Worshipping with the Tree of Life Congregation

There are some places you have to visit if easily accessible, often exposing more than expected. I scheduled a visit to Pittsburgh to visit family. I live about 300 miles east, which enables me to arrive in mid-afternoon when leaving home after breakfast. My driving experience usually requires one stop en route, usually at lunchtime for refreshment, safety too as the Turnpike can challenge attention, particularly when cruise control relieves me of having to watch my speed.

Last time, my first visit, mandated the City Tour. There were many highlights to see but I only selected the Duquesne Incline and Warhol Museum as destination to Hop Off the On/Off bus.

This visit spanning a weekend, I had to reserve time to pay my respects to the Tree of Life Synagogue. Dr. Rabinowitz, one of its victims, had been a college acquaintance, sharing classes, some social time, and many passing greetings. From his name and age, I suspected the initial report was indeed him, confirmed within a day by our alma mater. Jerry was only one of two murder victims that I know, the other being a childhood neighbor stabbed for his life insurance payout. I knew the doctor better.

Hanging out at my family’s house as their guest saves on daily hotel fees, but I still like to get out. From our cyberspace conveniences, I could determine that Tree of Life still conducts their own services, but not in the attacked building. Instead, they convene in a designated room of a Reform mega shul, almost a Cathedral. Time announced. Covid restrictions announced. Only about a ten-minute drive from where I was staying. Scanned my vaccination data earlier in the week, keep some masks in the car, making it a go.

A Reform host of that size would have real tzuris if they couldn’t accommodate drivers on the Holy Days, a lot of them, so the extent of their parking lot did not surprise me. The over-the-top plushness of building’s interior did. A guard, mandatory these days though not visibly armed, kindly escorted me to the auditorium where Tree of Life worships. I had brought my own tallis, though hundreds must have been piled on the rack, while the kippah receptacle had satin varieties making a rather large palette. I did not pull any out to read the Bar Mitzvah inscriptions but assume they were simcha accumulations. Being a nominal United Synagogue affiliate, their book display right outside the entrance had shelves of Siddur Sim Shalom and Chumash Eitz Chayim. On the advice of an usher, I took one of each.

After finding a suitable theater type seat giving me an unobstructed view of their elegant bimah with its stunning decorative woven needlepoint panels and the large screen TV on the opposite side to enable those present to see the worshippers attending via Zoom, I donned my tallis, applied the clips to minimize slippage, and sat down. Their President, his first Shabbos in that position, recognized me as unfamiliar, and stopped over to greet me. I told them that my college friend had been gunned down in the shooting, now not quite four years previously. No other event so defines their congregation. I had not seen Jerry since college graduation, though knew that he had been accepted to its medical school. I vaguely recalled an alumni magazine update of his whereabouts and his specialty, but perhaps the many news reports after the shooting created the more accurate memory. He knew Jerry well with his signature broad smile and vast array of bow ties. Apparently, we read about and focus upon the human victims, as we should, but the mortal projectiles were fewer than those that caused extensive property damage. He described almost a military level assault with multiple high-power weapons. The structural damage to a building its age prohibited cost-effective restoration. The Tree of Life engaged an architect to rebuild.

While not in their usual home, neither is my congregation, though from downsizing rather than destruction. We also became tenants, sharing a space with another synagogue for a while, that was never really our space, and now contracting with a church which feels more ours. While our Rabbi often said that a kehillah was the people and not where they worship, that always sounded incomplete. We really do define ourselves by our territory, from the Cave of Machpelah which established ownership and permanence to Israel as a place of Jewish sovereignty. No matter how well we do as somebody else’s guest, no matter how generous the host, losing your space, even when paid handsomely for it via sale in our case or insurance in theirs, it is still a displacement irrespective of the people.

The President estimated his congregational membership as 180 families, a tad more than ours, which would limit clergy, and perhaps building, though their tragedy prompted international donations. They have a Rabbi, a fellow with a pleasant tenor voice. In attendance, nineteen of which eight were men. On the Zoom screen five. While United Synagogue affiliates, in some ways my experience revealed some of the diversity beneath formal Conservative Judaism’s big tent. The congregational leadership and clergy designated two forms of shabbat morning worship, a 60-minute service alternating with a 90-minute service, my week being the shorter. In many ways it reminded me of my pre-Bar Mitzvah Junior Congregation, where popular prayers with tunes were highlighted, the unfamiliar or untuned blue penciled out. There was a non-repetition Amidah with matriarchs as part of the introduction. The Torah was not removed from the Ark at all. In its place the initial brachot over an Aliyah were recited by the congregation, followed by a rather engaging Torah study session. The parsha being Mattot-Maasei, the Rabbi chose to teach about the cities of refuge, focusing on what makes an accidental killing, a justified killing, and a murder. A revenge killing is regarded as justified unless the target makes it to one of the designated cities and hangs out there until the passing of the Kohen Gadol. Once that happens and the person returns to his land, that justified revenge killing gets reclassified into a murder. Some of their congregational experience emerged from the discussion. The Pittsburgh shooting was clearly a murder by any assessment and the parsha explicitly mandates capital punishment, though greatly modified in Talmudic discussions. Pennsylvania has a death penalty which is being sought, though among the Tree of Life survivors, there is divided opinion as to whether it should be pursued, with the Rabbi siding against it. From the discussion, that day four years back remains the focus of their community.

At the end of the discussion, maybe just under a half hour, the congregation recited the closing Aliyah brachah. There being no Torah to return, they did the communal blessings. For the sick, they asked for names, most given in English though I provided the Hebrew name of my brother-in-law recently post-op. In lieu of prayers for the government, military, and Israel which we recited at my shul, they had a handout with a responsive reading prayer for Ukraine. No musaf. Closing prayers limited to Aleinu, Kaddish, and Adon Olam. Kiddush from the bimah, wine and challah, though no munchies or schmoozing for the congregants. Services at my home congregation take about two and a half hours, following an orthodox siddur with but a ten minute break for sermon and full Torah chanting along with repetition of both Amidah’s. Adherence to tradition has become our calling card. Engagement or community seems theirs, with its abbreviated highlights of Shabbos morning. Each place has its own character, from the opulence of the host congregation, the simplicity of surroundings but no liturgy adaptations at mine, to selectivity of the worship experience but indelible memory at theirs. All different. All integral to what has become our American Jewish mosaic. All places to be on a sabbath morning, at least once.