The July 1st Reminder

What are you?

July 1st is an important date in my professional world. It is often the start date for Rabbis and other clergy folks, as the new fiscal year kicks in. Every July beginning brings scores of “1st day of work” posts from my colleagues. Each year that I see them, and especially this year, I find myself wondering about the nature of my work and where exactly I fit into it.

For as long as I can remember, being a Rabbi was the natural path for me. I have a father who came from a background steeped in Jewish learning, education, and leadership. I have a sister that bucked many cultural trends where we came from and became a Rabbi. I was raised in a home that set its calendar and clock Jewishly.

All the voices around me called to me to be a Rabbi. I was never particularly adept at math or science. My love of general history and language lent itself to my love of learning the Jewish people’s history and language. My earliest forms of employment, junior congregation leader and camp counselor were THE springboards to the rabbinic career.

And here I sat, on another July 1st, taking in all the excitement from my friends’ posts, all the hope of new beginnings and existentially asking myself, what am I? Since the spring of 2021, I have been asking myself this question. Posed to me in a lovingly reproachful way by a then-acquantaince-and-now-dear-friend, I have been grappling with this question.

The story I have always had in my head has always been one with Rabbi as the lede but now I am not so sure. And as my esteemed Uncle Gary taught me early on about sunk cost, just because I put all this time, energy, and money into something doesn’t mean you need to keep doing that. Is it serving me?

What’s especially hard is knowing (hopefully not in a self-aggrandizing way!) that I am good at many parts of it. When people keep telling you they love your _________ in your work and you’re questioning your legacy, it makes for quite the potent dose of cognitive dissonance.

So, I am 35 years old, 6 years into this rabbi thing and I am still not sure what I want to be. Most days that is frightening. On other days, I remind myself of this moving text from Rav Kook¹:

The I in exile, the inner and essential I, of the individual and the collective, reveals its inner self only in accordance with its holiness and purity, in accordance with its supernal might, permeated with the pure light of heavenly splendor, that burns within him. We sinned with our fathers, the sin of the first man, who became alienated from himself, turning to the serpent, and losing himself. He did not know how to give a clear answer to the question, "where are you," because he did not know his own soul, because he had lost his true self…

That notion of exile feels resonant to me. I feel that alienation but I also know that I don’t want to feel so lost. When I remember this, things feel ok because I know I am somewhere on this soul-journey finally asking the right question. I am not yet sure where it’ll lead. I do feel like I am learning more about who and what I am. Most importantly, I am finally paying attention to my soul. Thanks for the reminder, July 1st.

Wherever you are in life, I wish the same for you.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend

1. 1st Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine-(Shemone Kevatzim 3, 24):