Why I Wouldn’t Be a (Good) Rabbi

Last Tuesday night, I read a book that made me think about rabbis.

Also about a lot of other things. About a random guy I didn’t let into my building that morning. About the clerk at the local store where I bought a watermelon and some lemons the previous weeks. About the man with the sad face who sometimes sits beside a nearby movie theatre in the evening and asks for change, and the tourist couple near the subway who were unable to give directions to another tourist couple this morning. But mostly about rabbis.

Until Tuesday night, I didn’t know why I didn’t want to be a rabbi. I mean, I knew some reasons why I didn’t want to be a rabbi: I don’t believe in God. I don’t love religion for its own sake. I personally have no use for many of the complex nooks and crannies of Jewish law, but that’s irrelevant; what makes me especially unsuitable for rabbinical studies is that many people look to their religious leaders to assign meaning to the rituals and traditions, and I certainly shouldn’t do that for others when I can’t do it for myself. More personally, I’ve known too many individual rabbis who put my back up, who seemed to think God and the Jewish faith were more important than people, to feel that being a rabbi is admirable and good in and of itself.

(I’m beginning to learn that I find it difficult to respect anyone — especially myself — who thinks anything is more important than people.)

But all those things are small potatoes compared to the real reason I could never be a rabbi — not a good rabbi, anyhow. (Every profession has its incompetents and its criminals. The clergy is certainly no exception, and I’m sure I’d find it easy to be a bad rabbi.) I could never be a rabbi, or a priest, or a minister, or an imam not because of the ideological differences, though I would certainly find reconciling  those with my own beliefs to be extremely challenging, but because most of what a good rabbi does is the hardest thing in the world.

A good rabbi is the person who sits with a mourning family and says what they need to hear.

She visits people who are ailing in body, in mind, or in both and provides comfort, companionship, and/or conversation as required.

The same way a sculptor is supposed to bring out the shape already in a block of wood or marble, she nurtures the joy attendant to a birth or wedding, and if there are signs that maybe-less-joy is in the wind, she is ready to be there to give support and third-party opinions when the marriage turns sour or the new parents struggle with child-rearing, but all without spoiling the happiness and celebration of the moment.

She notices the person in the room who desperately wants someone to talk to and not only goes to chat with him but strives to introduce him to another person who might be interested in what he has to say.

She spots people who need another person, and she extends a hand.

This is both the toughest thing and the easiest thing. It’s the toughest because it’s so simple to put situations like this down on paper and so difficult to find them shining bright and clear and obvious in real life. That guy who wanted me to unlock the door of my apartment building for him — was that a case of a stranger asking me to think of helping another human being instead of following the rules, or a case of me finding the assertiveness to do what my fellow-human-being neighbours and landlords trust me to do and politely refuse?

It’s also the toughest because everyone is hard to read and self-contradictory, and how do you know when it’s an appropriate time to insert yourself into someone else’s conversation — “Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing that you were trying to find Bay Street; I know where that is.” — instead of an unwanted intrusion? How do you decide to take that leap and risk hurting others when you meant to help? Or risk rejection from someone with whom you were trying to connect? (“Hey, I notice I see you around here a lot. What’s your name? Where are you from?”) Isn’t it so much simpler to keep your head low, respect that others are complex human beings whose wants and needs you might not be able to anticipate, and wait for them to approach you?

And, finally, it’s the toughest because where and when and how are you supposed to let other people’s desires take second-shelf to your own? You might need the change in my pocket; I need it too. Who gets it? You’ve been standing out here all day in the hot sun enduring passersby pretending not to notice when you wave your Plan Canada clipboard and ask them if they have a moment; I do have a moment, I guess, but I also have other things I want to do in that moment. But what if those other things include dicking around the Internet? Heck, even if they include washing my dishes or doing my research or calling my mom, who am I to say those things are more important than listening to how I can help to end debilitating poverty? Then again, who’s to say listening will change my mind or plans for future actions at all?

But all this is also the easiest thing in the world. I can’t think otherwise, because that leads to the cheap cop-out of: “Oh, there’s some constraint built into me. I don’t get how to make connections with other people and be generous and nice and good. It’s so difficult. I ought to be exempt, or at least to be held to lower standards.”

When the cashier at the produce store is visibly upset at what was obviously a racist thing said by the small daughter of the previous customer in line, even if I wish I had acted differently, I don’t get to spend the next hour making rationalizing to myself things like, “Well, I didn’t hear any of what the girl said — if I did, I would’ve said something” or “But I misunderstood what the coversation was about until it was too late — obviously if I’d known, my response would’ve been much more sympathetic.”

For me, any reason to avoid doing good, no matter how true, isn’t a reason, it’s an excuse. When I take a math test, no matter how true it is that I’m shaken by a recent traumatic experience or my alarm clock shorted out overnight or I literally just can’t understand the concept, I still don’t get the question marked right. I get that 52 or 31 or 99 score regardless. The circumstances may change what people decide that score means about me — that I’m not lazy, or that I am stupid, or that I’m still probably good at math, but they don’t change the result.

Likewise, no circumstances, no matter how constraining or out of my control, will ever change how I made another person feel. Maybe when I explain why I did (or didn’t do) what I did, they’ll change their opinion of me — not actually malicious; probably clueless; selfish, or thoughtless, or both — but it can’t change what happened in their head or heart.

And a good rabbi — a good social leader of any community, whether secular or religious — not only has to cope with the difficulty while never letting herself decide her job isn’t easy. She also has to be brave enough to fail at all this in the most horrendous, hurtful ways, and still not let herself use that failure as an excuse to avoid learning from it to be able to better help others.

I guess the kicker is — what this novel I read last week was saying — is that we’re all social leaders. Maybe not with the community’s eyes always upon us, like they’re on our local politicians or clergy or civic role models. And so my real choice isn’t whether or not I want to do what a good rabbi does, but whether I want to accept how competent or incompetent I am at it now, or whether I want to try always to get better.

I think I’ll shoot for try.