6 | JUNE 1 • 2023
1942 - 2023
Covering and Connecting
Jewish Detroit Every Week
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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