(Reprinted from 2009) - When I am away during the summer, it is my custom to attend services every Shabbat.
I tell you this not to impress you, nor to boast about my piety. I actually enjoy going to services. I like the liturgy, I am interested in the sermon or d’var Torah, and I always feel better for having gone. I confess that there are some Saturday mornings in July when I don’t feel like going to synagogue. But I go. I go because I know myself. If I didn’t go one Saturday, I would feel a tinge of guilt, maybe even a bit incomplete. The next time I decided not to go, I might feel a little less remorse. By the third time, not goingwould become my routine.
This is the time of year when people consider the relevance and merit of synagogue membership. These are difficult economic times for some, and I would hope that people would not relinquish their membership for financial reasons. If that is the case, than we have failed in our mission to assure people that finances should never be a reason to leave Temple Emanuel. Others leave the temple—honorable, good people—because they decide the temple doesn’t have a place in their lives anymore.
I suspect that the first year, it must be difficult on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for these folks. Unless they find some other place to attend services (and there are many other wonderful congregations!), I would think that staying away from a synagogue on the High Holy Days must feel odd.
I can predict with great certainty that the second year, it won’t feel so strange. And by the third year, not being part of an organized Jewish community will become routine. I think every Jew should be a member of a synagogue. Though many of our rituals are best celebrated in the home, and being an ethical and good person outside the synagogue is a cherished mitzvah, to be a complete Jew, one needs a Jewish community.
There is nothing as inspiring as joining with hundreds of fellow worshippers on Rosh Hashanah, waiting with anticipation to hear the plaintive call of the shofar. On Yom Kippur there is nothing quite like hearing the beautiful and haunting melody of kol nidre.
In the Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Sages, it says, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” There is wisdom in those words. One can certainly be a good person in isolation. One can be a better Jew amidst a loving and warm community.
I look forward to spending the upcoming High Holy Days, with you and your family (the holidays come early this year—when do they ever come “on time”)! I am glad you are a part of our unique and wonderful Temple Emanuel family and I hope to celebrate many joyous moments with you in the years to come!...................................................Rabbi Robert S. Goldstein
Rabbi Dr. Robert Goldstein was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1975 and was ordained a Rabbi in 1981 at the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. In 1988, Rabbi Goldstein earned a Doctor of Ministry at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. His doctoral thesis was entitled, “Life Cycle.Life Crisis: Religious Orgins and Psychological Implications of Three Rites of Passage.” 
