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Hi, my name is Joshua Furman. I'm the curator of the Houston Jewish History Archive at Rice University. Today is December 1st, 2020, and I'm here with Rabbi Sarah Fort, Assistant Rabbi, Congregation Beth Yeshurun. Rabbi Fort, how are you today? I'm good. How are you? I'm

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doing great. Thanks so much for taking the time to be with us, and let's start just by telling us a little bit about your childhood and your family. Where did you grow up? I was well, you know, not straightforward so much. I was born in Baltimore,

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Maryland, but we moved, in a very Jewish area, like very intensely Jewish. But we moved when I was like four to a little nothing town in Maryland that, until recently, no one really had ever heard of. And there were no Jews there and that's really where I

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spent my childhood, which is a really interesting way to live. What town is that? It's Odenton. Yeah, that's usually the response I get, people are like, "Hm," because I say, "Where are you from?" I say, "Maryland," and they, "Like Bethesda or Silver Spring?" These very Jewy areas, and that is not where I'm from.

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I'm from, like it's kind of off the Chesapeake Bay and it is not known for its Jewish community because there isn't really one there. Save the Chesapeake. I mean I'm a fan, big, big fan of the Chesapeake Bay. I have a lot of pride in like Maryland crab

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cakes and I've never had them before but I'm very proud of them for, you know, my compatriots. You swear by them for those who will eat them. I assume if you eat it, they're, they're the best, that's what I've been told. So I will stand by that. So then, so then

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tell us about you know growing up in a, in Odenton, Maryland in an area where there's not a lot of Jews. How did you, how did that affect your, your Jewish identity? I think it made it really strong because my parents, my dad's from Chicago, my

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mom is from New York and they met in Israel. So you know fairly Jewy, and then through trials and tribulations ended up in Odenton, Maryland and that's where me and my brother were raised. And you have to, like you have to try really hard to have a Jewish home

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in the middle of nowhere when there are no, where there are no Jews. You know like that's a lot of effort and we weren't, you know the most observant. We were the most observant people I knew, um but but like Shabbat was in our home and like kashrut

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was in our home, you know. And so like really I was the only kid growing up I knew that didn't eat shellfish, who didn't eat pork and that, you know, those kinds of things. We celebrated Hanukkah, not Christmas and Passover, not Easter. And I think

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that just, because of all the effort my parents had to put into raising us Jewish, you know going to the nearest conservative shul was 45 minutes the next county over. And that's the one we went to for Hebrew school twice a week and then every single

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Shabbat of my life. And I think I just really, I loved being Jewish. It was such a strong part of my identity because you have to try so hard for us to like feel Jewish and be Jewish and do Jewish when there really aren't any other

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Jews around. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I moved to Virginia when I was like 12 and there were a lot more Jews there, ironically. Lot more Jews in Virginia compared to the middle of nowhere Maryland. Comparatively speaking, sure. Lot of Jews Northern Virginia. And then when, when did the idea of becoming

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a rabbi first take root for you? Oh man, I always, I'm such a jerk to be very honest because it's like the number one question people like to ask and when I was early on in rabbinical school, people would ask me and I'd say, "Well

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one night I was sleeping outside using rock as a pillow and had a dream that there was a ladder and angels are going up and down." But the thing is like you say that, people take it seriously and I felt like a jerk because like I'm

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just kidding, I'm not, it's not true. So I stopped staying that. I heard it, it sounds, it should sound familiar. Um no, when I was really little I would, my dad, purely to needle me, he does not actually think this at all. But just to just to needle me, he would

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say, "Sarah, women can't be rabbis." And I was like, "Yeah, I can to. I can be a rabbi if I want," and he doesn't believe that at all. He's like my number one fan, but he just said to just get that reaction out of me. But I

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never actually really wanted to be a rabbi. I love being Jewish And I always felt really close to God. I've always felt close with God since I was a kid. But it didn't occur to me to be a rabbi until I was probably halfway through college, and

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I was really involved, our Hillel wasn't very active, I would say. We didn't have a big Jewish community, shocker, Northern Virginia. And and at, at the school I went to, George Mason University go Patriots. Yeah, go Patriots, you yes, you would be very pro patriot. Uh, and I

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just kind of did a non-hostile takeover of the Hillel. I was like, we're gonna have services, we're going to have programming, we're going to do all these things. And I just got, I just loved, you know, I had no budget and I just, that's what

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I spent all my time doing, was Hillel. And I started teaching Hebrew school and I started being a youth group advisor for Kadima and kind of pre-Kadima cells. I was really seeing Jewish experiential education in action and I just realized that's what I love. Kadima's part

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of the United Synagogue Youth. Yeah, it's USY, it's like the middle school. It's like a middle school youth group for the kind of USY chain. You would be, start in Kadima and you go up. We also have like a kind of older elementary pre-Kadima group just

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to kind of keep them, keep them in the pipeline. So eventually they go to the USY. That's what I love doing. I was like, I like curating people's Jewish journeys for them and with them. I was like, "This is what I want to do professionally

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and I do not want a degree in government international politics with a minor in Islamic studies as much as I love studying it." So I finished and I got my degree. And so what, I always like to ask rabbis what plan B was. So if you

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hadn't become a rabbi, what would you have done? I'm so curious what everyone else's answers are. I never had um I don't have never had a plan B. Sorry if you can hear my child slamming toys over there. That's okay, this is, this is an authentic

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interview. It'll be a miracle if we don't hear my child banging on the door in 10 minutes, it'll be, but I love all your children so this is fine with me. Yeah, I don't, I don't have a plan B. I remember hearing in rabbinical school once from a an

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interfaith thing from a guy studying to be a priest. And he said that he had been told this and I've kind of just held onto it ever since. He said that he'd been told, "If you can do anything else, if you can do anything else than

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this, you should do that other thing do that. And if this is it, like if this is what you have to do, then you got to do it." And I think it's true. I tell that to people who are interested in going to rabbinical school

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or interested in going to seminary. That's what I say to them. Yeah, that's the same line I tell anyone who wants to become a academic. if you can do literally anything else, right? If you're if you're good at, if you're good at math, if you're, you know, if

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you, yeah, it's the same line. So, so what, what do you love most about being a rabbi and what do you find the most challenging about your job? Well, I kind of, I got into pulpit, they tend to be even a rabbi in general pulpit specifically,

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because I love helping facilitating and curating people's Jewish journeys and wherever they need to go, God, Torah, Talmud, Israel, community, whatever it is that they're needing on their journey. I want to be able to do that for them and with them and I get to do

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that for all ages in the pulpit and that's what I love. It's exactly what I wanted to get out of this and it is what I get out of it. And so that's, that's a that's a privilege. Every life cycle is a privilege. Every class you

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get to teach. Every, you know, sometimes the meetings are a little, you know, not as much fun, but even meetings can be fun because then you get to plan awesome programs which help facilitate people's journeys. So really, it's all kind of related. That's the best part. You

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get to be there in people's lives at the beginning and at the end and it's an enormous privilege to just be granted that kind of access to people's very private parts of their lives and to shepherd them through whatever stage they're going through, beginning, middle end.

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Right, all the stages, all the stages, and we get to be there. That's amazing. And you know, for me, I actually considered very briefly a rabbinical career, I decided. It's the other thing you could do which was academic. I decided I could do something else, which is which is why I'm here and why you're here. Um but I

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was, I was a Jewish communal professional after college for a couple of years and I loved it. I worked in Boston at a synagogue not far from Brandeis University and it was a great job. It was a great out of college job, but I think the challenge

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that that any Jewish communal professional, and especially a rabbi faces, is that you're always on, right? You're always working. Shabbat you're working, holidays you're working um and your partner is also a rabbi. Yes, he is. So, so how do you find, how do you, how do you find that balance

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between sort of maintaining and finding space for your own sort of spirituality and your own, your own religious needs, while also serving, you know, in the role of a pulpit rabbi for a large congregation. How do you do that? With great difficulty. Um, it's kind of

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always evolving because I'm sure this is true for everyone. I don't think that we're special in this, but we're in the, you know, the new baby phase of life and he's a toddler now, but you know, that, that, you know, that on its own throws everything

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off kilter and then this job itself is also really interesting. So kind of constantly recalibrating and remembering what's important and what's missing. Like have we actually, have we sat down and done a Shabbat dinner together and how long has it been? We should probably do that and you

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know, not trying to fit square pegs into round holes, like, oh, like if I'm up here, I'm leading davening, you know, we're praying. I really do try to actually pray when I'm out there. I'd say 90% of the time I am actually saying those prayers for

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myself. Um, and I don't know, every, like clergy, I don't, I can't speak for them, I can speak for me. Um, but you know, sometimes 10% of the time, your brain is just somewhere else, like trying to coordinate, you know, there's a Bar or Bat Mitzvah or there's

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a, there's a aufruf, or there something's going to happen. In like, in my mind whenever you're up there as clergy, because you kind of talked about this and touched on is that you're even if you even, you really are praying, you really are saying those words and

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you're meaning them for yourself, your brain is also doing other things thinking like, "Oh, what does the cantor need? Oh, what about the family? Oh, what about like we need to end, oh, we're running over or," which is perpetually an issue, you know. So you're just

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like I'm saying the words, but also my brain's going boop, boop boop sometimes just giving yourself to borrow from our Christian friends, the grace to be like, "You know what? Maybe I'm not meaning all these words that I know that I'm saying." I'm meaning them, you

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know, in the sense of like I'm saying them in my mind on behalf of everybody, but I'm not meeting them for myself and not because I'm trying to curate an experience up here of Shabbat for other people or whatever. Right, Right. You're sort of like the program

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director and the, the emcee of it of it all and it's, it's hard to balance, but you make it work. Um you make it work and I'm sure like anything else it gets easier, the more you do it probably. So you've been the assistant rabbi at

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Beth Yeshurun since 2017, and Beth Yeshurun for those of you watching this who don't know, is the largest conservative congregation in the United States, possibly in, in all of North America. Tell us a little bit about your community and what makes Beth Yeshurun so

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special. It's, I mean it's, it is big. Like you said it is, it is we have the largest conservative shul definitely in America. I think there are, there's at least one other shul in Canada I know of that is I think at least the same

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size I believe. Um but yeah, definitely, definitely America we are the largest conservative shul. I knew I wanted a big shul when I was in school. I was, I was looking for a big shul to work in. So I really just went straight to the top.

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I want the biggest, I just wanted, I wanted big, I didn't know I wanted this big, but it worked. Uh it's also unusual and I think this is something that makes it special in that Beth Yeshurun in some incarnation has existed for over like over

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100 years in some form or fashion has existed for over 100 years. That is, that's really old. You know, and, and in 75 years in this current incarnation which is very old. Like I know people my age who are, first of all, I know people in

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this, maybe just Houston, not just, but it's a Houston thing that people who are fifth generation American American Jews. Like that's not my family, that's sure as heck not my husband's family you know to meet people who are five generation American, like wow that's crazy. And then

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on top of that, there are people who are fifth generation Beth Yeshurun members. Like the roots here go so deep and it's so, that is, that is a tie and a kinship to your community and to your shul that I've just not seen anywhere else really in

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America. It's it's so amazing and and that creates a really really special kind of community and it is like you said very big and it kind of reminds me of, people say about L.A. And it's a really really big city so you find your village that

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you live in and it kind of reminds me of that and that Beth Yeshurun is kind of like a big city like big city and you know there are lots of villages within it and they're all a little bit different and people find like their niche,

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they find their village within the greater Beth Yeshurun umbrella and as a rabbi my privilege is I get to travel to every single village, pretty cool. So there's the right so there's the Museum Minyan um lay-led group that I, that we sometimes are part of. There's the chapel

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minyan um in the J. B. Greenfield Chapel and sort of other groups and yeah I think it really is a diverse um you know environment that that Beth Yeshurun creates. Talk a little bit about about your role at Beth Yeshurun, specifically as a female clergy,

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as a role model to women and girls um at Beth Yeshurun and just in in Conservative Judaism more more broadly. Well I am, yes, I'm the only woman rabbi there and that's, I like it. Everyone else I've run into likes it or or they

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say, you know, "I wasn't sure at first, but now I'm on board." And that actually makes me really feel good to hear um. And knowing that kids grow up and they see a woman, like I didn't grow up seeing women rabbis. No, and they've been ordained,

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women have been ordained in our movement since just before I was born. So theoretically I could have, but most women don't go into pulpit and if they go into pulpit they don't stay in pulpit. So it's not such a common thing to see even now. Now, more

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than ever before, so knowing that kids grow up seeing men as rabbis and women as rabbis, and it's, it doesn't even occur to them that it would be wrong or unusual. That's really cool. And then any time I get an email from a parent or a teacher saying,

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you know, "Oh my daughter wants to wear a kippah, where did you get yours?" And now, now our gift shop carries them, and I'm extremely proud about that and like more women, more girls are wearing, getting tallit when they are Bat Mitzvahed and I'm like, yes, yes.

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Not saying don't do it if you don't want to do it, but like, yay. I'm all for that. And seeing a woman wearing tefillin, I mean that's earth shattering for some people. Yeah, sure. Um let's talk now about natural disasters. I love natural disasters and

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talking about natural disasters. Yeah, we've we've seen our share of them, have we not? You and I have seen our share of them from the same vantage point. Yeah, quite, quite literally actually. So you, you you folks moved here in, I think what, early summer of 2017?

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Yeah, I think in June I think my contract was, it starts in July so June probably. June of 2017, right, and we were living in the same apartment building um at the time and it was just a couple of months later that, in August of 2017,

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that Hurricane Harvey showed up. And um I'm just curious, you know, to hear your perspective as um a newly transplanted Houstonian at the time and a new clergy member um you know, thrust into just an unimaginably awful situation. What what what do you remember about, about

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that time, about what was happening at Beth Yeshurun, about the needs of your community and I mean what what what a difficult way to kind of hit the ground running in your first job out of rabbinical school. What do you remember about Harvey? I remember

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I remember losing power and water, remember that losing water was worse. I remember that was a good lesson to learn from that. Um I remember thinking it was so odd. People kept apologizing to me because of you know what you are saying that, "Oh, and you're just

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starting and this is so I'm so sorry, you just start your first job out of rabbinical school like this." And I would say, "Okay, you literally lost your house and and both cars. So I feel like if someone would say sorry it should be me to you, you

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know." People felt bad for me and I remember thinking like, first of all, how just how nice of a person you have to be to say I'm sorry for you and like, I'm fine, you know. That's that's the kind of people who live here, it's just legitimately,

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genuinely nice people, which is amazing. And I don't, I don't know any different. I didn't know any different. It's not like I have, you know, 20 years in the rabbinate under my belt and suddenly, oh my gosh, my life's upside down. Like, I don't know, we

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hadn't really even finished unpacking, so I don't know, but you had had to deal with it, you had to, and from my perspective from both our perspectives was, you know, we didn't have water and we didn't have power, but we also didn't flood. So we have

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to go out every day and help put the synagogue back together and help the community and our families and that's what, other people had the same perspective. You know, like, "Oh, I didn't flood. So I have to go out there and I have to do everything I can

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for everyone else." Or, "Oh, I only lost a car, I lost my cars, but I need like, how do I help my friends remediate their home? How do I help my neighbors? How do I." You know, and because it was just devastating, you know, a quarter

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of our families flooded, a quarter of our families. That's massive. It's massive and and the building too. I mean Beth Yeshurun, the building flooded. Yes, it did. We got, I mean throughout, eight to ten inches, at least, to about four feet in Barg, because it's,

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it's a bit of an incline like the theater sank. The Barg Sanctuary, right. The Barg Santuary 'cause there is a, it's very large and there's an incline down, so uh, you know, you don't expect to be going into the, into the office wearing your work boots and jeans and gloves, but like work gloves, but, and you

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know. Yeah, I don't know. And we were really in the best position to be helping both my husband and I, because, you know, we didn't flood, so we're like, "Well, what do we need to do?" And so it's just a massive coordinating effort for, "How do

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we help our families? How we help our congregants?" And I didn't really know anyone at that point. I mean, I knew so few people, it's like, "Okay how do I, how do I help these people? How do I get people what they need? How do I hook

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them up with other resources that can help them more than like I can? How do we put the synagogue back together?" And I remember we need to get boxes because you just have thousands of chumashim out and siddurim and then they all

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need to be you know buried and it's it's, the carpet all has to come up and the walls all need to be punched out. You have to cut them about twice as high as they flood. So two feet of wall everywhere. The entire shul has to be cut out and

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then that's just that's just the physical recovery, you know the emotional, you know mental recovery, it goes a lot, a lot longer. I think it was like a year later, I think we were back in the building, we had religious school dismissal on a sunday and

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usually the kids sit outside and like their parents come up and they just get dismissed from there but it was raining so instead of just dismissing from outside, we kept them in the cafeteria of the day school, where the religious school also meets. And so the

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kids are just kind of sitting in groups but also kind of running amok as kids do. And it was, it started raining a lot and then it was raining like torrential like sideways rain. It was just, it was like we, all the adults, I actually

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happened to just be there 'cause I was doing a program and we're all just kind of looking out the window because Reiches, the cafeteria, is really, one whole wall is just windows. You can see everything and you just, it's just sideways, you know, unbelievable and you see

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as soon as a big clap, you see with some of the kids, they immediately just become agitated. And someone started crying and there's this one parent who came to pick up her daughter who was talking to another little girl. This other little girl was

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just in tears, like could not stop crying and the mom was trying, she was helping, she was trying to help, you know, "Oh don't worry, it'll stop. The rain's gonna stop soon, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. The rain will stop." And this little girl is just crying, saying,

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"It's not gonna stop. It's never gonna stop. It's never gonna stop." That's trauma. That is trauma and how do you not have trauma from that? I have people who have kids who had to swim out of their homes, you know, and so you know, a lot of the helping that I

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did and the other clergy did and so many other people did was in helping people heal. You know, and and people healed and are still healing. It's a process. What else can you do? Like resilience I don't think is pretending like you're fine when you're not. I think

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its, resilience is, you know, it's healing from the hurt that you had so you can go on and that's what I saw people here, being resilient. Physically recovering and then working on like healing from a really big trauma. Yeah. And I'm sure, you know, leaning on

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you and your colleagues for some pretty intense pastoral support I'm sure in a lot of cases. I know, you know, for me, I have a lot of awful memories of that time, but that's really the moment that that the archive was was born in a sense.

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And I, you know, for, in terms of thinking about a silver lining, I remember sitting with you in Stein Hall, you know, wet papers and photograph everywhere and it's it smelled terrible. Um yeah, just like your nose. Yeah, it gets like into your nose. Yeah, like my eyes are stinging right now even thinking about it.

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Just thinking about all that mold, like mildew. But the like energy that you poured into the task of going through all of those Beth Yeshurun records and photographs at a community that you'd only been part of, you know, for for a couple of

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months. But you really dedicated yourself to that task and and helped us and the whole big crew of community volunteers and students get that stuff organized and we managed to rescue a lot of it. Thanks in no small part to you. And it's not like you

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had nothing else to do, you know. I like to be busy. So, so we really, really appreciate it. So, so we, we, we, we survived Harvey. We survived it individually, we survived it communally and um you know, nobody, nobody could have imagined um Purim night March 2020, what was,

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what was about to happen. I think we were at Beth Yeshurun that night. I think we, I think we saw you there. Yeah, that was the last kind of quasi-normal event we had. That was, that was it. So tell us now about what, what you remember thinking back about March. When,

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when when did it start to become clear to you and the other clergy that things might not be able to carry on as usual? Um, we had been there, you know, we all watched the news and we watched the news and even I have been part of

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some conversations, I remember talking to uh some of the clergy and board, saying like you know, "We, we should start talking about what happens if, if this all has to shut down," because you know, no one, no one knew anything that was going on at

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that point. And so we had started sort of talking about it. Even at Purim, um you know, we didn't, nobody was really I think changing numbers or anything or wearing that like no one was, I mean you were wearing a mask but like not that kind of mask. But um, we did not let people serve

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themselves. We just did the big hamantaschen sundae bar and it was not serve yourself and we had the kitchen staff serve, which is like because you know, no one knew really what to do and we weren't really being told what to do. And that was the last

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kind of, we didn't even have like a regular Shabbat after that. After that we started changing sizes of people being allowed in, you know, like how many people do we allow? And do we restrict it based on age? We didn't know, do we? And how would

00:27:32.110 - 00:27:47.140

you even do that? How would we ask people like if you have a preexisting condition, what do we know what kinds of people, like such a lack of information at that time. But we did start talking about it pretty early on. It was a process of

00:27:47.150 - 00:28:08.730

clergy and the board. The executive committee, especially they were meeting weekly actually, I don't know. Doctors, you know, obviously we're a synagogue so we have no shortage of doctors, all sorts of doctors, pediatricians, infectious disease, you name it, we have it. So thank God we have access

00:28:08.730 - 00:28:28.860

to a lot of doctors and also the city, Mayor Turner and and Judge Hidalgo um, have weekly calls, especially in those early days. It was the only real source of reliable information uh governmental level that we were getting of like in terms of, you know, rules

00:28:28.860 - 00:28:44.870

for us because we didn't know, "Are were not allowed to have certain numbers, how do we do this, what are other clergy doing?" So they had these, um, meetings for Houston clergy. So we're on, it's it's everything, every kind of clergy you can imagine. We're all

00:28:44.880 - 00:28:57.780

on these calls and they would have the folks from Houston Medical Center talk to us about the trends they were seeing. And you know, what kinds of rules were going to be put in place and restrictions that would affect us in the decisions we make in terms

00:28:57.780 - 00:29:09.160

of what we had to do to keep our folks safe. And also kind of getting ideas from other people. "How are you doing this? What size church do you have? Oh, this is a really big one. This is a really small one." You know, things depend on how

00:29:09.160 - 00:29:26.350

much space you have and how much physical space you have. Not just how many people you have. Right, and Beth Yeshurun has a lot of both people and space. We do have a lot of people. We have very, I mean, that made it easier, I

00:29:26.350 - 00:29:46.500

would say because we have these very physically large rooms and even when you pair it down you know ten people or 20 or, not anymore, but 40 people in the room. 40 people in the room that seats 600. It's cavernous. We have never had anyone transmit coronavirus at shul. Right,

00:29:46.510 - 00:30:04.040

but I want to kind of start with the earliest phase. So, so there was probably a decision if I'm remembering right to just close Beth Yeshurun entirely. I think probably at some point in mid March, no? We, yeah, there were a few, there were a

00:30:04.040 - 00:30:20.260

couple of weeks where we, it might have been only might have been maybe even only two or so weeks where we didn't close, but we asked people, you know, only b'nei mitzvah family. You know, because we have b'nei mitzvah, we have usually at least two every week

00:30:20.340 - 00:30:36.220

and so, and these kids are studying, so what are you going to tell them, like, "Oh, pause, you can do it next week." Because they're not only just studying, but they're learning a particular weekly portion. They're learning that parasha, and so you know, like you can't

00:30:36.220 - 00:30:56.260

just do it in a week or in a month because it's all, it's all the wrong stuff. So we were restricting it, asking people asking people like, "Oh, don't come if you think you shouldn't." Uh, he's setting you straight, he's, he was, he was, he was

00:30:56.260 - 00:31:14.040

alive, he was alive for all that. So yeah, we, we did have, we did that for a while and then eventually really the county slash city, it was like nowhere, shut it down. And I think, I think we actually shut down before it was imposed on

00:31:14.040 - 00:31:34.330

us I think. Um, yeah, so the first major holiday to come along after that point was was Passover. So what, what was Passover like for you this year, both sort of just personally in terms of your preparations, shopping and then as, as a clergy member?

00:31:34.330 - 00:31:47.480

Right, I mean does does Beth Yeshurun usually host a second seder? I was supposed to do the second seder this year. I've never had a normal seder as a rabbi, normal Passover seder. First year was Harvey, which was kind of cool. We were in Freedman-Levit. It had

00:31:47.480 - 00:32:08.000

no furniture, so that was kind of fun. But that was not normal. And then the year after that I had a baby like three days before Passover. So that was, and then, you know, this year. So I'm not saying it's my fault, but if it walks like a duck,

00:32:08.000 - 00:32:23.530

it quacks like a duck. Um so yeah, that was, we used to do a second seder, I was supposed to lead it and we did zoom seders. So I had like 100, 150 parents and kids in my apartment, little two bedroom apartment for Passover. You packed them in.

00:32:24.590 - 00:32:40.730

I did, and then 45 minutes later we had young professionals. Back to back? Yeah, well because it's all on, it's all on zoom. So I never, I wouldn't have that kind of access to people. People would not have that kind of access to like me in my home. But

00:32:40.730 - 00:32:56.680

you know, we did it on zoom. Right, so obviously there there there are drawbacks to that. I mean you can't really gauge people's reactions. People could have, you know, their, their video cameras turned off, they could be looking at facebook while you're while you're talking or or or leading

00:32:56.680 - 00:33:16.470

some of the prayers. What? Not, not just hypothetically speaking, but, but you know what, what were some of the highlights of that experience for you? You sort of hinted at it a second ago. Positives, yeah, I mean it is definitely challenging for sure. There are challenges. But you

00:33:16.470 - 00:33:35.280

know, we have, we are accessible to and we have access to people more than before. If you are physically not able to come to Beth Yeshurun or if you don't live in Houston or you know, you you can come to all our services and all of our

00:33:35.280 - 00:33:54.840

programming via the internet and that's really cool. High Holidays, I mean are you asking about High Holidays later, should I wait until you ask about High Holidays. We can, we can jump from from Passover to Rosh Hashanah. There's no law that says we can't that I'm aware of. I don't think so because I mean I would say that

00:33:54.840 - 00:34:17.140

was a big plus for us is that we got to be accessible to more people in more ways than any other year. And yet are there drawbacks? 100% there are drawbacks. There are also upsides which is people, you know, I pre recorded all of the pre

00:34:17.140 - 00:34:30.940

k services and the grade school services. We had the teen services were all pre recorded and you know, if you have a kid you don't have to worry about, "Oh we make it to shul on time. We're gonna miss it because it's only half an hour." Not

00:34:30.940 - 00:34:44.010

an issue, it's prerecorded. You can play it whenever your kid is up from their nap and have their snack and that, you can press pause you know that's really that's really helpful. Yeah I can see how for her parents you know that would be great but

00:34:44.010 - 00:34:57.560

as but as the rabbi as the clergy member though and I'm not a rabbi obviously but but as someone who does a lot of teaching and lecturing we we we feed off of the reactions of the people in the room, right? You know eye contact

00:34:57.560 - 00:35:14.880

and laughter when you tell a joke or um you know things like that and is that is that hard for you? Has that been difficult to kind of lose the face to face aspect of clergy work? That's the worst part. That's that's the worst part. There

00:35:14.890 - 00:35:35.650

there are a lot of upsides, the accessibility and having people be able to access our services etcetera etcetera. And the worst part is you can't see, you see this much. Am I, am I happy am I unhappy? Who knows? It's just two eyes kinda blankly staring back

00:35:35.650 - 00:35:49.060

at you and that's from like you know the ten or 15 people in the room. It's important that we do our services since we're still doing the services in Barg Sanctuary, seats 900 when the partition is in. So the smallest you can make that space, it seats

00:35:49.060 - 00:36:02.660

900. At its max we have 40 people in there and even with 40 people, even with 400 people, it feels empty. But when you look out, you know from our advantage point, I don't think it looks different for you if you're sitting there, if you're

00:36:02.660 - 00:36:21.300

watching, you know the the bimah looks like the bimah. But for us to look out and see nobody, relatively speaking, nobody, you know, and the people you do see, you see half their face and not the expressive part. So we're just, I mean it's very, I

00:36:21.300 - 00:36:35.470

think we're used to it at this point. It was more disheartening earlier on when it was new. I feel like I feel bad for the b'nei mitzvah families because that's like their only experience of being up there is like that. And you know at this point

00:36:35.470 - 00:36:46.790

we're so many months into it like oh this is this is normal. For them I feel bad because it's you know, they just can't see all their friends and their family and they just see a little eye in the sky. I tell the kids, "Look at the eye in

00:36:46.790 - 00:37:05.990

the sky. The camera like a wave that's where grandma is." Yeah, no she's watching. And is there a moment or two that that stands out? I mean you've done, you've done b'nei mitzvahs. You've done probably funerals. You've done, I know today you said you officiated at a

00:37:05.990 - 00:37:21.120

bris um I think you were also part of a conversion class that, that did their immersion in Galveston's in the Gulf of Mexico as opposed to a mikvah. I'm just sort of curious, are there are there moments that stand out that you will remember in a year or

00:37:21.120 - 00:37:45.560

five years or ten years from this time? Well definitely the class. We had a conversion class and it was a fairly large class and most every other time they after they do their beit din and their, um how do you say, their rabbinic tribunal, what a term, they

00:37:45.560 - 00:38:01.600

would then go to the mikvah, the community mikvah, um, which is, it's a community mitzvah, housed at the UOS, and we didn't have that option. So we took what we did, we said everybody like half the class because it's such a big class, 'Let's all meet, we

00:38:01.600 - 00:38:17.240

don't have the time, let's meet in Galveston." And they did their conversion mikvah in the Gulf of Mexico and that's, I got so many calls and texts and facebook messages from my colleagues around the country saying, "Oh my gosh, how did you do this?

00:38:17.240 - 00:38:29.500

You know, we have people who would need to convert, people were getting married babies are about to be born and we need to, we need to do conversions." Um and so that was, I could tell that really hit people. So it didn't, it didn't seem weird

00:38:29.500 - 00:38:46.210

at the time. I don't know because everything is weird now. So, so few things really stand out. So that was really cool. I told you, give and take. That's the upside and then, you know, you do a funeral and there's twn people there and not

00:38:46.210 - 00:39:06.110

because there wouldn't be hundreds normally. I've done the funerals where someone says, you know, "Hundreds of people would have come to my mother's funeral. You know, she was so beloved in the community and this feels like we're robbing her of this." And there's nothing that I

00:39:06.110 - 00:39:31.300

can do to make that better. So that's tough. And of course, watching my, so many congregants have coronavirus, and you see people sick with coronavirus in the hospital and Facetime them. And a couple of them have died because of COVID. Of course, yeah, that that's another dimension of of pastoral work that, you know,

00:39:31.300 - 00:39:44.990

I think a lot of people don't pay attention to if you're not, you're not a rabbi, right? Is how do you reach out to these, to individuals who are sick to the, to their loved ones and their families? So, you know, doing doing hospital visitations over, over

00:39:44.990 - 00:40:04.080

zoom. Yeah, doing doing, there's something, Vidui, the kind of confessional, confessional prayer, the final rites so to speak, of Jewish tradition. I've done Vidui before. I've done it plenty of times and you do it at the bedside of the person who's, you

00:40:04.080 - 00:40:32.120

know, they're at that stage where they're imminently going to pass and to do that over the phone, like on speaker. It's very disconnecting. Yeah, because you're, it's not just you're not just saying words in a in a book. You know, like I have my little book

00:40:32.210 - 00:40:55.200

with all my stuff in it and I'm not just saying words in a book when I'm there, when I'm I'm being there in that moment with this person who's going through the life transition out and to not be there with them. I don't know, you just kind of

00:40:55.200 - 00:41:17.760

hope it does something because you can't see anyone's face, you can't hear anything, you can't. Yeah. Hope for the best in terms of if it resonates. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you you know, I guess you try to remind yourself that you're doing the best you can and you're you're helping people the only way that

00:41:17.770 - 00:41:36.120

the only way that you know how. There's no, there's no rabbinic playbook for this, I assume. I assume like last semester of graduate school, of graduate school, of rabbinical school saying, "Okay guys, it's pandemic week. Here's what we would do" Right, "This is what you

00:41:36.120 - 00:41:57.240

do when there's a natural." No, we had, we had one class in one, we have one session of one semester long class about like talking to the media. It was minorly helpful when I've had to talk to the media. Some helpful. You're watching. Sorry, Deans. Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:57.250 - 00:42:22.760

I mean, we're built for this though. Like Jews, Judaism is built for this. This is what we are made for. We're, you know, thank God for the easier times, but we're I think uniquely situated for times of strife and for life not looking the way you

00:42:22.760 - 00:42:36.120

want it to and having to, you know what better practice for having to restrict yourself and not being able to, you know, do the things that you want to do the way you want to do them, then Judaism, which teaches you to not eat the things you

00:42:36.120 - 00:42:44.860

want, even if you really want to do them. You know, or not do things on certain days and certain times, even if you really want to do them. Like we're good at restricting ourselves. So like, "Oh, I have to wear a mask. Oh, I can't go

00:42:44.860 - 00:43:04.070

this place. Oh, I can't be there. Okay, well, as a Jew, I've been practicing for this literally my whole life." Interesting, wow, right. That and I think also that, you know, Judaism is very adaptable. I mean, I guess you could argue Judaism has been in survival mode

00:43:04.100 - 00:43:24.840

for this. This is what we're made for. We survive. This is what we do. We have literally. Why do you think we're like one of the only ones still around thousands of years? This is what we do. We adapt. Yeah. Do you think, you've done thousands of

00:43:24.850 - 00:43:44.040

programs, um, lectures, you know, story time for kids, Um oh, there was something that you guys did for Simchat Torah, which was really unique. Can you talk about that? It's so funny. People were so excited about that. Yeah, we did. I didn't come up with the

00:43:44.040 - 00:44:01.640

term. I'm very mad I did not because it's very much so something I would do. We called them HaCARfot, the HaCARfot instead of Hakafot, HaCARfot. I did not come up with that, so mad. Uh instead of, usually Simchat Torah is a big thing and we have usually three different, you know Simchat Torah

00:44:01.650 - 00:44:18.100

celebrations happening at Beth Yeshurun. And this big big one, you know we've got all the kids come because we do like a sweet Hakafa. So one of the um, how do you say it in english? One of the times walking around with this candy and so the kids

00:44:18.100 - 00:44:40.990

get like huge bags like they collect candy all huge walk around and get so much candy, so much candy. Halloween has has nothing. Has nothing on Simchat Torah at Beth Yeshurun. It's true, it's true and we cannot do that this year but it's Houston, so the weather, you know in the middle of

00:44:40.990 - 00:44:56.780

summer, is actually very nice. Even today it's like pretty nice, 50 something. We can do stuff outside and uh and so we did outdoor, outdoor Simchat Torah with people and they kind of had their preassigned, they had a parking space and that was their family spot and they could like

00:44:56.790 - 00:45:13.300

bring their own food and do whatever. Because you could have your own spot in the outdoors. And we had a stage set up and the cantor read Torah and we did hakafot in a electric golf cart. All the rabbis took a turn. So I took a turn

00:45:13.310 - 00:45:27.030

driving around doing a hakafah, bringing the Torah around. And I was driving, I was driving and I had you know the Torah next to me and I was like holding it because I was afraid one good bump would send it over. And I was very

00:45:27.030 - 00:45:46.040

nervous I was like I don't want to be the rabbi on whose watch, on whose drive the Torah and everyone has to pass. So I didn't want that to be me and I made it. It was fun, it was really fun. That's a good one. I'm curious if you think, you know,

00:45:46.040 - 00:46:03.270

will will any of the innovations that you and your colleagues have had to made in response to COVID-19 last beyond this pandemic? I mean it's, today is December 2020 we're hearing in the news that perhaps a vaccine could be a few months away, maybe even a

00:46:03.270 - 00:46:17.930

few a few weeks away. So you mentioned, you know that one of the advantages of this, of this situation as awful as it's been is that people from all over Houston, all over the world have been able to find to find Beth Yeshurun. And do

00:46:17.930 - 00:46:35.160

you think that you know, synagogues will continue to offer programming on zoom will continue to you know, broadcast funerals and and Shiva minyans on on on zoom or are we all kind of zoomed out and and that that stuff will go away whenever this is over?

00:46:36.130 - 00:46:52.990

I think the answer, I can't speak for synagogues everywhere everywhere, I don't know. But I think the answer for us is obviously yes, it's both. You know, I think, first of all, we are already streaming services, so for us that's not like a huge leap

00:46:54.440 - 00:47:06.670

to have to start streaming because we were already streaming, so we didn't have to worry, "Oh, we don't have." You know, we had cameras, we had equipment, we were already built for that, we just had to add more channels essentially. And so we're still going to stream our

00:47:06.680 - 00:47:25.010

programs and we're still going to stream our services and I think a lot of our programs are still going to be streamed. You know, ones that can be, you know, I think that so many people got access to Beth Yeshurun and so many more people started looking for internet, like a virtual access

00:47:25.010 - 00:47:39.650

to something that found us both, you know, people here in Houston, people all over the country all over the world. You know, and I don't think we're gonna cut off that access. Um, I mean people here who, you know, maybe wouldn't normally come, but they can leave it

00:47:39.650 - 00:47:57.270

up Saturday morning, have services while they're taking care of their kids and doing the morning routine. We're not going to stop that and they're not gonna stop. I think though, that people want and need to be around each other again. I think people are gonna, when

00:47:57.270 - 00:48:12.870

it's safe to do, so they're gonna want to do it and once it's safe to do so, we'll be more than happy to welcome them back as well. I mean Judaism is such a communal religion. We don't we don't practice it, you're not meant to practice Judaism

00:48:12.880 - 00:48:27.980

solely, only ever in your little, in your house, like on your little island. We're not, we're not built for this. We are, we are communal people, and it's unnatural for us to kind of not be communally based either with other families in other homes or at

00:48:27.990 - 00:48:46.930

the synagogue. And so I think it's gonna be a continuation of the virtual and the innovation, and also, uh, I think we're gonna go back to the things that we love as well. It'll be both. Well, I for one can't wait. That sounds, that

00:48:46.930 - 00:49:14.100

sounds really good. So we we we've checked hurricane off of our disaster bingo card and now we've checked off pandemic. What's next? Hopefully nothing. Alien invasion. At this point, maybe that would not be that surprising. Like, okay. Couldn't be worse, right. No, don't say that. Don't say that. Um well, this

00:49:14.100 - 00:49:31.250

has been a really insightful conversation, Rabbi. Thank you so much for your for your time and and for all the work and energy that you've poured into. Um everything that is that you that you do for this for this community you know, during these past several

00:49:31.250 - 00:49:49.790

months. I know that it's it's not easy. Um, and you've given them. Ariel says that I'm a disaster rabbi. Not that I'm a disaster as a rabbi, but that my rabbinate has always been a catastrophe. It's been Harvey or it's been coronavirus. So I don't know. I don't, I feel

00:49:49.790 - 00:50:11.590

blessed every day I get to do my job. Mhm. So whether that's Harvey or a pandemic or none of the above, hopefully none of the above more often than not. Or maybe just like January. You know, it's like a regular old January. Yeah, just something pedestrian like that, something boring.

00:50:12.330 - 00:50:29.760

That'll be weird for me. I've never really had boring before. But no, I love it. I love it. It's fine. It'll all, Gam Zeh Ya'avor. Gam Zeh Ya'avor, this too will pass. Rabbi Fort, thank you so much. This has been great. Thank you.