The installation of The Board of Trustees of our Temple is an annual event. As is almost always the case with this particular ceremony, we are a bit out of synch with the obvious purpose of an installation. Ideally, this ceremony would take place at the end of the spring, when the Board and officers of Temple Beth Israel are elected at the annual congregational meeting. If we had done that, I would have been talking about the future, which, since we didn’t, is now our past. I would, as much as possible, have envisioned goals and objectives and challenges and obligations the Board would have identified as important, necessary, and worthwhile for our focus for the upcoming year.
The reality, of course, is that The Board and Temple officers are already half way through our term of service and though we still look to the future, we are busier attending to what’s in front of us than we are imagining what we might wish to do. Clearly, at Temple Beth Israel we work on our own time schedule and as far as I can tell, we have never had a Board installation at what I just called “the ideal time.” Somehow it’s worked for us and so, “Here we are again,” finding meaning in this ceremony that happens when it is appropriate for us. Since we do this installation every year, and every year we do it mid-year, we have to assume it’s purposeful. Why, though, is it purposeful? What is its meaning?
We all have our own answers to these questions and probably some of us have never even thought about them. This is simply another Shabbat service and another tradition. Both of these statements are true but neither is sufficient. First of all and most obviously, this installation is a tradition. It has value to some simply because it is a tradition. Nothing else matters; it requires no introspection. But of course it is also comfortable, recognizable, and easy. It grounds us in a process without us having to think about it. I hesitate to make yet another Jewish food comparison, but a tradition has is much like our memory of bubeleh’s brisket or tante’s challah.
Second of all, it is public. Rather than the Board simply doing its work behind closed doors, so to speak, we step on the bimah and say, through this ceremony, “We are your board.” No anonymity, in case anyone really thought there is such a thing as privacy in a small community such as ours. It is a reminder to all of us that The Board is doing the work of the congregation, for the congregation.
If we look at this ceremony a bit differently, spatially as some geographers do, we would see that literally we are in a shared space. We are not a Board and a congregation, but a community praying and working together.
History plays a role in all public ceremonies, as it reminds us, in different ways, about our shared past. Whether personal or congregational, we have an historical relationship with all that has preceded us. And as history always does, it turns us to the future, and forces us to recognize a shared commitment to a shared future.
Public ceremonies, finally, are moments of forced introspection. For me, this installation gave me pause to reflect on not just its possible meanings, but also my last six months as president of our Congregation. It has been and still is a learning experience. I have learned from all my colleagues on the Board; I have learned from our Rabbi; and I have learned something from many congregants, whether they were asking me for permission to hold an event or to support something they were bringing before the Board,; whether they were disagreeing with me or whether they simply thought it was important to share something with me simply because I am the president.
So far, serving as President has been a positive experience for me, believe it or not, even during the most contentious of moments. I urge everyone to try it.
