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Rabbinic Reflections

Calling It a Career: Rabbi Stephen Fuchs on the Moments that Matter in His 50-Year Rabbinic Career

Ecclesiastes reminds us, “There is a time for every purpose under heaven (3:1).”

When I turned seventy-seven last year, it dawned on me with stark clarity that it was time to bring down the curtain on my tenure as spiritual leader of Bat Yam Temple of the Islands in Sanibel, Florida, and retire.

I will always, of course, be a rabbi, and I will await in wonder to see what new plans the Eternal One has in store for me.

When I announced I would retire the first time in 2012 from my position as senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut, people asked, “What will you do now?” I honestly answered, “I am not sure. I’ll read more, write more, and beyond that, we’ll see.”

I could never have imagined the blessings the “we’ll see” had in store for me these past twelve years: serving as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, which enabled me to visit more than sixty-five communities on five continents teaching about and advocating for progressive Jewish values; serving as guest rabbi in Milan and Florence, Italy; spending significant parts of five years teaching and preaching in Germany; and then serving for six years as rabbi of Bat Yam Temple of the Islands.

Among the highlights of our years in Germany have been the invitations to teach with Vickie about the Shoah in German schools, and to speak in the synagogue and in churches and at Kristallnacht commemorations in Leipzig, Germany, the city where my father, Leo Fuchs, of blessed memory, grew up and was arrested and imprisoned on November 9, 1938.

Our tradition teaches that King Solomon wrote three biblical books: Song of Songs, a book of love poetry when he was a young man; Proverbs, a book of wisdom in middle age; and Ecclesiastes, with its sober look at life as an older man.

Although I cannot claim Solomon’s wisdom, I have been blessed to find true love as a young man, and the loving marriage I have shared with Vickie for all fifty years of my career years, has sustained me through the many joys and the few disappointments of my career.

I have tried my best to share what wisdom I have gained in my sermons, lectures, and in the college and seminary teaching I have been invited to do over the years, and in the seven books I have written.

Upon ordination in 1974, I became the first full-time rabbi of Temple Isaiah in Columbia, Maryland, a synagogue launched by my beloved mentor, Rabbi Richard S. Sternberger, z”l, UAHC Mid-Atlantic Regional Director.

Beginning in 1986, I became senior rabbi at Congregation Ohabai Sholom, known as The Temple, in Nashville, Tennessee. I will always be grateful that the congregation funded my graduate studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, which culminated when I earned a DMin in biblical interpretation in 1992.

In 1997, I became senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel until I became rabbi emeritus in 2012.

Now that I am older, I look back on my fifty-year rabbinical career and reach the important conclusion Ecclesiastes teaches: “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity (1:2).” How true I find those words today.

What is truly important to me now is not recognition or material rewards. I do not deny that I have striven for and enjoyed a measure of those things, but the joy does not last that long, and looking back, they matter very little.

What I shall always cherish, and what will always matter, are the times when something I did, wrote, or said made a real difference in someone’s life. It was in those moments or when someone reminded me of them, that I truly felt God’s pleasure. Participating in our son Leo’s ordination in Los Angeles last May, is a wonderful retirement present and a memory I shall always cherish.

As they did back in 2012, people ask me, “What will you do now?”

For the time being I am proud to become Bat Yam’s rabbi emeritus.

In addition, I would add, “I’ll read more, write more, and beyond that, we’ll see.”


Rabbi Stephen Fuchs is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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General CCAR Rabbis

Not Alone with Sweaty Palms: Even the Rabbi Gets Nervous

It was good to learn I am not alone!

About two weeks ago, I presented the following issue to my colleagues on Facebook:

Am I the only one who gets REALLY nervous every time I speak? I don’t really get it. I can’t count how many times I have spoken in public since I entered HUC in 1968 and even lots before that. And yet, whether it is Kol Nidre before a big crowd or 20 kids in a classroom, I get really nervous. I hope (and have been told often) that it doesn’t show—Baruch Ha-Shem—but I don’t fully understand why that happens. Any thoughts?

It felt strange.  Yes, even though I served forty years in the pulpit and spoke in 65 communities on five continents as President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, I get very nervous each and every time I speak.

It might have begun with my Bar Mitzvah. I thought I would die (literally) before I could get up and read from the Torah. “You mean the scroll has NO vowels, and they expect ME to read it,” I remember exclaiming incredulously to my parents!

But then I did my first ever exercise in deductive reasoning. I thought:
• Kids in my class who are older then I have had their Bar Mitzvahs (It was much later that I learned that the proper term is ‘B’nai Mitzvah’),
• Some of them are dumber than I am.
• All of them are still alive.

Vital Lesson Learned. 

Therefore, I reasoned, if I really practice and study hard, maybe I can make it. And I did. The lesson has served me well, I always try to be well prepared, but that has never prevented me from getting very nervous. And so half-afraid that my colleagues would laugh at me, I posted my question.

To my surprise thirteen different colleagues affirmed, “You are not alone,” and six others clicked “Like” in recognition of my issue. Their affirmations confirmed what I believed (at least what I hoped) all along:  Although different people feel it to different degrees, the nervousness is a function of really caring about what I say and wanting it to have as much meaning as possible to those who listen.

A Small Price to Pay.

Knowing that “it is not just me” who gets nervous was very reassuring. Thanks to my colleagues I can go forward feeling that that the nervousness I must overcome each time I speak is a small price to pay for the sacred privilege of sharing the fruit of my study and my experience with others.

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Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs is the author of What’s in It for Me? Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives. He is the former President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Bet Israel, West Hartford, CT.