Letters From Australia

Dear Toby and David,

During your seven month stay, you've made a lot of friends in Australia, and we are among them. So, I want to start with the personal before discussing the probable effect of your stay on the future of Judaism along the Pacific Rim.

Had we written a list of expectations, dancing would not have been among them. Then, when we saw you two dancing, not the "hora" or "shaftem mayim b'sasson", but dances of the present time, we knew we were swinging into a new style of Judaism, not formal or reverential, but something in the style of what you see is what you've got. And we cheered you on.

People come through as people and are liked because of their weaknesses. You never hid that your weakness, David, is food. I shall long remember your comment about the culinary potential of the Gold Coast: "So many restaurants, so little time". Your other weakness is, of course, perfectionism. We cursed more than once because you always started on time. It seemed insensitive, egocentric, and darned right inconsiderate. But, this terrible disadvantage had its other side - the highest professional standards by someone absolutely committed to his work. We liked that side of it.

The public part of your marriage, too, seemed very modern. Because of an absolute equality, Toby never hesitated to take you on in a discussion of Jewish philosophy, your own area of expertise. We had the impression that your married life is, from this perspective, an on-going dialogue of two very independent personalities. At no point does one have to yield to the other. That also pleased us.

On the personal level, you've always been available and you have always accepted invitations. You listened patiently to our questions, questions often not aimed at your knowledge, but intended to show how much we know. People bent your ear mercilessly. Your patience and our ability to exploit it seemed endless. For this we apologize. Perhaps the most surprising thing, again on the personal level, was your ability to reach out to everyone. Not long ago in a conversation with a friend, my friend said to me: "For the first time we had someone whose ideas about Judaism are the same as ours". I was amazed because I know my friend's ideas about Judaism are quite different from mine.

You, David, had somehow reached both of us. You managed to span a range of people from the nostalgic-for- orthodoxy to those who consider themselves only-traditional Jews. Quite something.

You notice, I've yet to mention the word Rabbi, but I will now. When we first spoke about this Rabbi who was ready to take us on for 7 months (from Rosh Hashana till after Pesach, so we could get the maximum of mileage out of him) I said, "Let's not expect too much from him, after all we're giving him so little". So, when you swung into the job as though it were a life-time appointment, we were stunned. It seemed too good to be true. But it was true.

You took on the services and gave us the serious sermons we longed for. You bat-mitzvahed and buried, re-married and responded, taught cheder, taught adults, taught converts, and you gave us two moving conversion celebrations. Above all, you demonstrated that there is work for a Rabbi at the Gold Coast Liberal shul.

I won't say more because we don't want to send you back to America with a swelled head. I just want to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this letter: what was the probable effect of your stay on the future of Judaism along the Pacific Rim? I checked it out with the Jewish communities of New Zealand, The Solomon Islands, Papua-New Guinea, Manila, Osaka, and Tokyo. They all said: not at all. This was in sharp contrast to the response I received from the Jews on the Gold Coast who said, "enormous", "unbelievable", "an impossible act to follow".
With love from your Aussie Mates,

Subj: your diary Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 8:24:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Dear Toby and David,

I've been meaning to write, having undertaken to react to Toby's diary which we have both been enjoying enormously. But I got distracted, by the news from Israel and a dozen other things..... Anyway, I've now cleared the decks and the next half-hour or so is yours.

About your diary: I think it has the makings of a book. In the first place it's well-written and, even more important it makes interesting reading, not only to your friends but also, I think, to the general reader. You diary is much more than a listing of events, a personal guide book. It is an imaginative recounting of your adventures and misadventures refracted through a sensitive and intelligent mind. And more than that, there's quite a lot of humour.

If it were to make a book it would need a small amount of editing and perhaps some additional responses to add content, perhaps something of the discussions you must have had with David on the way. From this point of view I think the best is yet to come.

You are prepared to find a different America when you return and, perhaps, even a different Toby. If you can devote time to getting these impressions down, as fresh and direct as your present stuff, I think we'll have a treasure.

I'll stop lest you get swelled-headed, and go back to my discussion of what has been going on along the Pacific Rim since you left. Rising anti-semitism and a growing solidarity among the Jews of the Gold Coast. We'll be off to a demonstration in support of Israel in Brisbane in about 10 days. What seems to be happening in Europe, and to some extent here, is that the anti-semites have jumped on the wave of criticism of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and this has led to attacks on Jews, Jewish property, and synagogues. So far things have been relatively mild in Australia, but the feeling is that worse is to come.

Perhaps some of the Jewish response is reflected in the fact that Temple attendance hasn't fallen off since you left. My own feelings are that we are heading for trouble. The negotiations with the Rabbi from Melbourne have ceased. The word is that she asked for too much money. Nobody talks of searching for a rabbi although I don't know of everything that is going on. We are back to 4 people, old and in poor health, running the services. My guess is that statistically, two of them won't be active within three years and the other two won't be able to carry on... The hospitality side, always important and even more so with an aging community, is in crisis because the people who have been running it so well ... This means, in effect, the return of the old guard One of the positive signs is that the converts are becoming active in the services. We all acted to integrate them and I think it worked. The old sarcastic remarks have been dropped and they are given honours that they carry out with aplomb...The truth is, I think they are only ones who truly believe in God.

In an email June 5, 2002

You seem to have discovered the central irony of travel: you don't really learn much about the places you visit. What you actually learn about is the place or places you're coming from. Your journey overseas has sent you back with a new vision of where you were. You may be in the same house but it is a different one because you've changed.

In a way every country is a critique of every other one, just as each person's life is a critique of the lives of others. Otherwise we'd be dull and uninteresting. This is one of the reasons we enjoyed talking to you so much.

The quality of your writing remains high. It is full of humour and irony: of "trying to find relaxation and peace in retirement" (you can't), of David having "to learn to pray during services", of how your "cup runneth over with free refills of pop", of the American deer that apparantly have "less street smarts" than the kangaroos.