I am the most blessed of retired rabbis, particularly because I am privileged to continue actively to participate in our beloved Temple Sinai. And I am delighted and wowed, at worship and other synagogue activities, when I see so many “new” faces – Sinai-ites whom I don’t at all recognize, but now have the opportunity to meet. Our community has wonderfully grown “since my day,” both in number and diversity. When I retired at just 59 years old (surprising the Board and others!) one of my reasons for doing so was that it seemed to me time for rabbinic leadership with skills and gifts beyond mine. And, indeed, we have been greatly blessed by the talents of my successors.

One way I think about how our community has grown comes from the Alban Institute, a Christian organization founded in 1974 to study congregational dynamics and to offer transformative training to leadership. Alban’s teachings clearly applied to synagogues too, and their programs quickly became interfaith-inclusive. While I never formally trained with Alban, I did dabble a bit in their findings. Their analysis of congregational growth was an area of particular interest to me.

Alban’s analysis of congregational size begins with the smallest church/synagogue congregations. These are “Mom and Pop” kinds of communities, what Alban calls “The Family Church/Synagogue.” Indeed, a large majority of this congregation’s members are often literally related. And if not literally so, then “as if” so because the congregation is small enough that everyone knows everyone and is pretty much involved in most of one another’s Jewish life. This was Sinai before I arrived.

When I came to Sinai, we were becoming the next size congregation – the “Pastoral Church/Synagogue.” Still too small for staff, the rabbi/pastor pretty much initiates and runs all that goes on in this community. In those days, I was the entire staff. I opened the mail and did most of the basic administrative tasks. (Thankfully, there was a Board member to take care of our finances or we’d likely not still be here!) I was the Religious School Director and often the entire teaching staff. And, yes, sometimes I fixed the toilets; and I was always moving chairs and tables. Yup, I was lots younger then!

As Sinai’s membership numbers grew, we moved to the next level of congregational size, the Program Church/Synagogue. In this next-sized community, the rabbi can’t possibly do it all. Hopefully, there is some staff added to the institution at this point. But lay members also take on a greater role. Boards of Trustees become better trained and more “professionalized.” Committees take over many functions that the rabbi used to do. Programming becomes more diversified as separate programs appeal to different ages and interest groups. This was Sinai a few years before I retired. And, mostly, it is Sinai now.

I say “mostly,” because there are times when we bounce from one category (Pastor/Rabbi Synagogue) to another (Program Synagogue). And sometimes I catch myself imagining we are still in that smaller category, when in fact the size of our community makes that altogether impractical. Sinai continues to grow (Baruch HaShem!) with the occasional reminder that there’s a reason for the term “growing pains.”

We may have moved up the congregational “size ladder,” but we are still small enough that there is always too much to do and too few of us to get it all done. Add to that the stresses of these last several years – from COVID to October 7 and so many points between –and it’s little wonder that I read on my many e-lists that colleagues and congregations everywhere are stretched, sometimes near to breaking.

Much as I loved being your Rabbi, I am inordinately grateful to be retired in these days. Even when the congregation was much smaller, I easily worked 60-70-hour weeks. Fortunately, I didn’t have the demands of a spouse and children. And even more fortunately, that was before the days when so many varieties of social media could have reached me at virtually every and any hour of the day!

And so… As we turn the page on another secular year, I reflect on how very kind and grateful we must be to one another. To our Rabbis, our Board officers and members, our committee Chairs and members, and to everyone who makes our community so vibrant. There’s a lot of trauma in the world these days. Sinai is, and must always be, our sanctuary of shalom.

Here’s to 2024. May it be a year of growth and of peace. May we each be blessed with the strength and understanding to do our part in making it so!

Happy almost secular New Year!!

Rabbi Emerita Myra Soifer