The nobility of preserving our past and creating a friendly future

NEWPORT – Rabbi Marc Mandel of the Touro Synagogue introduced me to the minyan as “Mike, a reporter.”  I felt a bit like Clark Kent on an assignment for the Daily Planet. 

I was there on a Shabbat with Mel Blake and Bruno Feitler.  Blake was there to introduce Feitler, the new Touro scholar, at the community center across the street after the service.  Blake, a past president of Providence’s Temple Beth-El, dedicated the day and its events in honor of and as an homage to his friend – and a friend of Jewish life in Newport – Bernard Bell, of blessed memory.

My compliments to one and all who took part in these ceremonies. The setting itself is beyond belief in its understated elegance and sheer beauty – no matter how often you visit Touro Synagogue, you can’t help being moved by its every detail.  It made me think, once again, how noble it is to help preserve, restore and protect such a treasure. 

The members of the minyan arrived, one by one, bringing not only the gift of their presence and participation, but also a particular skill or style. A gorgeous tallit!  A superb voice at the bimah! A friendly handshake or a smile. You feel the intimacy of our global and wandering-wondering faith.

And then, it was my turn to accept the privilege of an aliyah. One can recall the subdued melody within the Hebrew words, and the little yad helping as you “proof” the actual recitation of the Torah tale of the day.

On this day, it was the voice of Moses appointing Joshua to lead the Israelites to Jericho. (Elie Wiesel claimed that only the black spiritual praises Joshua’s battle victories – the story in our Bible is more muted.)

Mandel noted in his sermon that “writing a scroll of Torah” is a major contribution and a mitzvah, and interpreted that concept by pointing to our mysterious ancient scroll, whose origins are as yet unknown. A most poetic metaphor, a mix of majesty and modesty. 

I look around the gathering, from the pews across to the gallery, the splendid ark opposite the foyer, and I think, we are here “existentially,” creating Judaism itself. That sounds pretentious, but it is meant merely as a reminder of how important each of us is, if only to be, to glimpse these gems of a forlorn fortune, a friendly future.

At the community center, Blake presents Feitler, who is from Brazil. Feitler claims it was in Recife – named for the reefs off the coast of Brazil – that the first Jews of Europe, of Iberia, settled in this hemisphere.  Portugal refused to accept the victims of the Inquisition, but, for a single generation, the Dutch had won the land, until Portugal reclaimed it. And then the “Portuguese,” as the Jews of Recife were called, left for islands in the Caribbean – Jamaica, Barbados, Curacao – and even Mexico.  

The celebrants welcomed Feitler and contributed their commentaries and posed their problems. On the walls of this reception room, there was a display of images of butterflies, both swallowtails and monarchs. Their creative photographer-artist, Dr. Henry Spencer, told me that monarchs are returning and flourishing in New England and also in their migratory second home in Mexico.   Almost, to me, a kind of metaphor for Jewish destiny. 

He added, “My father took the sacred symbols from the abandoned Howell Street Shul to the Mishkon T’filah temple on Summit Avenue [in Providence], a ‘survivor’s shul,’ and he was himself a survivor.” 

He says that his father worked with the Polish government in exile in London, with the Soviets, with the Americans, anything at all, however contradictory, to oppose the Nazi onslaught.

All this high drama within a few holy hours on the little historic island that is home to Newport, which seemed to me to be the very center of our personal world. I thank each and all among them for their kind hospitality and for shining a special light upon this new year before us, of hope in the land of hope.  

MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.