of. Don’t get me wrong; the Standard is not a MO paper. But that’s an important part of my point. It’s a paper of the entire Jewish community, including the MO one, with articles about and contributors from all segments of that community. And by airing views, discussing issues, running stories, and publicizing events important to each sector, it informs all what’s happening beyond their personal silo, teaching us about them and them about us. And through this cross-community exchange of ideas and information, the Standard aids in minimizing the dichotomy of “us” and “them” while helping make all — differing viewpoints and practices notwithstanding — feel the warmth of the larger local Jewish community. I personally benefit from this aspect of the paper, and I am proud that my MO community is a strong supporter of it.

And so, sometimes I’m proud of my MO community; sometimes I’m angered by it. Sometimes I bask in its warmth; sometimes its coldness gives me the shivers. Sometimes it’s inviting and comfortable; sometimes it’s alienating and off-putting. But it’s been my home for 78 years, and I’m too old, and have no inclination, to find another one. I’ll therefore continue to put up with it, good and bad, and hope it will continue to likewise put up with me. It looks like we’re in it, God willing, for the long haul.

Joseph C. Kaplan of Teaneck, a regular columnist for the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News and a Rockower Award recipient, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking.’” He is a retired lawyer; he and his wife, Sharon, have been blessed with four wonderful daughters and six delicious grandchildren.

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