I
hope you’ve all been having a rejuvenating summer. Gary and I continue on with home improvement
projects and trips up and down the New Jersey Turnpike. We also fight our noble
battle with the moles, voles and squirrels that attack our produce in situ.
Last
week, my summer travels led me to Houston, Texas! Yes, the Piedmont Rebbe
saddled up and headed out to the fourth largest city in America, SPACE CITY,
HOUSTON! While there, I had an
interesting cultural experience. I
attended an Evangelical Christian service on Sunday morning at a MEGA
CHURCH.
Now
this wasn’t my first Mega Church experience. (Well, not counting the one in
California, for a “Living Nativity” with live camels for the Three Wise Men.) But,
this WAS the kind of Mega Church I’d only read about in my Jewish books on the
spirituality of welcoming.
The
outside of the building was unassuming.
The inside, however, caught me unprepared. The first thing I saw, passing through the
entrance was a large coffee bar with extensive seating, and a lounge area with
speakers broadcasting the service. I
walked past signs indicating Sunday school and child care hours. Entering the sanctuary, I gave out a gasp. Over a thousand people for an 11:00 am
service…. a third of them holding cardboard coffee cups. Two Jumbo-tron screens
filled the stage with song lyrics. A
professional seven-piece country band played and sang their hearts out with the
help of a state-of-the-art sound system and lighting. I found a seat at the
back of the room near the sound and light boards and looked out at a swaying
sea of a thousand people up on their feet singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
Wow.
And
now I would like to tell you about my travels to another spot, a few days
before the trip to Texas. Between
Warrenton and Gainesville, there is a fairly new Assisted Living Facility, The
Villa. What makes it new to me is that,
so far, there have been no Jewish folks living there. That changed a few months ago when a couple
from Alexandria made the move out to our area. Not long after the move, the
husband became ill and died. I had the
honor of meeting the extended family and conducting the funeral.
A
week later, the widow approached me to ask if it would be possible to have a
memorial service at The Villa, for friends. “I would like to say Kaddish, but
there are no Jews at The Villa, and I don’t know any Jews in town,” she
said. “Don’t worry,” I said, “you will
have a minyan.”
We
have a fabulous, caring community. In
the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, ten members of our
congregation of every age, found the time to come and support a Jewish woman
that they did not know. All I had to do
was ask and the e-mails and phone calls came in immediately. By the end of the
service and social hour, it was impossible to tell that the widow, her son and
daughter were not ‘old-time’ friends of the Fauquier Jewish Congregation. The outpouring of warmth, concern and
friendship brought smiles to everyone’s faces.
You
may have noticed that FJC is NOT a congregation of a thousand people. But it certainly is a congregation of small,
caring groups. Even the largest
congregation cannot sustain itself unless its membership can find ways to interact
intimately!
Last
year some of our more established families walked in at Rosh Hashanah and
exclaimed “WHERE DID ALL THESE JEWISH PEOPLE COME FROM?” Well, according to a
conversation I had recently with Jeff Dannick, Director of the Northern
Virginia Jewish Community Center, Jewish growth is heading our way.
Once
again we will start up “Tot Shabbat” as the need has reappeared. Our Religious School is expanding. There has been increased interest in Torah
study and Adult Education, and Book Club is still going strong. WE ARE OPEN TO ANY AND ALL IDEAS AND REQUESTS
FOR WAYS TO CONNECT!
As
we approach the coming New Year, I hope you will find a way that YOU would like
to connect with people at FJC.
Judaism
doesn’t ask for a community of a thousand.
It DOES require a minimum of ten to make a minyan, the smallest number
for a living Jewish community. I hope we
can COUNT YOU IN THIS YEAR!
Shabbat
Shalom,
Rabbi
Rose Jacob
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