6 | JUNE 1 • 2023 

1942 - 2023

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week

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DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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thejewishnews.com

 
 
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W

hen you walk into 
the back door at my 
home away from 
home, Beth Israel Congregation 
of Waterville, Maine, you’re 
greeted with a 
faint scent of 
kosher matzah 
ball soup mixed 
with the slightest 
hint of mildew 
from a 70-year-
old building 
that can’t quite 
manage its moisture anymore.
On your left, you’ll see the 
kitchen, the heart and soul of 
our congregation. It is often 
where the most invaluable 
Torah is taught and learned. 
That happened a few years ago, 
when my wife, Mel, was joined 
one snowy Saturday night by 
our rabbinical intern.
“Mel,
” he asked, “do you 
always need to make this many 
sandwiches for the food pan-

try?”
“No,
” she replied. “Demand 
has gone up over the past few 
years, but we always need to 
make double at the end of the 
month.
”
“Why,
” he inquired, “should 
you need to make any more at 
the end of the month than at 
the beginning?”
Mel stood there somewhat 
stunned by a question that 
should not have felt like a 
Talmudic riddle. How could he 
not know? I am sure he knew 
why we blessed two challahs 
for each Shabbat meal (to 
remember God’s grace in the 
desert, when ahead of Shabbat 
the Israelites were able to gather 
double the amount of manna 
[Exodus 16:22]). But why did 
he not know why we need to 
double the number of sand-
wiches we make at the end of 
the month?
“Most of the clients we serve, 

some of whom are members 
of our own congregation,
” she 
explained, “rely on WIC and 
EBT, government benefits that 
are issued at the beginning of 
each month and that often run 
out by the end, especially in 
families with children.
”
“Oh, OK. I didn’t know that,
” 
he said with a humility that 
endeared him so deeply to all of 
us at Beth Israel.
He didn’t understand the sig-
nificance of the double portion 
at the end of the month, but 
the truth of the matter is before 
I came to Waterville, I didn’t 
either. I knew nothing about 
communities like Waterville. 
And what I thought I knew was 
not only wrong, but actually, 
in retrospect, was harmful and 
offensive. And if I did think 
about class differences when 
I lived in Brooklyn, I rarely 
thought about it in connection 
to the Jewish community.

CLASS DIFFERENCES
But my ignorance and that of 
my student should not surprise 
us. Because how many of us 
really talk honestly about class? 
Class isn’t just about money. It’s 
a messy alchemy of financial 
wealth, social connections, 
political and cultural power, the 
opportunities people encounter 
in their lifetime and the com-
munal regard they receive. To 
put it more concretely, someone 
can have the money — through 
personal resources of schol-
arships — to attend a Jewish 
summer camp. But class is also 
knowing which brands every-
one else is wearing, knowing 
where to access those in-fashion 
clothes and being able to own 
them.
The trickiness of class is 
what brought one of my Maine 
rabbinic colleagues to warn me 
about sending the kids in my 
congregation to major Jewish 

PURELY COMMENTARY

Rabbi Rachel 
Isaacs

essay
The View from a Small Town Shul

