The Holy City of Healdsburg

Our patriarch Jacob awoke in a place called Beth-El with an understanding that left him awestruck: “Surely God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.” 

When my father died this past May, my rabbi told me that while it would be optimal to say kaddish with a minyan of 10 Jewish men three times daily, it was especially important that I do so once a day.  Saying kaddish is easy when I’m home; my local Orthodox synagogue is close by, and I’ve also been able to recite the prayer daily at synagogues in major cities worldwide, when I travel for business. 

Recently, however, I had to attend an important business meeting in a small town called Healdsburg, in Sonoma County, California. The meeting schedule was packed with only a few short breaks. I looked online for a quick, traditional minyan in the area, but the closest Orthodox synagogue was 90 minutes away in San Francisco. I thought about trying to make a minyan among the colleagues I was traveling with but there were only three other Jewish men. I contacted an Orthodox rabbi who offered to try to pull a few guys together for me in Santa Rosa but that would have meant hours away from my meeting and it wasn’t clear we’d get 10 men. I ran a search for “Healdsburg Jewish” and saw there were Jews in town who owned a deli and a bagel store. What especially caught my eye, though, was an article from a few years ago about Healdsburg’s first Jewish mayor, a woman named Ariel Kelley, who now serves on the city council.

So I emailed Ariel out of the blue and explained my predicament.  On the Sunday before the presidential election (and her own reelection bid for the city council), Ariel began to text me about her search for 10 local Jewish men who were willing to make a minyan on Tuesday night in Healdsburg. As Sunday crossed into Monday and I flew out west, Ariel kept me posted: “I’ve got 4,” “I’ve got 7,” “I’ve got 10.” Ariel explained that her parents were Jews from Texas and New York, that she had grown up in Oregon, and had moved to California for law school.  Later, she became a nonprofit executive and married a Catholic man, moving to Healdsburg to raise their two children.

I told my three Jewish colleagues about the minyan that was coming together and they readily agreed to attend. I emailed the rabbi in Santa Rosa and he said he’d try to make it. I wanted to provide my impromptu congregation with the text of maariv, the evening prayer, in Hebrew with English translation, but I could not find a suitable link online.  During morning services on Tuesday at Adath Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in San Francisco, I saw on a bookshelf dozens of little prayerbooks containing the evening service in Hebrew and English.  After services, I told the rabbi about the minyan I was hoping would assemble that night in Healdsburg and asked if I could borrow the little prayerbooks. “Take them,” he said.

I alerted the head of our firm, who is not Jewish and leads one of the world’s major private companies, about the minyan. Despite the importance of our business meeting which included attendees from all over the world, he carved out 30 minutes on Tuesday night for the service. During one of our short breaks on Tuesday afternoon, I ran out to buy a bottle of scotch and some plastic shot glasses so our minyan could enjoy a l’chaim at the end of the prayers.

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, 18 Jewish men from Healdsburg met me at my hotel so that I could lead the evening service as a mourner and say kaddish for my father.  My three colleagues joined me as did the rabbi from Santa Rosa who brought his children as well as kippot for those men who wished to cover their heads. The head of my firm came too.

Before we began, one of the men asked if I could speak about my father so I told them a little bit about my dad. I explained that for me, kaddish is where the love goes when one can no longer hug one’s father and hold his hand.

Before we began, one of the men asked if I could speak about my father so I told them a little bit about my dad. I explained that for me, kaddish is where the love goes when one can no longer hug one’s father and hold his hand. 

We turned to face Jerusalem and prayed the evening service together. Then I, along with another mourner in the minyan, said kaddish, sounding out loud the longing and gratitude that Jewish mourners have recited in Aramaic from ancient times. “Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled and honored is the name of God beyond any blessing, hymn or praise that we could ever offer in this world.”  The minyan responded “Amen.”

We poured the scotch and raised our glasses to the memory of my father and then we relaxed and got to know each other a little better.  In our minyan there were doctors, retirees, businesspeople, consultants, the owner of the deli and the bagel store, office workers, the rabbi from Santa Rosa.

Five minutes remained before our firm meetings started again so I raced across the street to the Healdsburg Bar & Grill where Ariel Kelley’s reelection party was underway. What do you say to a complete stranger who does something transcendent for you? How do you greet someone you don’t know who will always be your friend? How do you thank someone who welcomes you without hesitation to a holy city so that you will know, without any doubt, that “God is in this place?”

Pierre Gentin lives in Westchester County, New York.