Shul of my youth

They tore down my old synagogue last month without asking my permission. Maybe they didn’t ask me because, if they had, I would have told them “no.” No, you can’t bulldoze the bimah where my grandparents handed the Torah to my parents, who then handed it to me on the day of my bat mitzvah; no, you can’t sell the fourth-row pew where my family sat during the High Holy Days and Shabbat services; no, you can’t tear down the bathroom where my friends and I would fix our hair and apply strawberry-flavored Lip Smackers before flirting with our respective Hebrew-school crushes.

In their defense, “The Committee” — or whoever thought it was a good idea to tear down a synagogue with cottage cheese ceilings and an obsolete heating system that was bursting at the proverbial seams to build a larger one — might point out they didn’t need my consent because Temple Judea in Tarzana isn’t really my synagogue anymore. They might mention that even though my family was very involved in synagogue life in the 1970s and 1980s, I have hardly set foot in the place since — except for the occasional bar mitzvah. They might point out that my childhood rabbi, Steven Jacobs, moved on to another synagogue long ago and has since retired, and that Gerry Miller, the cantor of my youth, hasn’t led the white-robed Judea choir in decades. They might also note that I’m an adult now with my own synagogue — my family and I have been members of Temple Aliyah for many years — and that my parents and siblings are members of other synagogues as well. And The Committee would be right. All of those things are true.

But still.

Temple Judea is my synagogue. It is my synagogue in the way that that my bedroom in my parents’ house will always be my bedroom, and Andasol Avenue will always be my elementary school.

It is my synagogue in the way that any place that has an impact on your childhood — the baseball field where you hit your first home run, the middle-school gym where you stole your first kiss, the ballroom in the hotel that hosted your prom — always belongs to you. I’m not the only one who was attached to a building that any unbiased observer would recognize as hopelessly outdated.

When word got out to current and former synagogue members that there would be one last Shabbat service commemorating all that had taken place in that building over the last 50 or so years, the place was filled to its glossy wooden rafters. When I pulled into the parking lot, I was directed to the last parking space; when I entered the sanctuary I was handed the last prayer book. Every seat was taken. If you didn’t know better, you would assume that Rosh Hashanah had come late, or that the entire Valley had suddenly taken note of the Fourth Commandment.

A founding member from the original group of 17 couples who cooked up the idea for a “dynamic Reform synagogue” in the West Valley spoke about the early days. Families who had witnessed the construction of the building that was about to be torn down sang along to all of the old melodies. Nearly every rabbi who had led the congregation over the years came to say goodbye. My parents’ lifelong friends — couples (some now uncoupled) who they met through a Temple Judea chavurah 30 years earlier — sat near my mother, sister and me in our regular fourth-row spot. I tried not to cry.

“Tuesdays With Morrie” author Mitch Albom recently commented on the lasting impact of one’s childhood synagogue in his latest best-seller, “Have a Little Faith.” Albom recounts returning to the synagogue of his youth after his childhood rabbi summons him to discuss his eulogy, eight years before his actual death. Albom, who apparently had been the poster child for Jewish youth (religious school three days a week, bar mitzvah, regular Shabbat Torah reader, private Jewish high school, Brandeis University, youth group coordinator), says he drifted away from Judaism as an adult. But the connection he had to his first synagogue never left him.

“The only spark I kept aglow from all those years of religious exposure was the connection to my childhood temple in New Jersey. For some reason, I never joined another. I don’t know why. It made no sense. I lived in Michigan — 600 miles away. I could have found a closer place to pray. Instead, I clung to my old seat, and every autumn, I flew home and stood next to my father and mother during the High Holiday services. Maybe I was too stubborn to change. Maybe it wasn’t important enough to bother. But as an unexpected consequence, a certain pattern went quietly unbroken.”

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe Albom never joined another temple because an adult’s experience with his or her synagogue is vastly more complicated than a child’s. Children don’t expect spiritual fulfillment from their synagogue. They don’t get uncomfortable if they disagree with the content of a particular prayer, or when a sermon goes against their personal politics. All a kid knows is that this is the place where their friends go, their family goes and where a lot of Jewish stuff happens. And when the Jewish stuff that happens in a synagogue happens in a positive way, the result is a kid who grows into an adult who is comfortable with his or her personal Judaism, whatever that turns out to be. 

In my case, the Jewish “spark” that began at Temple Judea has taken numerous twists and turns. But had that spark not been lit at Temple Judea and in my home, I’d be Jewish today in name, but not in spirit.

On that last Shabbat in my old synagogue, my childhood rabbi stood on his worn, soon-to-be demolished bimah, and reflected: “At Temple Judea, we made some mistakes, but we made more miracles.” And on that night he had his proof. Why else would hundreds of people come back to say goodbye to a building?

Wendy Jaffe welcomes comments at wjaffewrite@aol.com.