Remarks on May 26, 2006 on receiving my Doctor of Divinity Degree - Temple Beth Sholom, Topeka, KS

One of the special gifts I received for the occasion of receiving my Doctor of Divinity degree was from Rhonda and Adam – it is the tallit that I am wearing for the first time tonight.  I expected that the first time I would use it would be at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion graduation ceremony held last Sunday at Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Because the event was a graduation, and not a religious service, I saved my tallit for tonight, and prepared to receive the special hood and certificate that signify a milestone in my rabbinate.   Still, there were religious aspects of this essentially academic gathering.  I wore my kippah from Adam’s Bar Mitzvah.   As we sat in the robing room prior to the ceremony, Professor Lowell McCoy, an ordained minister who taught speech and communication at Hebrew Union College, delivered a meaningful and poignant meditation.  Students regard Dr. McCoy as a true mensch – a principled, decent and gentle human being.  He served as associate dean during the year I was ordained, and I was honored to have the acting dean of that time, Dr. Samuel Greengus, as my sponsoring faculty member when I ascended the bimah to become, after 25 years, a doctor.

     The graduation included the presentation of doctoral and masters degrees to students who had focused on various themes of biblical and rabbinic literature, and most of those students were up-and-coming Christian scholars.    The graduation address by Professor John Kampen, who studied in Cincinnati at the same time I did, highlighted the Interreligious nature of the college, and how important it was for cultivating mutual understanding and productive dialogue from our various faith perspectives.

     Not all students who are ordained receive a Doctor of Divinity degree – we were told that, “it’s not just making it through 25 years – it is making a contribution to the Reform movement and to the congregation and community that makes a rabbi eligible for this honorary doctorate.  Dr. David Ellenson, president of the college, said that we do work for this degree – every day, for 25 years.  Rather than researching a topic and writing and defending a doctoral-level thesis, we study the bible and rabbinic literature as we prepare for study groups and sermons.  Instead of of delving into the finer points of liturgy, we lead and create worship experiences every week.   Using what we learned about Christianity through our courses in Jewish history and electives in the gospels and other texts, we engage in conversations with clergy across the spectrum of Christianity.   Although we are often called upon as “Old Testament experts,” or, in my terminology, Hebrew bible mavens, we learn by reading new works by learned authors and discussing with our neighbors the impact of everything from “The Passion of the Christ” to the “DaVinci Code” to the ongoing question, “Was the Last Supper a Pesach Seder or not?”    We took classes in practical rabbinics and very basic pastoral education, but we discover that every day constitutes a rabbinic practicum and offers new lessons in human relations and counseling.  And rather than sitting in classrooms listening to professors and taking notes, the Temple becomes the classroom. And you have been, for the last 22 years,  my teachers along the way to this rabbi’s doctor of divinity degree.  

        There were nine members of our class of 44 who gathered in Cincinnati this past Sunday, most of us with our families.   7 of us are serving congregations large, medium-sized and small, one is a professor of philosophy at a small college in upstate New York, and one directs Girls Incorporated in her community....There is one thing that has always been true about my rabbinic class – we respect each other and remember how our experiences together created the foundation for the 25 years that have followed.    

     Dr. Ellenson called each of us up to the bimah and read our certificate and citation, which concluded with the words, LICHVOD TORAH V’LOMDEHAH – in honor of the Torah and those who study it.”   It was honor to celebrate with my colleagues, my study partners for five years on the road to the rabbinate.  It is an honor to celebrate with you, my study partners and colleagues for over two decades as we make Judaism and Torah come alive in our midst.  So may we continue to do along our life paths.  And let us say Amen.