WITHOUT EXPECTATION

More than five years ago I decided it was time to retire from being a pulpit rabbi.  I was very tired all the time.  It was harder and harder for me to give the members of the synagogue the care they deserved.  And I no longer had the patience to deal gently with leaders who felt they could define the responsibilities that I had fulfilled as a rabbi, mostly admirably, for more than thirty years.
 
My wife saw this coming and encouraged me to have an exit strategy.  I was pretty confident that the transition would be smooth for me and for the synagogue.
 
It has been a very difficult five years for me.  My first new job was a bad fit.  Though my experience brought me any number of mentorship opportunities, I felt shut out of my own synagogue.  Lots of people had solutions to suggest – almost all involved selling our long-time home and moving away.  And confronted with a sudden liberation from being the designated role model for all things Jewish, I felt a sort of equal-and-opposite relationship with the Jewish life that I had embraced with such enthusiasm for so long.
 
There is no shortage of individuals I was willing to hold responsible for my disaffections.  And no matter how I explained things to myself, I remained mystified that I suddenly had no place in the community I had labored to build for a full generation.
 
Maybe it takes time for wisdom to gestate in your heart, even if it is staring you in the face from the outside.  In my case, I began to hear from more and more of my rabbinic colleagues who were considering retirement and wanted the benefit of my experience.  Forced to articulate a narrative that did not generalize what I assumed were unique personal circumstances, I tried out a lot of different ways to frame my alienation. As a sorrowful rabbi proclaims in the Talmud, I came to understand that the matter rested with me alone.
 
My awakening came through a conversation with a contemporary rabbi from another movement (as we traveled to a conference) who has been charged to address the growing problem of relationships between successor rabbis and their predecessor emeriti.  More and more, rabbis remain in the communities they served when they retire, and more and more their younger successors are at a complete loss when it comes to relating to them.  The stories I was told were alarming – illustrations of what happens when immovable insecurity collides with irresistible insecurity.
 
When my colleague and I arrived at our destination, my attention happened to be drawn to a very familiar teaching.  In the popular tractate Avot in the Talmud is this advice from Antigonos of Soho:
 
Do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, rather be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
 
I can’t count the number of times I taught this piece of advice in hopes of persuading people to do the right thing without expectation of privilege or payment.  As I placed myself inside this advice, I had to ask myself whether I was indeed expecting a reward.  The “master” here was not necessarily God.  My “master” was the congregation.  I was appropriately “rewarded” during my tenure, but if I was indeed seeing my meta-service to the community as conducted without expectation of reward, then it was time to relinquish my anticipation that, nonetheless, I had some honor or privilege due.
 
If God was in the equation at all, it was that I conduct my Jewish life with the “fear of heaven” upon me, or, as I prefer to translate, with integrity.
 
Now, as I talk with my friends who are on the verge of concluding their synagogue careers, I share with them the lessons I have learned of late, however tentative they may be.  I tell them that when they let go of their position, they must also let go of the expectation that anything they achieved will be preserved.  A new rabbi will arrive with same kind of vision and aggressive confidence they brought when they were younger.  The value of what they have built over the years past was in the process of the building itself, not in the result.  Do not expect that your service will bring a reward.  Rather, be gratified that you have served without expectation of reward.
 
To do otherwise is to be immersed in insecurity, to live in fear of disappointment.  It is much better to live in fear of Heaven.  Or, as I prefer to translate, with integrity.