Used to be

There is no predictability to it, but it happens more often than I would ever imagine. This past weekend, it happened three times.

It has been over 26 years since I left my position as chaplain at Brown. The 11 years there were early in my career. My career and life have taken many twists and turns since those days. And when I look in the mirror, I barely recognize the person whom these folks remember from as many as 37 years ago.

To be a university chaplain means that lots more people know you than you know. And my own career at Brown began and ended with unique visibility – when appointed in 1971, I was the first university employed Jewish chaplain in the Ivy League, and when I left, I delivered the baccalaureate address – an honor, I was told, since the speakers the previous 81 years of the 20^th century were from outside the university. Between newspaper pictures and podium, there may have been many reasons for many to recognize me.

But, it appears, those 11 years were more prolific and memorable to more people than I would have had reason to know. Sometimes the greeting is “aren’t you…?” or “you don’t remember me but…” During this past year alone, two who have had noteworthy careers reminded me of the influence I had on those careers – recalled with great specificity. Others simply note the connection, however passing, that they as students had with me, or recall a talk I gave, a class I taught, a chat we had.

I confess that I am flattered, humbled, and not a little discomfited by these moments. Retrospection does reinforce that much of what I helped foster during those years was indeed innovative and ahead of its time, much more so than I knew at the time. Many of the projects or approaches we developed were models of those which even today would be considered cutting edge. I have become aware of the very large number who chose rabbinic careers or who have taken other community leadership roles, numbers which far exceed the proportional expectations of a community of Brown’s size. [And in numbers which seemed not to have continued after I left.] A surprising number of folks met their spouses at the Hillel.

Retrospection also allows a perspective on what made those years so memorable to so many. It is true, I suspect that I had a direct influence over some few, but a very few. Most of those who remember me, even when they do so fondly, don’t give me personal credit for their choices or accomplishments. [I have to assume that some even have negative recollections – over 11 years one cannot have good without some bad.]

It is clear, though, that something else was happening during those years beyond my personal relationships. It was, I believe, my unwavering commitment to foster a community of acceptance, creativity, pluralism, empowerment, and excellence. I was lucky:

I learned very early that for students, it doesn’t matter what happened 4 years earlier. If they didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. So what if they make some mistakes along the way? It was the constant willingness to reinvent, while affirming the values mentioned above, which gave it vitality.

Brown students and faculty are bright, thoughtful, motivated. I learned that students and faculty didn’t need a community built around a charismatic leader; they did need someone whom they respected but also recognized that their communities had to be their own.

At the same time, although this took me longer to understand, there was a need for leadership. Not a leadership built around personality but a leadership built around vision. By the time I left, I figured that out. I now wish I had realized that earlier on since I suspect that many missed out by my unwillingness to take a more public leadership role in matters that might have mattered to them.

I learned that there were many communities. Any assumption that all students and faculty wanted, needed, or imagined the same things was a flawed approach. It was quite sobering to talk to seniors who were at Hillel every day of their 4 years who considered themselves outsiders and other seniors who only attended annual High Holiday services who told me how connected and central they felt. My personal perspectives had only coincidental relationship to what students and faculty experienced. It was a lesson which has served me well in my professional life in the ensuing years.

I learned that there needed to be credible within the university. Students and faculty at a place like Brown were first and foremost Brown students and faculty. There was an implicit competition for ideas and ideals; there was an ethos which defined the everyday; there was a sense of what was central and what was transient or peripheral. If I chose to see myself as simply a “programmer” for those who happened to come, I would have not been able to put those programs in the context of the complete lives students and faculty were living.

I learned that my job was not to get students to major in Jewish life. Our charge was to model a community which could inform a lifetime which would follow those very privileged years. I believed, and now know that it was often true, that we created something special during those years. But if what was remembered was a romanticized ideal and not a vibrant and portable model, then it would have been the wrong message.

At the end, I learned that it was time to leave. At age 37, I could already see that I would be burned out and the last thing a university community needs [indeed any community needs] is a leader who might simply be going through the motions. I knew it was time to move on when what excited me every day were different challenges than the students and faculty had a right to expect. I realized that another needed to help reinvent, create, respond, empower, enrich, and lead such a vibrant collection and collective.

What I didn’t fully understand was how leaving also meant that I was bringing to an end my influence on individual lives. I no longer was to be the chaplain/religious leader. I would rarely again be active in important rites of passage for students, faculty, families, times joyous and thrilling, times sad and tragic. While I would go on from there to build and sustain numerous institutions, never again would I be building and sustaining a community. Rarely would I ever again be in a position to be present when so many individuals made choices which determined the directions of their lives. There were assets and attributes which defined those years which have surfaced only occasionally in the ensuing ones.

I have no regrets that I left that role and that place. It was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. But as the years have gone on, I have come to value and cherish how unique and special that time was – for me. And as I have come to understand, it seems that it was for others as well.