Rabbi Alex Weissman sees opportunities for spiritual growth during the pandemic

Like many clergy in the time of COVID-19, Rabbi Alex Weissman, the new spiritual leader of Congregation Agudas Achim, is facing the challenges of leading a synagogue in the midst of a pandemic, but with a twist: the post is his first pulpit.

Weissman, 36, comes to Agudas Achim, in Attleboro, from Brown RISD Hillel, in Providence, where he was the senior Jewish educator.

Like the synagogue’s previous rabbi, Leora Abelson, Weissman’s position at Agudas Achim is part time, said Howard Tinberg, a member of the ritual committee.

Weissman said he believes that synagogues have an especially vital role to play during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We live in a world of isolation, hyper-individualism and division,” he said. “Synagogues have the potential to be an antidote to [help us] show up for each other, to learn from each other, to rejoice together and to grieve together.”

Meeting that goal was recently made harder by a decision to make the synagogue’s High Holy Days services virtual – one more obstacle to overcome in these tough times.

“It’s a heartbreaking decision that we came to through a thoughtful process of considering the importance of our holidays and also the very real risk of gathering in person,” Weissman said.

“Our tradition places tremendous emphasis on the value of human life, prioritizing it over so many other parts of our tradition, including Shabbat. If we can be part of flattening the curve and saving lives, even if it means living with the disappointment of virtual services, then that’s the choice our tradition demands of us,” he said.

Weissman, who was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, in 2017, discussed several other topics in an email interview. Here are his comments, lightly edited for clarity: 

Talk about your journey from educator to the spiritual leader of a congregation. 

In some ways, it’s not so different from the work I was doing at Hillel. I still teach, provide pastoral care, build community and lead services. The main thing that has changed is that instead of working with people who are 18-21, I now serve people of all ages, which is one of the things I missed while doing campus work.

Another difference is the shift from serving a pluralistic community to a Reconstructionist community, which takes a different approach to pluralism. There is religious diversity within the congregation, and we get to hold those differences within a Reconstructionist approach, grounded in Jewish wisdom and [a] democratic process.

In the congregation’s news release announcing your appointment, you said a synagogue can “build relationships across age, ideology, religiosity and so many other things that keep people apart.” How do you propose to put that goal into action, given how the pandemic has been keeping people apart? 

That’s the question. In some ways, the pandemic actually makes this work easier. We are all facing the same challenge, albeit in different ways, so we have a shared experience that we are all up against. When we gather virtually, there are opportunities to connect around this and our human experience of it, even as we disagree about so many things.

My hope is that if there is one spiritual change that emerges from this pandemic, we have an increased sense of k’vod ha’briyot, honor for living things. Can we grow in our capacity to cherish life in all of its forms?

Rabbi Eliezer teaches in Pirkei Avot 2:10, “Let the honor of your friend be as dear to you as your own.” This is a moment to recognize the fundamental human dignity that all of us deserve. This is true regardless of who we are and what our beliefs are. If we can grow, even a little bit, in embodying this teaching, that will be worth celebrating. 

What are the challenges in planning online High Holy Day services and sermons? 

As we sit with that disappointment and loss that comes with this change, I think it will be necessary both to reflect on how to be with the uncertainty that we all face and also explore how we can find comfort. As we care for each other as a community in this way, we will also need to ask the question, “to whom are we obligated?” 

[Ovadia ben Jacob] Sforno, the [Jewish] Medieval Italian commentator, reflects on the verse from Deuteronomy, mah tovu, that synagogues are meant to be good for those that are a part of them, and also good for the wider world. This is a simple but ambitious vision, but I think we are up for the task. 

The Jewish community supported the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s; what role can you and the congregation play in helping to promote racial and social justice today?  

This is a question the community has been grappling with. One of our members started a reading group for folks to learn more about race and racism, even as we are aware that reading about racism is only helpful in that it enables us to do the work of uprooting racism in the wider world.

To that end, a group of members has gotten together to ask the question of how we can engage in the wider world. As a multiracial, predominantly white community that is politically diverse, the question of how we show up is not a simple one. There’s a tension that exists between being a moral voice and being a home for everyone. We’re sitting in that tension, as congregations have for years.

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s was Black-led. Small segments of the Jewish community supported them. It wasn’t as universal as we like to tell ourselves. Yes, [Rabbi Abraham Joshua] Heschel marched with King, but that was not the norm. Most of the institutional Jewish world stayed out of it.

I think we need to ask ourselves what the story we want to tell about this moment will be in the future. How did we live our values? 

How have you been handling the pandemic and what activity do you miss the most?

It’s hard. There have been ups and downs, and it’s all very blurry. I find my memory isn’t as sharp as it usually is because I experience everything in the same place – it’s hard to differentiate.

What I miss most is hosting friends for Shabbat meals. Feeding people, spending hours talking, eating and singing. I look forward to being in an embodied community again.

LARRY KESSLER (larrythek65@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro.