VicM Di
A small city loses a rabbi and gains insight
Victoria's departing rabbi offers lesson on redemption.
SUZANNE KORT SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The two-letter Hebrew word for "if appeas at least 30 times in the Torah portion, Bcchukosai, read in synagogues throughout tlie world last month. It's a small word with big connotations.
Rabbi Victor Reinstein explored Bcchukosai as I arrived at Victoria's congregation Emanu-El synagogue for Sabbath services May 23. The rabbi's talk was spirited and inspired, wliich is tiot unusual for our gifted rabbi. What was out of the ordinary was that this was one of the last Torah commentaries he would deliver as Emanu-El's rabbi.
Victor Reinstein and his family leave Victoria in July after 16 years. They plan to return to Boston, the rabbi's hometown, so their three children can participate in the full-time Jewish schools and diverse Jewish neighborhoods they enjoyed during their sabbatical there last year. As far as I know, no one has applied for Rabbi Ileinstein's job.
His wrill be a difiicult act to follow. As I walked through the synagogue's door that Shabbat morning, a bedraggled man wearing a torn leather coat put on one of the shul's talleisim (prayer shawls) in the foyer. He mumbled to himself and made no eye contact. Such an encoimter is not unusual around the synagogue, located in the heart of downtown Victoria.
Once, a homeless man walking by the shul after services asked me, "I am Elijah. Wliat are you going to do about it?" Wliile Rabbi Reinstein knows some of the homeless here, he had not seen the man in the tallis before or since.
David Kool, a young congregant home from his university studies in Boston, helped the stranger with his prayer book before the man crumpled into a seat. The rabbi's discussion of tlie morning's Torali portion began with the Jubilee year, tlie seven-times-seventh year when all fields arc left fallow, all land returned to its original owner and all debts forgiven.
At such times rich and poor together glean whatever the fields yield naturally. If we follow such
Suzanne Korl
Victoria Correspondent
recommendations, the portion explains, Uien redemption will follow. It is basic if-then logic: If you learn what to do, then you can do it. If you do what you learn, then things will work out right. The rabbi asked how such concepts could work in our own lives, considering that few of us have fields to let lie fallow these days.
Congregants discussed ideas like environmental sustainabili-ty and how rarely soil-centered sabbaticals Hke the Jubilee are practiced anymore, even in Israel. The discussion boiled down to "if." Interpreted literally: IF we follow the mitzvot (commandments), then redemption will follow. Or more broadly (the one I prefer): IF we share what we have at least periodically, be it ideas or land, then people and nations may yet experience peace.
As the rabbi broke im (if) into its two Hebrew letters, alcph (as in Elijah) and mem (as in mes-siah), the bedraggled man, who had been mumbling now and then through the discussion, got up to leave.
There are old stories about Elijah, the prophet who heralds a messianic age (or the messiah, depending how you see it), appearing as a beggar in rags. Tlie rabbi alluded to such stories with a smile as the man left the room. He said that if EUjali were among VIS, how we treated him would effect our redemption. The outer door slainmed as Rabbi Reinstein finished speaking. Our visitor was gone.
It may be true that if, after listening to Victoria's rabbi for a decade-and-a-half, people still haven't gotten his message, perhaps we never will. We get second chances, tliough, in teacliable moments when several thousand years worth of history coalesce into a single word. □
Suzanne Kort is a freelance writer living in Victoria.
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