How to Use Speech and Language: Make the Call!

       I am thinking of a wonderful rabbi who just died, Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue.  He advocated for and did powerful things, sermonizing, writing, and founding organizations that helped hundreds and thousands of people in need worldwide.

       When Connie and I first joined Temple Judea just a mile or two from VBS, we had a new rabbi, Steve Jacobs, and the first week of his tenure, Rabbi Schulweis got ahold of him not only to congratulate him but to invite him to lunch.

       Rabbi Akiva Annes became our leader several years later, and Schulweis again made the invitation during the first week.  And upon Annes's retirement a few years after that,  Don Goor took over as senior rabbi, and he too received the invitation. 

       I knew of these lunch invitations because all three of our rabbis spoke of it from the pulpit with a sense of pride and appreciation; another rabbi, and Conservative not Reform like our rabbis, had made that welcoming gesture.  And a relationship was begun.

       Harold Schulweis lived his values and put them into action.  He made the call.

       (Please see Rabbi Schulweis's remarkable obituary in the Los Angeles Times today here.)