Celebrating 75 Years of Temple Beth-El
“Religious Imagination”
September 24th, 2006
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Exactly seventy-five years ago yesterday by the Jewish calendar, the first Rabbi of the newly created Temple Beth-El ascended to the High Holy Day pulpit for services being held at the Scottish Rite Temple.  That was a momentous occasion for history, Jewish and communal, of the city of Richmond, of the Commonwealth of Virginia, of the United States, of Israel, and ultimately for world Jewry and for the world. You might think that I have engaged in a bit of hyperbole. Maybe. [It sounded good!] Yet, as I look at the long-while-short history of this synagogue, this congregation, that we are celebrating its 75 th anniversary this year, I view it in the context of the concentric circles which I just indicated. A central concept of Judaism is voiced in two complimentary sentences:

Kol Yisrael Arayvim zeh bazeh – All Israel is responsible this one with this one; and,

Kol Yisrael Arayvim zeh lazeh – All Israel is connected this one to this one.

No part stands in isolation. Every part is connected, like an intricate gear assembly. When one part is present, when that part moves, all parts are affected and are moved. We are more than the walls and windows. Events have occurred here that have greater meaning and greater impact than just at this address or for any individual family. We must imagine ourselves looking from above, at least in time, to witness the impact that this synagogue and congregation have made.

That vision must fuel us with religious imagination, just as it did the founders!

We can dream of our future!

We can aspire to our contribution to destiny!

We can imagine that seventy-five years from now, our descendants

or other new-comers to Richmond will look back at this mark in history

         and be amazed and stirred!

Greatness and zeal are not attributes of the past!

They are our fabric of our present and our legacy for our future.

They are not meant ‘just’ for a building, but for our lives, of our families, and of our people.  

I.  

I really wish that I had a time machine. I would love to interview people whose names I read on the weekly yahrzeit lists and ask them many questions:

Why did you do this - create a synagogue and congregation in the midst of the Depression?  

How did you do it?  

Where did you get the vision, the inspiration?  

How many meetings did it take?  

And of course, where did you get the money?  

Why did you do this –there already were several synagogues in a relatively small community?  

What were your dreams, besides the day-to-day worries?  

Did you imagine that we would exist seventy-five years later?

I really wish I could ask those questions of J. Leicester Watts, Milton Levenson, Dr. Yale Passamaneck, Paul Kamsky, Doctor Max M. Spigel, Nathan Kessler, Milton Kessler, Israel Passamaneck, Reuben Goldman, Sol Sidenberg, Isador S. Grow, Philip Kittenplan, Gustave Jacobson, Hyman Lebarwich, Philip F. Savage, Sol B. Rosenfeld and Samuel Imburg. They were the committee that founded this congregation and their names deserve the honor of being heard in this sanctuary. They rented the second and third floors of the Columbus Hall at 2049 Broad Street for the hall and classrooms, while renting other places for the Yamim Noraim. They stayed there for seven years until 1938, with the membership at one hundred families, until they purchased and remodeled the building next door, moving in 1939. It should greatly impress us that just as the winds of war were sweeping across Europe, as the Nazi noose was closing in on European Jewry, the Jews of Richmond were planting seeds for the salvation of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people. That was courageous. That took religious and historical imagination.  

Within a year the congregation doubled and the building was too small. Under the guidance of Reuben Goldman and I.R. Levet, whom I was privileged to know, they built this building, interrupted by the war, the efforts were later resumed and dedicated in 1949. As Richmond received the refugees from Europe before the gates closed and then in its aftermath, this congregation was strategically built:

• to be a bulwark for our Jewish existence,
• to be a religious and social haven for Jews uprooted and persecuted,
• to be the spiritual and educational home as American Jewry began to discover and shape its soul,
• to be a financial and personal resource for the just created Medinat Yisrael,
• and the new hearth from which would come generations of Jews to expand the Jewish people in this country.
• The cycle would then turn as its children return on aliyah to Israel, the land of our birth.

I could only wish that those men that I mentioned and their wives can look down from heaven and see us now.

II.

It was clear that these people and others wanted to specifically create a Conservative synagogue, aligned with United Synagogue, with its Rabbis from the Rabbinical Assembly and be a pillar of the Conservative Movement. Rabbi Berman’s book on the history of Richmond Jewry as well as the four books commemorating our history, the Bar Mitzvah year of 1944, the 25 th Anniversary of 1956, the Golden Jubilee of the 50 th in 1981, and 60 th Anniversary in 1991 all make it abundantly clear that the leadership of the synagogue purposefully structured the posture and purpose of Temple Beth-El in that of Conservative Judaism. In 1931 the Richmond Jewish community was blessed with several synagogues, Congregation Beth Ahabah, Sir Moses Montifiore, and Beth Israel, the latter two would merge, and others were still present. They did not have to create Temple Beth-El in such difficult and perilous times. Yet they did. To quote the Bar Mitzvah book: “It was their purpose to create and provide such an expression of Jewish living that would meet the hitherto unsatisfied spiritual needs of many of our people. It was their aim to retain the permanent value and beauty of traditional forms and beliefs within a modern environment. To the realization of those ideals Beth-El was dedication.” That dream and those ideals have been maintained throughout our glorious history.

Their dreams have been realized.

Their dedication has been rewarded.

We are testimony to their wisdom.

I hope:

• that they can see the pictures on the wall of Confirmation Hall, the vast numbers of confirmands who continued their Jewish education and stood here on the bemah to affirm their place in the march of our people;

• that they can view the panorama of Jewish education that has been propounded with integrity through 10 th grade, for those seeking to make Judaism their faith, cross-generational with our Shabbaton and Shabbat service-dinner-and program formats;

• that they can hear the voices of our children present on the bemah for their bnai mitzvah, chanting Torah and haftorah, erev and yom Shabbat liturgy, with divrai Torah grappling with making their Judaism their personal heritage;

• that they can watch the Ba’alay Keriyah Society, post bnai mitzvah and adults of all ages, who have invested their time and souls into learning to read from the Sefer Torah, the scroll of the Torah, deepening their commitment to the soul of our faith;

• that they have seen the large gatherings here of our wider community, where Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and Moslems have ascended this bemah with me and Cantor Cohen after the tragedy of 9/11 and recently at its fifth year commemoration, to testify to a shared vision of a peaceful community and world, with mutual respect, besides the Thanksgiving Services that we host from time to time;

• that they recognize the myriads of men and women, some who have also brought their children to this bastion of Jewish faith, to make it their own, and join in loyalty to our God and people, in addition to those who respectfully bring their children to absorb our faith and values;

• that they smile and send their blessing from heaven to the couples that stand on this bemah under the chuppah to sanctify their lives with the holiness that emanates and is embodied in this place;

• and, that they acknowledge that from the membership of this congregation have come forth innumerable men and women to lead the greater Jewish community through the complimentary institutions of Beth Sholom, Jewish Family Services, the JCC, the Federation, and others. Temple Beth-El has been the well from which the community has drawn for seven and a half decades. It has been the cornerstone upon which all have built strongly and securely.

May the founders and sustainers of this great congregation look down upon us with pride, delight and approval.  On this Rosh HaShanah I ask for their blessing upon us. May we find favor in their sight and that of God, for whom they built that we and they should faithfully serve.

III.  

The Talmud, in Tractate Baba Metzia, 28b makes reference to the “Stone of Claims.” I have researched this, and, to the best of my ability can say that it is mentioned only one other time in Rabbinic literature, in Tractate Ta’anit 19a. In Baba Metzia it says:

Our Rabbis taught: There was a Stone of Claims in Jerusalem: whoever lost an article repaired there, and whoever found an article did likewise. The latter stood and proclaimed, and the former submitted his identification marks and received it back.

This building, this brick and steel, our congregation, our flesh and blood, is our Stone of Claims. The founders, sustainers, Rabbis, Cantors, teachers of its seventy-five years have provided a place and the people to which to come with your claims:

A claim:

For friendship and fellowship to bind each other together, celebrate joyful moments and support each other in moments of sadness;

A claim:

For faith to elevate us and open eyes to the awe of life and existence itself, and to give thanks in prayer to the Almighty for His gifts bountifully bestowed;

A claim:

For the Hershey’s Kisses and Twizzlers in my lectern so that I can entice little children to be intimate with this bemah, at home in our home, looking for the little Torahs I also store and stuffed Torahs with which to march around, so that they will love this place even more than me;

A claim:

For understanding of what God wants from us by studying the Torah and the vast treasury of Jewish literature;

A claim:

For support in moments of crisis, of death, divorce, duress of every kind, to assuage broken hearts, uplift dejected spirits and mend the tears that the tragedies and torments of life afflicts;

A claim:

For inspiration to change our world, strengthen our families, improve our community, unite with Am Yisrael and support Medinat Yisrael;

Here we bring our claims, for all this and more.

Here we find the answers.

Here we find each other.

Here we find God.

Here we find the salvation for our lives, the inspiration to fill our days.  

Conclusion  

This Stone of Claims, this synagogue and congregation is our legacy which we have received from the founders and perpetuators of this glorious congregation. Through its magnificent history it has sustained generations of Jews.

May it continue to sustain us and our families.

May it maintain its beacon of Judaism to us and our community, Jewish and general alike..

May we rejoice in receiving this heritage, of being part of its fabric enmeshed in its weave.

As we are blessed to be the current link in the chain of Temple Beth-El’s history, may we pledge to enhance it, sustain it, and perpetuate it.

Many years from now, may another generation of Jews rise up, look back to us, and proclaim its glory and our praise even as we have done so to others today.

At this historic moment, seventy five years since its first prayers to God, let us rise and join in one more, Shehecheyanu:

Baruch Atah Adonay Eloheynu Melech HaOlam, Shehecheyanu, v’kemaynu, v’hegeyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are You, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this day.

Amen!