Many memories come back to us this Shabbat as we recall Mordechai’s Chag HaSmicha celebration and the three and a half wonderful years that we lived at 501 W. 184th Street. We lived through the days when there was a “gorel,” a lottery to see who in smicha would go into the armed services.
At that time, Yeshiva University had an arrangement with the Jewish Welfare Board to provide a number of rabbonim to serve. No one was actually anxious to do so and picking a high number in the gorel was everyone’s dream. At this point, in retrospect, we look at those who did serve in the armed forces either voluntarily or because they had drawn a low number and we are slightly envious of the benefits that they have received as a result of such service. They so must be commended for having served our country; they never knew where they would be sent and deserve every drop of compensation that they receive.
Not everyone, as is the case today, would choose to go into rabbonus or chinuch. Many would move onto other careers. When we made the decision to go into rabbonus it was with an excitement and anticipation of an entire new life. We were committed to reaching out to those in the community where we would live. In our first shtelle, Brantford, Ontario, there were 90 Jewish families. Eight-seven of those families belonged to the shul and three did not. One day, Mordechai was in shul when one member of the non-affiliated families came to shul to say Kaddish. Two old-time members literally picked up the man and told him he was not welcome in the shul. Wow, what is that all about? We hope that would never happen today.
In Montreal at the Young Israel of Val Royal, still young and innocent when we arrived, we had a baalabust who felt that he should edit the “Rabbi’s Column” in the weekly bulletin. If he did not like what the rabbi wrote, he would carefully change around the wording or the intent—challenges that we had never been told about in the smicha program.
Nevertheless, we learned to overcome these challenges and loved rabbonus. Sharing in families’ simchas and their tragedies became a regular part of our life, especially because we were not living within close proximity to our families. Our shul became our family. Our children had surrogate aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. It never took away from their excitement and love for the authentic members of the family, but it taught them how to live with so many different types of people and families.
Montreal is a community where in most cases no matter what form of Judaism people ascribed to, they still wanted to go to an Orthodox shul. We were shocked upon our arrival that 90 percent of Jewish children in the entire city went to a Jewish day school. There are secular Jewish day schools, a Yiddish (Peretz) Shul and, of course, many Modern Orthodox day schools and yeshivas. And so, people went out of their way to accommodate us. Friends would have special dishes in their houses for us; one friend bought a barbeque and utensils that were only used when we were at their house. Living in the greater metro area, one does not realize the challenges of kashrus for a rav and his family who live out of town. Our children could not eat at many birthday parties they were invited to. In Brantford, when our daughter Malkie was three and a half, she was invited to a birthday party. We asked if we could provide a cake so that she could have cake to eat with everyone else. The little boy’s mother happily said yes. When Malkie came home from the party she told me that she had the cake and also hot dogs! The mother of the child thought that cake was the only issue and we never would have dreamed hotdogs would be served at a birthday party.
We suggest young couples going into rabbonus today realize that this vocation is a 24- hour job for both of them. Although many wives today work outside of the home in various professions, it is the wife who must be supportive of the stresses and joys that her husband will have to go through. We have heard that shuls think they only hire the rabbi, but in fact the most successful rabbinic placements that we know of are where wives are an integral part of the community. If you don’t think that lifestyle is for you we strongly suggest that you reconsider your decision.
And even if you might not like the idea, leaving the greater metro area offers its own benefits when it comes to establishing strong relationships between you and your spouse, and is a much calmer and more rewarding experience than life in the big city.
By Mordechai & Nina Glick
