Why Rabbi

Why Rabbi?


Okay. So I have actually been meaning to write this for a long time… but work and school and such have gotten in my way.


I remember when I was in religious school in Croton, New York: The spring classes were killer. I remember looking out at the trees that engulfed Temple Israel, wondering why I was stuck in a classroom learning about Moses and Babylon while my non-Jewish friends were out playing baseball and soccer.


    It wasn’t anything against my teachers, or even the material they were hoping to convey to my classmates and I. In fact I remember a lot of what they taught us, yet at the time I loathed going to services, my family never went unless there was a Bar Mitzvah or a wedding, or it was the High Holy Days. Even then I remember sitting in the sanctuary counting the pages from the Sh’ma until the Aleinu. I was chanting and saying prayers by rote, as did everyone in the classroom. I would wonder if anyone had a deeper experience to prayer. Was that really all there was?


Now here I am, five years after my Bar Mitzvah, considering joining the Rabbinate.


We moved to Prescott Arizona where the Jews are less than prominent, however rather established. My father actually initiated us going to temple, and in a few months I found myself asking my parents to try to attend synagogue on a regular basis. Soon after my father recommended I get involved with the choir, and well, the rest is history. I spent one year just singing with the group and then graduated to singing a piece as the leader in a call and response prayer, and soon began singing solos.


I recall one Kabbalat Shabbat service rather vividly; I had been singing a couple pieces solo or as a lead when Rabbi B came up to me prior to services. He was feeling a tad under the weather and I remember his words going something like “Do you remember the Reader’s Kaddish, and the V’ahavta from your Bar Mitzvah?” Of course I said yes. I remember the next words he said were “Why don’t you grab a tallis and come join me on the bimah.” And so it began…


I would occasionally come up to the bimah to help lead a prayer or two, and within a few months found myself just sitting on the bimah, helping lead almost every prayer, and enjoying it. The words of the siddur, of the prayer book seemed to come alive.


I think-. Scratch that. I know when I first heard someone suggested my joining the rabbinate I responded rather sheepishly. I was more just attempting to be polite to the elder who suggested it, rather than actually give credence to a decision I never expected I would entertain emotionally or spiritually.


I’m not even sure what had turned me off to the idea. I recall using other academic ambitions at the time as an excuse. And I also remember feeling like I was nowhere near a spiritual or academic level to become a leader of a religion that I had only just taken an interest in and had no deep connections to. Mind you, I still had just graduated high school.


As more and more of the congregants of B’rith Shalom worked to implant the idea in my head, and other rabbi’s opinions being offered, I remember one day after services, sitting down for a cup of coffee asking myself “Well, why not?”


Well, why not?


No one seems to have been able to give me enough of a reason to not go for it. One of my mentors (Rabbi Nina) has time and again reminded me of her journey to the rabbinate: “When I couldn’t get it out of my mind and my heart, I knew I had to do it.” I feel as if this explains part of my sentiment.


I love being Jewish. I truly do. So that’s probably a good thing. At least one would think it is. 


I love the culture of Judaism.


I love the community.


I love the teachings Judaism gives to us.


The history, the passion, the liturgy, it all has meaning to me. And I cherish that.


The Hebrew…. Eh not so crazy about it but I  recall one time hearing someone say loving something means doing what you hate regardless.


I think, however, the most important thing I value in my Jewish experience is the sense of compassion we are expected of. The compassion which surrounds our every act. THAT is what I love. My phone is always on to you and I am at your service, no matter how large or small or if you just need an ear to vent to. Please know I’m here for you always.


I want to repair the world, Tikkun Olam. I desire to help others. I yearn to keep a flame alive that has withered at the winds of time.


So, I will keep learning. Thinking. Contemplating. And perhaps in two years I will find myself in Rabbinical School.


I just can’t seem to get it out of my head anymore. Or my heart.


L’shalom, in peace:             


Sean E Samitt