I have to confess something many of you already know…my favorite Beth El-ite was Ann Mintzer. She and Mike were super-wonderful in the two years I was your student rabbi. Suzy and I visited her every summer, and we’d have lunch at Shoney’s, of blessed memory (Of course Ann, too, is of blessed memory!). On the occasion of Ann’s 90th birthday she asked me to speak at the Shabbat service held in her honor…and I was honored to accept.
I told the congregation that before I began, I had a task to perform. I stepped off the bimah, walked over to Estelle and Josh Robinson and shook his hand. He knew why I had done that.
You see, it was Josh who saved my professional life because he was late for dinner one night.
I had applied to a number of congregations, among others the one I served for 37 years and one in Florida. Now while this story is a bit convoluted and my space is limited and you’ll nod off (and I believe I wrote about it when I first came here this go-round), I’ll get to the nitty-gritty…
The Florida rabbi whose Assistant I would have become had asked me to send a few things I had written. I sent one sermon and one out of about twenty newsletter articles I had written in the course of my tenure in Beth El. It happened by chance to have been the only article in which I mentioned the name of Josh Robinson. It turns out that Josh and this rabbi were law school roommates.
The rabbi called to find out about me. Estelle told him, “Josh is home for dinner every night at 6:00. I don’t understand why, but he’s not home as yet” (There had been an auto accident that had stopped traffic). The rabbi finally got in touch with Josh at 8:00. When the Florida rabbi called to offer me the position, I informed him that he was too late; I had accepted the position in Wilmington one hour earlier. He told me what had happened, and that he just had to “shoot the breeze” with Josh.
How did Josh Robinson save my professional life? This rabbi never let an assistant stay longer than two years, but my senior in Wilmington was far more secure. I was his associate for ten and then succeeded him as Senior Rabbi. Who knows where I would have wound up after those two years in Florida, but nowhere would it have been as wonderful as my rabbinate in Wilmington.
And that’s why I had to shake Josh Robinson’s hand!
And that’s ONE thing I’ve been thankful for all these years.
And maybe one day I’ll tell you about Josh and the 1970 World Series.