Posted By James Besser
Difficult Trade-Offs / Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik
(Rabbi Gerald. C. Skolnik has served as spiritual leader of The Forest Hills Jewish Center for twenty-seven years. He also teaches at JTS, is an officer of the Rabbinical Assembly, and is involved in numerous causes and organizations within the Jewish community.)
This past Sunday I officiated at the funeral of an old friend's mother, and yesterday I attended the funeral of another old friend's brother. As I write, yet another old friend herself lies in a hospice with her family sitting vigil at her bedside. Every time my cellphone rings, I fear the worst. It is a funeral I am dreading.
Ask any seasoned pulpit rabbi and he/she will tell you that deaths tend to cluster, particularly around holidays. This phenomenon is not at all unique to Judaism. My Christian colleagues tell me that the same is very much true in their communities. No one really knows why. It may have something to do with depression, which is an unwelcome leitmotif of holiday seasons for people who aren't well, or aren't happy. I certainly don't know why it is, but I know that it is so.
There is enormous gratification from knowing that others look to you in their worst moments, when they are at their most vulnerable, and that you are the person that they want around to help them through.
I've learned time and again how even in this age when models of clerical authority are so in flux, a good pastor is an invaluable asset to a grieving person or family. I know this. But I've also never been able to escape the feeling that that every death, every sadness that I am a part of diminishes me in some insidious and imperceptible way, and takes its toll. I also know that the day I stop letting someone else's loss affect me is the day that I should leave the rabbinate, for I will have lost my capacity for true empathy.
It's a difficult trade-off.
(Rabbi Gerald. C. Skolnik has served as spiritual leader of The Forest Hills Jewish Center for twenty-seven years. He also teaches at JTS, is an officer of the Rabbinical Assembly, and is involved in numerous causes and organizations within the Jewish community.)
This past Sunday I officiated at the funeral of an old friend's mother, and yesterday I attended the funeral of another old friend's brother. As I write, yet another old friend herself lies in a hospice with her family sitting vigil at her bedside. Every time my cellphone rings, I fear the worst. It is a funeral I am dreading.
Ask any seasoned pulpit rabbi and he/she will tell you that deaths tend to cluster, particularly around holidays. This phenomenon is not at all unique to Judaism. My Christian colleagues tell me that the same is very much true in their communities. No one really knows why. It may have something to do with depression, which is an unwelcome leitmotif of holiday seasons for people who aren't well, or aren't happy. I certainly don't know why it is, but I know that it is so.
There is enormous gratification from knowing that others look to you in their worst moments, when they are at their most vulnerable, and that you are the person that they want around to help them through.
I've learned time and again how even in this age when models of clerical authority are so in flux, a good pastor is an invaluable asset to a grieving person or family. I know this. But I've also never been able to escape the feeling that that every death, every sadness that I am a part of diminishes me in some insidious and imperceptible way, and takes its toll. I also know that the day I stop letting someone else's loss affect me is the day that I should leave the rabbinate, for I will have lost my capacity for true empathy.
It's a difficult trade-off.