Recently, we have begun an effort to really downsize our “stuff.” In this context, I was going through a file that belonged to my mother, of blessed memory. Looking in the file, I found my tenth grade confirmation speech from 1968. Reading it, I was struck by just how much I owed “My Rabbi.”
Let me explain.
I really cannot say that I liked going to religious school all that much. As a matter of fact, I frequently got in trouble!
There was one thing that I really did enjoy and that was singing in the junior choir.
By the time I was in the eighth grade, I was already playing piano in a garage band. I wasn’t great, but I was good enough.
One day, the director of our junior choir was late arriving. So, I told people to take out a sheet that had on it the words of “Adon Olam.” I then told them that they should sing with me. I started to play the “House of Rising Sun” by the Animals. Before long, I had the entire choir gloriously singing “Adon Olam” to the melody of “House of the Rising Sun.”
After a while, the choir director came in and was very much distressed. He asked me whether or not I knew what this song was really about.
I answered that I did not but that I liked the music. He then said “You need to go talk to the rabbi.”
I walked into “My Rabbi”’s office and told him what had occurred. He smiled, and we sat down at the table. He pulled out a Jewish text; I do not remember what it was. We studied for a little bit, and then I was sent back.
Before I left, he told me that he thought what I did was rather creative and said, “You just might grow up to be a Jewish educator.” Frankly, at that time, this was the farthest thing from my mind.
Two years later during the confirmation class, I came to “My Rabbi” and told him I had a very interesting idea for confirmation. The idea was that during the ceremony, the class would all sing “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds. I do not think that I knew at that time that the song was actually written by Pete Seeger.
His reaction really surprised me. He told me that he thought it was a great idea. I volunteered to accompany the class on piano. Then, however, he told me that the lyrics were not written by Pete Seeger, but traditionally were written thousands of years ago by King Solomon. The lyrics were to be found in a biblical book called Ecclesiastes.
“My Rabbi” then said to me that he liked my idea so much that every confirmation speech would take one line from the passage and discuss it. My line was “A time to plant.” I had no memory of this until I found my confirmation speech in my mother’s papers.
I went to college at Vanderbilt because I wanted to continue to play in the garage band. While there, I started taking courses in the religion department and the divinity school.
In my sophomore year, I came to “My Rabbi” with the idea that I would like to go on the year-abroad program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. However, I told him that my father had recently closed his business and that without a significant scholarship, I could not afford to go.
He told me not to worry and harnessed the resources of others in the community, including the local Jewish Federation. As a result, I was able to go to Hebrew University for my junior year.
That year turned out to be one of the best years of my life. I fell in love with a beautiful girl who today is a beautiful woman. I have been with her now for fifty-two years. We have three children and five grandchildren.
How different my life could have been had I not gone that year or had I not been able to afford to go that year. All of this happened thanks to “My Rabbi.”
When I returned, I told “My Rabbi” that but I was thinking about applying to HUC-JIR. He told me at the time that it was interesting because there was an official from HUC who was going to be visiting Nashville and that I should meet him. I was more than open to this.
I sat down for an hour with this official who was also a rabbi. We had what I thought was a nice conversation. I found out later that he told “My Rabbi” that he did not think that I would be suitable for the rabbinate.
Nevertheless, “My Rabbi” encouraged me to apply, which I did, and in 1979, I was ordained in the New York school. Five days later, my wife and I moved to Israel, and we stayed there for eleven years. While in Israel, I had the privilege of working for Rabbis Hank Skirball, David Forman, and Morrie Kippur. These men, like “My Rabbi,” had a profound influence upon my life.
I have now been retired for three-and-a-half years. I have had an amazing career. I have been involved in a lot of pro-Israel work and in various social justice activities.
By the way, I think it was the example of “My Rabbi” that encouraged me to become active in the North Carolina social justice movement known as “Moral Monday.” Other issues that I dealt with in North Carolina involved voting rights and LGBTQ issues. I really do feel that it was “My Rabbi” who served an example for these activities.
I think that we all should be as blessed as I was to have had such an influential rabbi in our lives.
Many years later, I showed my mother a rubbing of a tombstone from the 1880s from the Warsaw Jewish cemetery. The stone depicted broken Shabbat candles. My mom told me that that would be what she wanted on her tombstone.
“My Rabbi” died in 2014. His widow was friendly with my mom. My mom suggested that there be a carving like the ones from Warsaw on his tombstone and she asked me what it should be. I answered that it should be “books” because he was such a learned man.
Mom died in 2020 just before the epidemic.
If one goes to the Temple cemetery in Nashville, one will find two tombstones with designs on them, designs that go back to the 1880s in the Warsaw Jewish cemetery. The two tombstones are my mom’s and “My Rabbi’s.”
So, who is this person? Who was “My Rabbi”?
His name was Rabbi Randall Falk. I owe so much to him!
I share this story partially in tribute to Randy Falk, but more than that, I share it as an example of the enormous role that we rabbis have to play in educating young people and encouraging them to consider the rabbinate.
While I was not the first student of Randy Falk’s to become a rabbi, I was the first person to be ordained from Temple Ohabai Shalom in Nashville, Tennessee.
I do not know if I have been successful in being a rabbinic role model for younger people. I do know that I tried my best, and hope that along the way, I have influenced my students to become good Jews and purveyors of the Jewish tradition.
Thanks to “My Rabbi,” Rabbi Randall Falk.
Y’hi Zichro Baruch!
Rabbi Fred Guttman served Temple Emanuel of Greensboro, North Carolina for 26 years. He is now the Rabbi Emeritus of the congregation.
