In the Jewish calendar, every seventh year is considered to be a sabbatical year, according to Kligler. The Hebrew word for this concept is Smita and seven is considered to be a magical number in Judaism where Gematria, a form of numerology plays an important role in ritual practices and is believed to be a tool for understanding the Divine.
“Smita means release and in the Bible we are instructed in the seventh year to release all our debts to others and allow the land to rest for a year, living off stored food,” explained Kligler. “When Jews began returns to Israel over the past 100 years, the sabbatical or smita was reestablished. This coming year, 2014-2015 [year 5775 in the Jewish calendar] is the next sabbatical year. This is a deep teaching from Judaism for what we need in the world right now, which is…to restore proper balance with each other, with the world and with the cosmos. The ecological implications of telling the earth to rest are particularly important right now.” Kligler said Jewish groups throughout the United States Israel and other parts of the world will be addressing the “contemporary implications of this practice” and he added that the WJC wants “to be part of that.”
Meant to be
Ahuvia considers it bashert (the Yiddish word for “meant to be”) that she was looking for a congregation at the same time the WJC was searching for a new congregational rabbi. The synagogue had hired a professional consulting firm to guide them in the search and various envisioning sessions, retreats and membership meetings were held to determine what the local synagogue actually wanted as its beloved was preparing to settle into a new role.
Ahuvia had planned her rabbinic ordination through Aleph, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, to coincide with the graduation of her younger son from high school this year. (The couple’s older son is a junior in college.) “The first time I read the job description I felt they were looking for me; they just didn’t know I existed,” she said recently, seated at an outdoor patio with Kligler and two board members overlooking the Catskills and the Shwangunks beyond. Her husband, a professor of marketing and consumer research at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, will remain at his job for the time being until their sons are more settled and he can relocate here as well.
One of the key qualities the synagogue was looking for in its new rabbi was musical ability. Kligler’s rich voice and skill with the guitar are well-known both in local and wider Jewish musical circles. He has recorded several CDs of Jewish music, and song, musical instruments and dance are a foundation of every service.
“For me, music is my umbilical cord to the Divine,” said Ahuvia. “It is how I connect.” As well as having a mellifluous voice, the new rabbi also plays guitar and piano.
In addition to co-founding the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Havurah in 1993, and later its religious school, Ahuvia also spent a year as program director at a Conservative synagogue and worked as a family educator at a Reformed temple. “I have covered the spectrum of liberal Judaism,” she said, noting her ordination through Aleph prepared her to serve in any Jewish denomination.
As for her goals, Ahuvia said to ask her about them again in a year after she has gotten to know the community and learn from the members “what is beloved about this place.”
She described her own spiritual path as “constantly evolving and shifting.” The rabbi added, “The mark of a spiritual person is that they are open to the shifts and vicissitudes of life. You never know where new lessons will be, how they will take shape, or even that it was a lesson at all until afterwards.”
The Hebrew word for the Jewish people, Yisroel, means “God wrestlers.” Said the rabbi, “The extent to which we as a people permit ourselves to wrestle with whatever that God concept is for us [in direct proportion to our] capacity for growth and spiritual nourishment.”
When the synagogue’s search committee chairperson called Ahuvia following a vote of the membership at its annual meeting in May, the new rabbi said she “screamed into the phone,” a scream that resonated throughout the room, drawing appreciative laughter. Referring to the synchronicity around the new position she considers so bashert, she noted that she is now 49. Her 50th year, her first at the congregation, will be the culmination of seven sabbatical years. Said Ahuvia, “I am coming here in a year of release when new things rise and new things are sprouting forth.”
Andrea Barrist Stern is a member of the board of directors of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation and a longtime former editor, writer and photographer at Ulster Publishing.
