Gerald Klein

Full Transcript

and we are at the JCPOA that I attended. One that somehow, strangely, stays in my mind. I remember the name of the speaker. His name was Morris C. Prover. He was from New York. He was devoting himself to this. I think he had a big accounting. But what I remember, he was recounting the circumstances in Germany. I remember in those days women would come to meetings with their knitting. And I remember somehow as the verbiage became more vivid, women knitting faster. I made a big impression, but it wasn't clear cut. St. Louis, FDR, who was a great hero of mine, I remember walking down from work in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in the summertime and FDR was giving one of his fireside chats and the summer and the doors were open and I could walk home, I didn't have a car, I was a rabbi for two years before I had a car and the radio was on.

I could walk home from my place of work to my home and not miss a word on the fireside channel. So it was an interesting time that I developed as a rabbi. When I was ordained on May 28, 1948, it was the same month in which the State of Israel was declared on May 14. Now, you were aware of what was going on in Germany? I was aware of what was going on. How? Aware. Just by reading, you know, and everything. I was aware, but not as keenly, and not knowing what was being done about it, you see. forget it was happening the same time that everything else was happening.

And you didn really separate in your own mind Well I don want to get into that a whole separate subject the study of the Holocaust I never heard the word Holocaust I never heard the word Showa Until much much much later or Holocaust studies. And now perhaps it's being overdone in the sense that it's not being put in context on what was happening in the world. But that's a whole separate subject. You know that's my field. Okay, alright. I've got strong feelings about that. I got, especially with rabbis, I think it's a cheap shot to make people cry and describe the horrors of the Holocaust without following it up with explanations of what would happen and so forth.

I've seen it done any number of times. It's very, very easy to make people shudder. and the more the information comes out. But I'm reading the history of the United States from 1492 to the present by this sort of radical Howard Zid. and the English did horrible things to the Indians, sliced them up and cut their fingers off and everything. It's very easy to make people squirm. And there's a context, you see. I'm a great context guy. Temple Emmanuel is not its rabbis, not the people who have their name on plaques. The world is suffering from plaques of pollution, things like that. You don't see the uniqueness of the Holocaust?

The what? The uniqueness of the Holocaust? I see the uniqueness of Jews and Jewish history. And I see the Holocaust as the unique experience of Jewish history But I think we do an injustice let say to our children when we teach them only about the Holocaust You see, even all of these Holocaust memorials, the one in New York is sort of on the right track, the heritage of Jewish living. The Holocaust Memorial in Boston near Quincy Market, have you ever seen that one? It makes a lot of sense to me. It has the quote from Martin Niemeyer. It has just number after number. It talks about the gypsies and the homosexuals.

I hope I'm not a shy, shy Jew, but I am a context in text. You have to teach people Jewish history in terms of providing with the future. you know with a certain context and timeline for the rivers for example Babylon in exile by the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and we wept and we remembered Zion we hanged up our hearts the fact is that they created the synagogue there And they did return to Zion. And they didn't hang up their hearts. And they did something else besides weeping. I don't want to get sermonic, but I want to make my point. I think I'll just tell you one thing.

I have often said, I even thought they were with Marcus, I consider myself a general practitioner, a parish priest. Long ago, the idea of being a master of this or that didn't fascinate me. But there have been many, many times when I wish I would have been a Jewish historian. It's too late now, but you know, maybe. Don you feel every rabbi is in some way a Jewish historian No I do not No I think I don want to generalize it When you get me on a discussion of rabbis, many rabbis are kosher Billy Grahams. The whole motivation of being a rabbi, of clergymen, of standing in front of people and talking about difficult, ethereal subjects.

Many rabbis and clergymen are experts that say nothing was convicted. Alright, you came to Dallas in 1952. Tell me about Levi Owen. He was a very interesting man. Some of the people who are writing about him do not completely understand him. He was a great lover of books and a scholar. An interesting career because he was 20 years in Worcester and then came here. He came in 49 and I came in 52. and we worked together each year. I consider my relationship to him a great contribution to his career. He was not a people-oriented person. He knew he could rely on me. Went off on whatever he did.

He was happiest in his carol at the Perkins School of Theology. of the Brigham Library in S.A.B. He was a man of strong convictions. Such as? Social justice. It was a rational approach to religion. I'm not a philosopher and I'm not a theologian. I found that part of him sometimes very repetitious. I could sit on the pulpit and knew exactly what he was going to talk about, the concatenation of Adams, or Kafka, or Kierkegaard. and then our cock used to pronounce it cockerelches. But Deep called unto Deep. His time in Dallas corresponded with the racial thing and so forth. And when he was called by D Magazine, the conscience of Dallas, he pretty much earned that.

What else did he need to tell about it? I could be conceited, and I don't think he would disagree with me. In the congregation, he was lucky to have me. Why? because he knew that for congregational matters he could count on good. Even after he retired he would get these letters and write recommendations for jobs or college and so forth. And he would call me and say, Jerry, who is so-and-so? And I would say, I've got this thing here. What am I supposed to do with it? How am I supposed to tell the difference between excellent, good, and very good? I said, send it to me.

When he would return, he later became sort of nationally famous president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. He was well-known, and people would travel around. And in those days after service, we had what we called the Good Shabbos line. And people would really, well, I kind of miss that. People would line up and say, Good Shabbos, just wait in line. And you know I could ask how so getting along where so so has a cold And what would happen in the Good Shabbos line he would be standing first and someone would go home Good Shabbos Rabbi I was in Indianapolis and Rabbi Boyer wants to send me his restroom guards Olin with his misunderstood sense of humor would always say, oh, he's Rabbi Klein's friend.

And so he would push along to me. He had very little patience with small talk or things like that. And he had a completely misunderstood sense of humor. It had to be mocked up. I could tell you lots more about that. Most of the recognition that he has received postulously is deserved, but is not always reported accurately and is somewhat exaggerated to the point of coronation or something like Tell me about Temple Emanuel in those first days. What can I tell you about Temple Emanuel? Well, first of all, tell me what was going on racially in Dallas. You want to go racially or Temple Emanuel?

Well, you can start there and then go to Temple Emanuel. I came to Dallas in 1952. The expressway ended at McComerson Airline, two-lane road. Temple Emanuel was at the corner of Harwood and South Boulevard in South Dallas. 52 was a time when people were at long last able to think about the future in terms of building and so forth. And when I came, the seas are moving northward. It was already underway Dallas was a much smaller place Downtown was a thriving kind of commercial Here I was a young rabbi and I would walk downtown and I knew Fred Florence, the president of the Republic Bank, and Ben Rubin, the president of the First National Bank, and the president of Dreyfus' son, and all that.

He just met everybody. He was a past president of this congregation, he was president of Lynn's brother Jewelers, who when I would go downtown, he would greet me and say, invocation or benediction, there was always something going on downtown. Racially, I remember, I think the first department store I went into was Teichgettinger. Both names are connected with Temple Emanuel. As a matter of fact, to see downtown Dallas as it was in 1952, I always recommend people going to the Temple Emanuel Cemetery. Because there you see the names. The E.M. Cannon, the Sangers, the Titus, the Getingers, the Cards, all the way down to the line.

And I remember seeing for the first time separate drinking fountains, white, we call it, coming from Pennsylvania and serving in upstate New York. New York and while there was racial prejudice there too, on my debating team, of course I was on the debating team, I became a rabbi. On the debating team was a black girl named De Wilder Bush and the debating coach would and take us in his car around. We would go to these various towns and debate and then stop for sodas or whatever we did On my 50th anniversary of my high school 50th reunion of Canisburg High School, I went back and I met DeWilde.

And she's now a dress designer in Baltimore. And I thanked her. I said, You know, all my times in Dallas, especially in the early years, I used to use you as an example. I said we were friends, we were on a debating team, and I didn't rape you or anything. You know, I said we were good friends and it was natural. I said it was hard for me to get used to. I spoke at Booker T. Washington High School during Brotherhood Week, and the president The president of the student body introduced me. I remember the principal and all that. Then later I went up here to University Park for a haircut and had my shoes shined.

The president of the Booker T. Wharton High School student body was shining my shoes. But that's a long, long story about the racial history of Dallas. I knew some of the boobers and shakers. Julius Schepps was one of them. He was a friend. I'll tell you a little bit about the clergy too. But you can ask the question, how come there were no race riots in Dallas? Why wasn't Dallas like Little Rock or some of the other cities of the North? The reason was it was the right outcome for the wrong reasons. The businessmen would get together, and there were only a few of them that really controlled the town.

You may have heard of the so-called citizens council. And they got together and they decided that if there were riots, it would be economically unsound for Dallas. It would be bad. And so Piccadilly Cafeteria and a few other places. We're desegregated without any kind of major disturbance in the community. It was a very interesting thing. When Brown versus the Board of Education came out, the Supreme Court decision, I was on the executive committee of the Dallas Pastors Association. I try not to brag at things like that. I was the first rabbi to be president of the Dallas Passion Association. I had done many since. And it was sort of a formidable organization.

And we were meeting and they wanted to issue a statement to the press supporting desegregation and the Supreme Court decision. And we had some people who were highly Christologically oriented and wanted to say that Jesus taught us to accept. And I was on that committee and I said, after some thought that if you do this, it's going to be hard for the rabbis, you have to remember we're only about five or six, to sign a statement like that. And they insisted on it, and I said to them, you go ahead and issue your statement. And I said, I'll take the responsibility of the local rabbis.

You can check this out in the local press if you want. The local rabbis issuing a statement the day after supporting the cause and the ministers, but from our prophetic point of view. I remember I came back here and I met with Rabbi Olin, and we called Rabbi Annas and Silverman. Of what congregations? There was Tefereth Israel and Chereth Israel and a Buddha Sakhir that was really all Rabbi Brahma was Rabbi Amos who was a Chereth Israel at but it not I don think they had so many rabbis It was either Silverman or Shapiro But I remember drawing up the statement of Rabbi Owen and calling the other rabbis, and he knew Felix McKnight from the Herald, and I knew Harry Withers, who was the editorial writer of the Morning News.

And there appeared a statement from the rabbis supporting the ministers. That was all part of that hectic time. The relationship between the black community and Temple Emanuel was a good one. We used to give money for the NAACP kids to travel to Washington. Some of the more militant Black Panther movement used to visit here and the guy came to see me and he prayed to me guys. My office was right next door. were having a business. Secretaries were worried about what was happening to them. But there was good communication between the Jewish community and the black community, which in later years broke down for all sorts of confusion and reasons.

Was there antisemitism? Was there antisemitism? No serious, overt incidents. There was the famous Beatty incident. John Beatty was a professor at SMU, B-E-A-T, maybe double T-Y, I have his book. He wrote a book sort of resurrecting the prodigals of the elders of Zion and the Khazars, wanting to control the world and so forth. It was handled very well. He didn't have much influence. But it made the papers and there was the John Birch Society which had to be anti even though they didn announce it was anti it was democratic and decent And of course this is what is a lot of people call the buckle of the Bible belts, so that fundamentalist Christians were worried about our souls and the fact that we were going And I, as I look back now, I think I understood that part of it.

You know, I often said that I had good minister friends, and I did, and still do. And a lot of them, unfortunately, are gone. And I sometimes would say to them in casual conversation, I said, we're good friends and we can do anything for each other. Our wives know each other and we greet each other on holidays. And I said, I understand that deep down what you're feeling is, Klein, you're a nice guy, but you're going straight to hell. Whether that's to be called anti-Semitism in the modern sense is difficult. It's the kind of anti-Jewish age-old prejudice which goes all the way back to the Gospel of John.

Other than knowing the ministers and being friends, what did you do in the community to fight this? deal with it I don't remember any you know organized movement they Federation movement was much different in those days consisted of one man named Jack Crabins, and he felt that he was the guardian of the community. We had a good friend of mine. We had a marvelous relationship. But I think what the positive side of that was that both Rabbi Olin and myself maybe in later years myself even more, were very active in the general community. Rabbi Olin was very instrumental in what was in those days called the Goals of Dallas.

I was active in what was a community chest, the American Red Cross, the Camp Bar Girls. I was always asked to give baccalaureate sermons. I told you I was president of the Dallas Pastors Association. In this area, I might recount to you what I consider one of my minor accomplishments in my years in Dallas. I was on the committee to create Thanksgiving Square in downtown Dallas. The whole motivator of that is a fellow named Peter Stewart. And we had many, many meetings. It was on a triangle there where there was a Pulleybone restaurant. Peter Stewart had this idea and called the ministers in town, was advising me to help.

I participate, I think, in the dedication of the chapel. And if you remember the chapel of Thanksgiving Square, it's a pinnacle that throws up around. What year was this? It must have been in the 60s. You'll have to check back to the late 60s. And Philip Johnson, the great architect, the scientist, was an impressive kind of thing. There was a rather fundamentalist, somewhat pompous, Christian Balean priest of the committee who said that a chapel must have a cross. And he wandered on top of this chapel of cross. And I sat there and I said, I've got to say something. I remember saying very distinctly that I appreciate the motivation, but Thanksgiving is an effort Movement to all, not only Christians, but Jews and atheists and Mohammedans and the Cross.

The motivation of thanksgiving is an effort and a movement to include all, not only Christians, of Jews and atheists like Muhammad and the cross will exclude them. And so I, in my own heart, take credit for keeping the cross from being placed on the chapel on Thanksgiving Square. But there was an awful lot of Jewish participation in the general community. I joke around here because there are two words in Jewish life today that are much overused and misused and misdefined. What is your favorite aspect of the Revenant? Oh, I think there's no question that it's the life cycle aspect of it, which in many senses is the most difficult.

And I've tried to keep it personal. I have probably, and the biggest problem the Rapparat has of course now is the whole question mixed or interfaith marriages, all kinds of sociological, theological, psychological studies on the same thing. And whether Rabbi Seuler should not perform mixed marriages. What is your feeling? I don't, but my feeling is against all these conversion classes and so forth. I believe that two people who decide to get married nowadays are changed I used to ask couples that came in to talk to me where did you meet? It's a pointless question now. We've been living together for six years, so it's a different kind of a world.

But when people are serious about accepting Judaism, I do it on a one-to-one basis. And I think that I could document that I probably have converted Jews by choice or accepted, whatever you want to say, as many in my career as any other rabbi in the community. And of course I conduct conversions with my attitude toward ritual which I've previously described. I'm much more concerned in creating a little bit of knowledge and understanding and having the person ask themselves the question, is this for me, than making them go to the miracle. What about those who do not give up Christianity? Then it's a matter of my patience and instilling patience in the family of the Jewish spouse.

because married is a matter of evolution and if it's a happy marriage and communicating marriage whether there's confusion about religion or not somehow it works out if it's a strictly Jewish marriage and it's not happy so No good no matter what. I'll give you a good example, which goes all the way back to the beginning. When I went to Canonsburg High School, there was a girl who was a year ahead of me when I was a junior named Jenny Benowich, who ran off with an Italian guy named Nick Raleigh. Her parents Shai and Frida Benowitz these are the real names If you use it in something you better call me someone Dr Benowitz The parents of Jenny Benowitz actually sent Shib in our little town of Canisbury.

This was the Scandale. Jenny's parents had a little Poppin' Mom grocery store. Jenny came back with Nicky, and they started to work in the store. Nicky turned out to be what we call a mensch, a decent human being. And he took good care of Shai and Frieda and Jenny and her family. And it all began gradually to like him and accept him. I left that part of the country. We used to keep in touch with different people. And then they moved to Little Washington, that's where I went to school. The rabbi there said, Nick and Jenny are active members of the congregation. I knew, you know, they did.

And it came time for their 50th wedding anniversary. And my friend, the rabbi, said they're having the 50th anniversary. Guess what Nick did when they had their 49th anniversary? Nick called me and he says, Rabbi, I'm a Jew, but I've never done anything about it. He says, I want to convert or do something as a 50th wedding anniversary for Jenny. So they made it to their 50th and later, Jenny's guide. My point in telling you that story, which maybe is a little more meaningful to me than to anyone else is that you never write off anybody in matters of this and you can avoid depression My don hesitate to use the strong word my real aggravation with the younger ravenous is the business that in difficult issues they become incommunicata.

They have secretaries who they now call assistants. and so I hear some secretary say rabbi so-and-so doesn't perform mixed marriages or you'll have to go to the mikveh you better talk to so-and-so or you have to send $200 for a class that begins in three months see I feel that marriage especially if you're members of congregate children you're obligated they're keeping in existence that the rabbi must communicate on a one-to-one basis see I don't discuss mixed marriages somebody calls me and says of course I've had the advantage of being here you've probably heard of what I do or don't do but why don't you come in and I'll tell you exactly what I I said the only thing I can guarantee is that you'll walk out of my office and you won't be mad at me.

Now I've had all kinds of experiences in this. A couple would come to me and I've sat with them and at least I'm making some headway. And the parent, the member of the congregation, the father might call me as it once happened, God damn it Rabbi, break it up or I'll reside from the temple. You know, all kinds of things can happen. You know, monkeys are the craziest people. Let's get back to two subjects that I don't want to forget. One is, you were talking about the meaning of Torah and mitzvah, and the second I want to talk to you about the growth of Temple Emmanuel.

The growth of the role? Both. Okay, let's talk about Temple Emmanuel. The question of change. The attitude toward simplicity, the standard of living, the economics of religion, all play important roles. Temple Emanuel, not a history of its record, was found in 1874. A good part of its existence was in South Dallas. When I came in 1952, I called on Dr. David Lefkowitz. I knew him. He lived from 52 to 55, the day that we broke ground for this temple. It was the day that David Neftowitz died. I went to call on him, and I told Owen I wanted to meet him. He was almost smart.

He was what we call Litvok. Buck and he gave me that for his book Medicine for a Sick World which of course the temple had subsidized you know I wouldn't call it vanity press but it wouldn't have been published unless the temples kicked in a lot of money had a series of his son he says take this book with you and ask the doctor to autograph it. I went to Maple Terrace, Sadie who left the doctor, who was old but very much aware of that. Now when I'm talking he's old, it's a little different attitude. And he asked to autograph the book. He said, I still have carefully at his nice penmanship that that age had, you know, before the pre-word processor days, wrote a long welcome to the community and all that.

And he sat and talked about the community and with great insight Therefore Emmanuel didn have any parking lot He said you could draw a mile circumference around the corner of Harwood and South Boulevard and take in the entire membership People had porches. On the High Holy Days, people would walk the sidewalks and stop and visit. I know old timers here used to go around to the various, a couple, two or three shulens in the temple on the High Holy Days. It was a close-knit community. You know, people knew each other, communicated with each other. And some of them lived very well in South Goldberg. You know, there was an afloat community with cooks and maids and all that.

And when I came, it's hard for me to be brief or concise on this subject because I suffered from maybe too much memory. When I came, people have already moved north. There were only a few people left in South Dallas, and they were the poor ones that couldn't afford it. And there was this enthusiasm of building a new temple. Do you know that the temple, Emmanuel once owned the property in which the Dallas Theatre Center was given to them by an eccentric name, Sylvan Baer, a member of the congregation. They hired a very world-famous architect named Mendelssohn, who drew a design for the theater center, what became the theater center.

That design is still in the architectural textbooks. They gave back that property because Baer was an eccentric who wouldn't give him some sort of egress to get in and out of the building or something. Spell it. What? Bear. B-A-E-R. Sylvan Bear. Here's a character. It's recorded around. He left money for poor children and cats I think Federation got a hold of his money and distributed scholarships and so forth So they got this property from Caruth the corner of Hillcrest and Northwest Highway. You know, the rest is built this nice building. What year? We broke ground in 55. We dedicated February 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 1957.

Really nice dedication. I was very much involved. I arrived right in the beginnings of all of this. And Temple Emanuel was a bastion of the liberal interpretation of Judaism. He had good programs and so forth. Change has come over, but I can't go into detail about all of it. The trend toward more tradition, what I call the corporate image. We now have six rabbis, all kinds of employees, and the security system, all of these things which are modern manifestations. The move from South Dallas to North Dallas was logical because we were running after the people. But if you're honest, it was white flight. That's what it really was.

I will never forget a hot summer weekend. I was friendly with a black minister. This was about 53 or 54. I was friendly with a black minister named E Estelle who lived down on Thomas Street There's now that old state Thomas development. And Reverend Estelle called me. I was home on Saturday evening. We lived on Hanover Street. Rabbi, what are you doing tomorrow morning? And I said, Reverend Estelle, you're the one that works on Sunday morning. I'm not the one that works on Sunday morning. He says, come to my house for breakfast. He says, you know, the NAACP is in town. But he said, I have a few guests here.

You know, they can't get into the hotels. So I went down to Thomas Street, which is near the Temple of Daniel 7th Street. He had a nice table there, you know. Who were his guests? Ralph Bunch. And the director of the NAACP, I forget his name, took Walter White's pencil and makes this my mind. And the other man was the counsel for the NAACP, a fellow named Thurgood Marshall. And we sat down at the table, nicely set, you know. There was only one other white guy in there, a professor from University of California. And we sat down to breakfast. I have the kind of mind that the magistrate has.

There was a maid there, and I thought, boy, a white maid would only serve us now. That would be great. But it wasn't. And I met Ralph Bunch, who was rather sickly and quiet. We later had him speak here. And the other guy, whose name I can't think of now, was the executive director. And then somebody says, Rabbi Klein beat Thurgood Marshall. And Thurgood Marshall started to play the game which The Jews love to play with rabbis. Oh, I know so and so. Do you know Rabbi so and so? Do you know Rabbi so and so? He wasn't tired of sleeping. Then he started saying, where is your temple, Rabbi?

And like a damn fool, I asked Rabbi, and I said like a damn fool, I answered or something like this, oh, we're down, We have a building in South Africa. We're building a fine new building in North Dallas. We're moving. Why are you moving, Rabbi? And boy, he ground me in the dust like mad in a very nice, polite way. One of the great experiences, because LBJ appointed him as the first black justice, and being an old-fashioned liberal as I am, I used to pray that he would remain alive so that no Republican president would ever have to appoint his successor. And I used to watch him with his white socks, he wore white socks.

He was a really great man, but I always admired him, even though he backed me in a corner that morning. So what did you tell him? What? What did you tell him? I just told him that's where the people are. What could I do? let him win his point, which he did. The other Supreme Court justice, I don't know why I'm talking about that, we had William O. Douglas. Did you ever run across the name Irving Goldberg? He was a federal judge here, member of the congregation. He was president of the congregation when we dedicated the temple. and Kennedy in his first years, through Bob Strauss, appointed him a federal judge.

And we got Douglas to speak. Douglas, you know, was a conservationist, you know, and all that. And we were sitting in here, and Irving who was very bright got talking about the crowded dockets on the judiciary The judges are overworked. Douglas ripped into them. That's the figment of the imagination of the judges if you want to work a little harder for something important. But it just so happened that I, two of the great liberal justices I met, let's put that way. But Temple Emanuel was always on the cusp of social issues. It was a friendly, participating congregation. In some respects it is, in some respects it's changed through the years because of size and the difference in the way people live and their attitude toward religion.

As I sometimes say, people spend the whole year trying to get the proper admission cards for the High Holy Days, you know, and what happens in between. It's just a different attitude. But that, I'd be the first to admit, is the result probably of my own aging self. Now the Jewish community was quite close-knit when you came. What happened? The Jewish community, it was close-knit because people were thrown together in every aspect. The Federation was Jack Kravitz. The Jewish Family Service was Bernie Goldstein. And between the two of them, it was the community. Bernie Havoc, or somebody, some poor Jew that died, he would call me and say, I need a grave site.

I called down to Mr. Best at the cemetery, and he was there. Now there's a fund, and you've got to apply, and all that. It just things just happen In matters of let say you know about the traditional Jewish divorce the get I would bump into that even though I do not require a get But I run into it and somebody would say, somebody's insisting on the get. I would call Rabbi Abramo He was an old Orthodox man a long time, whom Dr. Lefkowitz taught English. He was just a nice man. After he retired, he owned a couple apartments and he and his wife would drive around collecting rent.

He knew Talmud very well. We used to have a column of Texas rabbis and he would read what we call a blood gumbar, of course. He was a repulsion man, but nice. He's sort of like me. I called him and I said, Rabbi Rawlings, I've got somebody here and they want to get married. The big problem was a get and they went, they heard you have to go to Memphis, it costs a lot of money. He said to me, send them to me and I'll talk to them. Maybe I can give them a star. A star is a document. You know, with the European, Jewish mentality.

If you have a document, you can get anywhere. I got along famously. I got an example of the close-knit community. Dual membership was not unusual. A guy like like Julius Shepsut was a remarkable guy, a good friend of mine, belonged to all the congregations in time. The ideological differences didn't bother them. They were Jewish. Now, Now, to belong to a congregation is a major expense. I sometimes say that I spend a lot of time serving people who were dropping temporary manual for non-payment of dues. What are they going to do to me now? Fire me? You know? A recent development in this close thing is we are suffering maybe it coming to an end maybe it isn from too much prosperity I mean, the number of figures with the capital campaign and all of these figures, the center and all of this, and what Temple Emanuel proposes with its budget and what Solomon Schechter is going to build and all of this.

There are always people, and there are a lot of young people now, and if they want to give money, you build it. why they're building it, whether it divides the community, or whether it's necessary, or whether it's creating divisions, no one ever asks, you see. I participated in the dedication of the Edna Zale building for the Jewish Family Service on a couple Sundays and went out. I knew Edwin Zell very well. I appreciated her funeral. I know all her family and all that. It's a great building, all kinds of offices and everything. I was very impressed. I just wonder whether in those offices they're going to do what the term Jewish Family Service I'll never forget one of the organizations that I was active in was the Dallas Mental Health Society in the old days.

And one of the managers came to speak. and he stood up with a manual for her. And he said, starting his speech, a really clever approach, I'm sure he used it often, he says, I didn't have time to prepare a speech, so I brought with me a few case studies, and I'll tell you what we did in many groups about these people. And then you can ask me questions. And of course, he had fascinating cases. There was a lot of discussion. But one statement he made. He has stayed with me. He says, by the way, if we help these people, it had nothing to do with bricks and mortar.

We could have done the same thing in a barn. Now, is Temple, tell me about the size of Temple Emanuel relative to other Reformed synagogues. Temple Emanuel was always a very large congregation. It now has some 2,900 families, which might add up to maybe 8,000 individuals. And in national ranking, it's about the third or fourth largest congregation in the country. That's in numbers. Now it might have the largest number of employees, staff in the country. I remember when we were growing after we moved here, and there was only Rabbi Olin and myself, and an executive director and a director of education and music director. That was the entire staff.

And there was a big discussion about serving people. And there was a big discussion about serving people that we ought to have another rabbi. And having a third rabbi in a congregation was unheard of. And I'll never forget, at an annual meeting, the president was a white lawyer in town who passed away not so long ago, Henry Bromberg, Jr., who was giving the pitch for the third rabbi because it meant a salary, including expenses and all that. He said, I've studied this and there really should be one rabbi for every 400 families. And I remember after that they called on me and I couldn't resist.

I said, I think Henry is right, but if I haven't paid any attention to you, you're in the wrong 400. But now we have a big staff you know and we a recognized congregation I hate the word but we have a marvelous plant facilities But you had to walk a long way to come here, you know, because they had to close off the natural entrance, which I have said is wrong. But you cannot argue about security. And it's just a sign of our times. I had a bar mitzvah last Thursday for this situation I told you about, and they brought along two photographers. Well, photographers are sometimes with a hardy one guy, a pigtail, whatever you call it, and he found his way up into the choir loft to take pictures on Saturday morning.

thing I know, the executive director and the maintenance, what do we call them, facilities manager or something, was up there checking on everything. Some alarm went off and they thought somebody was pulling around and on. And in a nice way, they told me, I should have told them that there was not only the bar mitzvah family, but there was going to to be a photographer who was going to go to the choir lobby. How in the hell am I supposed to know all that? So, you know, and that's, it's, things are different now, but that doesn't mean that they're not good. People are still people.

Why have you never had a cantor? Why have we never had a cantor? Because, That's not as easy a question to answer accurately, as you might have seen. Congregations have regional influences. People say, reform congregations don't have cantors. Well, the eastern congregations always had cantors. But Temple Emmanuel always had a music tradition of a choir. And we had a director named Samuel Adler who was the son of Hugo Hyman Adler was a rather famous composer of Jewish liturgical music who was Rabbi Olin director of music in Worcester Massachusetts And so we built up the concept of a choir. And after Adler, there were one or two interims, we had Simon Sargon, who is the composer par excellence, and not as the other as the Minister of Music.

His fort is that, you know, we used to have music directors that taught bar mitzvah and so forth. Now, we're going to finish up. Now Sargon has resigned. Not only do we have one search committee, but we have a transition committee. Related to your question, that's why I brought it up. Is this the time that we should get a cantor? And what will that do to our choir, especially to the substantial number of volunteers who are in the choir? And should we try to get another Sargon who will take world tours? Or should we get what I call a minister of music who will work with the kids and teach us how to sing and have junior choirs and intermediate choirs?

Adler had that, you see, even though he was a composer too. So the answer is to your question, why don't we have a cantor? The answer might be, wait, we might have one. What else? What? Your final question. What is that? I don't watch who wants to be a millionaire. Final grade question. Final grade question. Is that your final answer? Is this your final answer? No, I never give final answers. I'm a rabbi. You're right and you're right. Alright we were saying people do not understand the meaning of Torah and people do not understand the meaning of Mitzvah I don know I done an awful lot of personal thinking on you can ask it in many ways what it means to be a Jew or what is a Jew?

And sooner or later I agree with Ben-Gurion, who said a Jew is someone who says he's a Jew. I don't believe in excluding anyone from Judaism. I have had many arguments that you could be an atheist and still be a Jew. And nowadays the word Torah, especially amongst the extreme Orthodox, so-called Abadniks, even though many is termed the black hats, they speak of Torah through Judaism. The Torah says this, and everything comes under it. I'll stand at a graveside and conduct the services I always do, and if they want to put a little dirt in the grave fire. Somebody in the family might have somebody who's connected with one of the Hasidic movements.

And the And the first thing I know without even telling me they're grabbing shovels and filling the grave, you know, in front of the family. For some families, that's a very difficult thing. And if you stop to submit, the Torah says we have to do it. The Torah also teaches, as I argued with one of them, dareth eretz, which means manners. humanity, concern for the feeling of other people. So when you get buzzwords, Torah has a specific meaning, the five books of Moses. The Torah is also a term for the totality of Jewish knowledge and Jewish practice. When you say you're dedicated to Torah, it's like you're in favor of motherhood and patriotism.

and it's much deeper than that. And mitzvah, I'm trying to agree, mitzvah is a combination of obligation and good deed and certainly tied up with the pursuit of justice, which is translated in Hebrew as sadaqah. So you do it with a certain amount of humility. if you bring a bag of groceries here for the North Dallas Food Bank you sure hell are not solving the problem of hunger in the world look at the New York Times today where they have one of these maps and you'll see what hunger really is so don't kid yourself especially if you go out to Three Forks tonight and I don't object to people having good times so you have to go to what I call authentic Judaism or the authentic definition of this one which is expressed let's say by Moses Maimonides his next to the last ladder of charity was you do it where the receiver is next to the last is where the receiver doesn't know from who he receives you know and the giver doesn know who giving to but that only the next to the last the last one is you eliminate the cause of charity in the first place which is the Jewish definition of social justice and tikkun olam the improvement of the world you see and that's all tied up with mitzvah and when you're I believe in volunteerism but there is such a thing as self-righteous volunteers, of people bragging about it.

And that kind of bothers me. Like the Shabbat, a few years ago there was a lady, a nice lady, who kept track. She never missed Temple. She said, you know, she never missed it. It's been two or three years, and boy, I had to bite my tongue. because I want what I really should have said to her which I've been absolutely wrong. Ladies, stay home next week. If I were really honest, that's what I would have said to them. That's my absolute words. Okay, Diane, finish. Come back. As the Texans say, come back and see me. Let me say that this is January 9th and I'm talking to Diane.

and I'm plugged into the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, and Diane will verify that I've spoken off the cuff with any notes, so that if this is used in any way, I'm willing to take any risk except in the course of the interview I mention names. And if the names are used, I'd like to be consultant, or my heirs should be consultant. How's that? Sounds good to me.