THE PRIVILEGE OF MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

OK, we live in a lousy world. I awaken to that reality with every morning’s headlines. Yet, it is only 10 AM, and I am already euphoric.

What did it this morning? Well, I just finished a breakfast meeting with 25 interested and interesting folks who are brainstorming (actually, “blue-sky-ing,” is the voguish term) a new children’s museum for Greenville. Wow . . . ideas flowed. Reminiscences were savored. Reports on what a bunch of kids generated at yesterday’s blue-sky session were shared. Flipcharts were filled with every imaginable possibility and dutifully taped to the wall . . . And, you got the profound sense that your were actually being heard and forever bonded to something momentous that was about to happen in this half-backward, half-progressive town that splits the distance between Atlanta and Charlotte.

The details for now are inconsequential. It is the privilege that I savor – the privilege to be a party to making things happen.

The cynic would say, “Sure, you finally found yourself a pond small enough for you to be a big fish.” Maybe so. But, it took an unanticipated, certainly unplanned, size-wise step-down to Greenville five years ago to finally give me the sense that I am a genuine partner in making things happen. A Habitat for Humanity house. Or a residence for people with AIDS. Or a coalition for interfaith understanding. Or a Jewish teacher’s resource center. Or a children’s Holocaust library collection. Or a forum for promoting an interdisciplinary discussion of bioethical issues. And now, surely this phenomenal museum for rich kids and poor kids to learn and experience together .

The sense of being on the frontline of making things happen goes beyond simply “rewarding.” It is almost intoxicating, a euphoria that a little guy like me could likely have never replicated in Chicago, New York, or Atlanta.

What is more, we here are experiencing a hunger for Jews, and the rabbi in particular, to help make things happen, in this quintessentially goyishe town that gains both fame and notoriety from its Bob Jones epicenter of radical Protestant fundamentalism. [And no, it is not that cynical “well, duh, that’s because the Jews have all the money!” Ironically, the Jewish community of Greenville, while hardly impoverished, is not incredibly rich by the standard of other similar Southern Jewish communities.] Rare are the instances that I am not asked to sit on a particular civic board or participate in some kind of community-beneficial undertaking. I cannot say that I have never felt like the token Jew – but, again, the instances are rare.

Once upon a time, Greenville actually had a Jewish two-term mayor, a German-accented Holocaust survivor, Max Heller, who is singularly credited with the economic development and Main Street renaissance of the city. True, he was roundly defeated in a bid for Congress in an openly anti-Semitic campaign. Nevertheless, to this day, he is the single most recognizable, and dare I say most respected, citizen of Greenville. Max, now in his 80’s, has a still-sharp wit and a still-tart tongue. As I was being interviewed for the rabbinical position, he made no bones about needing a rabbi that he would not be ashamed to put before the community.

I respect him for that, and I pray that I have never – wittingly or unwittingly – betrayed his confidence. When all is said and done, being put before the community is not a tedium or inconvenience. It is a noble calling. And, it is especially gratifying when it happens in a place where you actually sense that you can make things happen – a kid who will be a little smarter, an adult who will be a little more religiously and racially tolerant, an HIV patient who will be a little more hopeful, a family who will live with a little more dignity.

As I say, when God so blesses you, the feeling goes waaaaay beyond “rewarding.” It is intoxicating, euphoric. It makes you want to get up in the morning, despite whatever the day’s headlines read.