Dear Friends:
One of the most unforgivably sentimental lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II was for The Sound of Music. In describing the never-ceasing energy of the future Maria von Trapp, one of her fellow novices asks, “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hands?” This is just what Rudoph von Laban intended to do by devising a system of dance notation at the beginning of the twentieth century. What a score did for music and what a script did for a play, so Rudolph von Laban attempted to do with Labanotation. Using words to describe certain movements and pictograms to illustrate them, von Laban hoped to preserve choreographic compositions. But any pictogram, however excellent, can only hint at particular steps. Can a Pas de Basque, a Jete en avant, or a Glisade be fully expressed in words or a drawing? Then think about a whole Pas de Deux, or even just the exit of the ballerina aka Odette in the first act of Swan Lake? What words could ever even suggest the upper-arm muscle movements of the ballerina.
Now think about what it would take to picture the last fifty years of your life. That was the task assigned to me by The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College earlier this month. Along with other rabbis who have survived a half-century past graduation, I was asked to reflect on my life since that moment in June of 1975. Of course, at my age, I have forgotten most of the first forty years immediately following graduation leaving at best a vague impression of what happened. This served me well along with the time limitation of half-an-hour. So, if fifty years yields 26,298,000 minutes, and if you have thirty minutes to speak about those 26 million plus, you can see the enormity of the task that was before me.
Fortunately, there were many people from across the spectrum of my life – fellow rabbinical college students, rabbinic colleagues, rabbinic interns, RSNS members, friends, and my children – who gave you and me a visual of it all. What I said in words was better illustrated by who I saw in their Zoom box. I only wish that I could have spent time looking at people and their names to see everyone who has so meaningfully contributed to these last fifty years of my life instead of reading my words, which were second in importance to me. My words were analogous to von Laban’s notations; the people there were like seeing the dance itself. Like tiles of a mosaic, each person online including so many of you, constitutes a picture of my last century plus.
I thank you all – the people who were there virtually, those of you who wanted to be there, and those who have wished me well and those who have recalled a time when you allowed me to touch your life – for doing your part to create a life of Jewish service and of Jewish being. Thank you for helping to fulfill what was a dream of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in sending me forth as “a Rabbi in Israel” so long ago. Everyone online and each of you who is a part of this progressive, intellectually honest, creative, and socially committed congregation has contributed to my reaching this moment.
And so, I repeat the blessing with which I concluded my presentation a week ago, this time in translation: Blessed are you, Eternal One, our God, sovereign of all worlds, who gave us life, and kept us strong, and brought us to this time.
With deepest appreciation to you all,
Rabbi Lee
