TRIBUTES to RABBI RIM

Talks given on June 13, 2008 celebrating Rabbi Rim’s Tenth Anniversary with Temple Shir Tikvah

Celebrating Ten Years

by Anne Meirowitz

Thank you all for turning out to honor Rim tonight. Once again I am awed by the power and love in this place of song and hope. You’ll have to pardon me if I get a bit mushy. It’s been a wondrous journey since we decided to come to Shir Tikvah.

I remember the beginning as if it were yesterday.

It was a little more than 11 years ago when Rim and I were invited to meet with members of the Shir Tikvah community. Rim had already met with various groupings before, but this was our first time coming into the Shir Tikvah community together. I have no idea to this day how many people were actually there. I couldn’t count because I don’t think I could actually see everyone. Let’s just say it was a bit close.

I remember that both Rim and I spoke about who we were, from where we had come, and our hopes and dreams before opening the floor for questions.

To this day I have no idea who asked this particular question because I knew hardly anyone back then, but it was a woman, and my memory says it may have been the first question or close to the first. I’m no longer sure, but I remember the question itself clearly. The question was, “How will you feel when you walk into my home and there’s a Christmas tree?” And I have to say that I almost fell off my chair in astonishment. Not because someone would have a Christmas tree. (My own family has Christmas trees.) But here’s what was so amazing: that someone had the expectation that the rabbi and his wife would be coming into their home. And that there was a caring about how the Rabbi would FEEL, not what he would say or do. And that the question was asked not as a challenge or privately, but as part of a friendly public conversation about an important intermarriage issue.
Eleven years ago in the Jewish community all those things were extraordinary. And in many places they still are. But the most wondrous thing of all was that no one there, or here, even knew that such openness, caring, and sharing were unusual. They were taken for granted.

This was definitely my kind of place. And it still is. I love Temple Shir Tikvah and the people who make it what it is. I have felt honored, privileged, and blessed over these past 11 years to be a part of the Shir Tikvah community. Thank you.

And, like you, one of the most important elements of this community for me has been its most excellent rabbi. But before I talk about Rim a little, I want to talk about Moses first. In this week’s Torah portion, B’haalot’cha, there is much discussion of what goes on while the Jews are wandering in the desert and how Moses has to cope. He has to deal with the holy space (what kind of lamps should be placed in the lamp stand), who exactly carries the ark of the covenant, how to listen well to what the people were telling him, how to deal with complaints (the people were tired of manna), what are the duties of the Levites, how to care for the ill (when Miriam is given leprosy by God and Moses is not happy), speaking to God directly on behalf of the community, how to observe holy days (specifically Passover), how to welcome the stranger, and how to guide his people on their journey to the Holy Land.

There is some discussion that Moses today would not be able to recognize the Judaism that he knew, what with Board meetings, B’nai Mitzvah, and Debbie Friedman songs, but I suggest that he would recognize the role of leader, of a rabbi in Rim, immediately.

But what you really want to know is: how is Rim when he isn’t being a rabbi? On some level, I haven’t the foggiest idea. He’s always a rabbi. Really. He lives loving God and Jews, and that is always present.

I see him as a mentor and guide to everyone — from teenagers, to rabbinical students, to couples starting out, to people who want to learn, and to those in pain. The telephone and email are a constant in our lives because he is trustworthy and patient and respectful, and he receives the same back from those who reach out. And he thinks that this is normal; it is just who he is.

I see him being a great friend, who keeps in contact with his closest friends every week. And he’s there for all his friends through all the good and all the bad. With them, together, they share stories and laughter and life. They ground each other. Some of you are in this room.

He is the best father for all our children. When we first got married and our kids were trying to figure out all these new relationships (you mean we’re actually going to have to live with them?) and my closest friend and her daughter, as she calls herself our faux-daughter, were living with us too, Rim and I decided to take all 9 of us up to a home we borrowed from friends in Bar Harbor. The kids were cranky because we had told them there would be no television, no computers, and no radio. I was trying to pack everyone up and keep herd on the multitude of attitudes permeating the house when Rim disappeared. I didn’t know where he had gone until we got to Maine. After we piled out of the cars and took the requisite picture in front of the house, Rim opened the back of our van and pulled out 9 super-soakers (you know what they are; those water guns that hold about 2 quarts of water each). Before we even opened the door of the house, we were all soaking wet, making up teams, chasing each other around the property, strategizing, and laughing hysterically! Rim knew just what to do. And all the kids, adults now, call him and/or email him all the time. He is always supportive, encouraging, non-judgmental, and fiercely loyal.

And to top it all off, he’s also a great husband. He’s willing to watch late-night chick-flicks with me, go dress shopping for our daughter’s wedding with me (and charm all the saleswomen), get over his dislike of travel to please me (enough to end up swimming in the Amazon), read me poetry, listen to me relate the minutiae of my day, and ladies, really, he makes me a salad every day for me to take to work.

What more could one want in their own personal rabbi? When I was younger I would have started out my personal ad looking for someone tall, dark, and handsome, and then listing all the qualities I just mentioned. So how did I, and how did Shir Tikvah do in our choice. Everything but not tall, you say? You’re right. But I think that in your eyes and in mine, we have a giant.

—Anne Meirowitz