Shabat Shalom!

Thank you very much for welcoming us formally this night!

I think that it was a good idea to plan this reception one month after our coming to Roanoke because that gave us time to settle down. And now we can thoroughly enjoy this moment.

I want to make use of this moment to thank formally all the people who have helped us in this first month, which was a somewhat difficult time, and we hope we will continue to count on your help in the future.

Now, if I ask you, "Who is a good Rabbi?", probably I would get as many answers as the number of people who are here. What happens is, because rabbinical work is so personal and so diffuse, it is difficult to define.

I like to joke saying that a Rabbi is a person who has as many bosses as there are members in his congregation (and I mean members, not families).

Regarding this point, someone told me: "Rabbi, it is impossible to please everybody."

So, may I say that for the people I will please, I will be a good Rabbi. And for those I can’t please, will I be a bad one?

Is that what defines a good or a bad Rabbi? Does the fact that I am a person with good manners make me automatically a good Rabbi?

And on the other hand, if I do not please somebody, does it mean that this person cannot judge my work?

Let us imagine a surgeon. This surgeon has very nice manners. He is very polite and always arrives at his dates on time. He smiles at his patients and gives sweets to the kids. He answers the phone in a very nice way, and dedicates a long time to explaining to his patients the procedure of his surgery. What happens is that 9 out of 10 of his patients die after the surgery. I am sure you would not like to put your lives in the hands of such a surgeon.

Now you will tell me, "Rabbi, it is very important for a surgeon to be a good person, but it is not enough. To be a good surgeon, he needs to do his job well."

Dear friends: What is clear regarding a surgeon, is also absolutely clear regarding a Rabbi. To please as many people as possible and to have good manners is very important, more important than for a surgeon, but it is still not enough. And what is more, it is not synonymous with doing his job well.

People tell me that I have good manners, that I am polite, and that it is very nice how I remember the names of almost everybody.

For me it would be wonderful if my congregation judged my work based on these parameters, but, if I let you judge my work only on these parameters, that will be similar to judging a surgeon based on his cordiality.

A Rabbi needs to be judged by his personality but especially by the way his personality is expressed in his specific work. And I believe that my specific work is to lead the members of my congregation to study the Torah and fulfill its commandments.

My work consists also in helping them feel the joy and the pride of being Jewish, to bring them back to their roots, to our tradition, to the color and beauty of our rituals and to the eternal wisdom of our texts.

It is based on these parameters, I think, that I need to be judge at the end of my stay in Roanoke:

How much did the members of my congregation study?

How much have they committed themselves to the commandments of our tradition?

How much do they feel the pride and the joy that it means to be Jewish?

Tomorrow, in our weekly parasha -parashat Ree- we’ll read:

Maimonides teaches us that "Anyone, even someone who had been acknowledged as a prophet, is automatically shown to be false if he claims to have been sent by God to advocate any form of idolatry" (Rambam, Hiljot Yesodei HaTorah 9:3), no matter how many miracles a prophet may perform.