Good-Bye, My Friend
Rabbis almost never find themselves at a loss for words. I must however confess that today I felt I had no words. Saying good-bye to a friend that for the past eight years has been so much more than just my colleague was one of the hardest things I have had to do in recent years.
Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn and his family have moved to start a new Pulpit in Westport Connecticut. Jeremy truly is one of the best friends that I have ever had. When I left Mexico, I never imagined I was going to find such a good friend when I came to Las Vegas, and now as he begins a new part of his journey as a Rabbi. I have no other words for him but — Thank You!
This afternoon as I was sitting alone at The Sushi Bar, I kept staring at the empty chair next to me. No, I am not trying to be funny! It just that most of our conversations happened over Sushi. In fact, I was thinking today that 80% of the time we spent together we spent eating!
Aside from the sushi, Jeremy was a tremendous influence on me. His dry sense of humor and unique perspective on things were a soothing and calming force more than once. Together we managed to create things in our Community that other people would have only dreamt of.
The Solomon Schechter Day School for example, was truly a combined exercise in optimism, energy and vision. The Hevreh Kaddishah that today serves much of our community and that is a joint effort of Midbar Kodesh Temple and Temple Beth Sholom was and remains indeed a product of our desire to make sure that Conservative Judaism in Las Vegas remains a thriving, growing and relevant force that effects positive change in our community.
The life of a Rabbi can be interestingly different but more than anything else, I believe that we experience moments of tremendous loneliness when we feel that it is so hard to translate our vision into action! Moments when we feel that we stand alone in our dream and our commitment, moments when we feel misunderstood and often challenged to prove ourselves right even when the weight of over 2000 years of tradition stands on our side.
Jeremy made all of those moments for me much more bearable. Together, we laughed, grounded ourselves in reality and hoped for the best even when we saw clouds in the horizon. True! He is not moving to China! He is taking his cell phone, and I go to New York once in a while, so I think there is more than an outside chance that we will still be there for each other. So Jeremy, we all wish you a lot of success and more than anything else — many years of growth, climbing mountains, health and joy.
© Rabbi Felipe Goodman, all rights reserved.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
What you wrote about Jeremy is so very nice. It made me cry.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Rabbi,
I am always so impressed by your words, they always touch my heart that usually I find myself crying in reflection.
Rabbi Wiederhorn and his family were a blessing to all of us in so many ways. Of course Josh will miss his daughter and her lovely smile. The school will have a great loss of not having them participate in all of our classroom activities and sharing of activities from each Temple..
We all wish them well and send our love with them always..
We move only in location, people stay in our hearts for the whole journey.
Thank you Rabbi Wiederhorn and Thank you Rabbi Goodman for sharing your journey with all of us.