KA CC Archive Mar 2024

After many months of study and learning with Ethel Pila and Rabbi Blatt, I had the wonderful opportunity of becoming an Adult Bat Mitzvah! This was something I had thought about doing many times, each time one of my kids had a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. But I never did it. This time, I DID IT!

For our event, we all had an opportunity to give a D’var Torah. On Friday night, I presented a poem I had from a book that was many years old. People have asked about this poem, so I thought this month’s article would be a good chance to present the poem. And here it is.

WE WAIT TOO LONG by Sidney Greenberg

We often wait too long to find our way back to the synagogue, to work at the self-renewal of which the holy days remind us. While we wait our lives become progressively depleted of spiritual content. The estrangement between us and our heritage grows larger and more painful.

We wait too long to become more deeply involved in Jewish observance and Jewish study. While we wait, the time for the harvest comes, and we haven’t even planted.

We wait too long to do what must be done today, in a world which gives us only one day at a time, without any assurance of tomorrow. We frequently lament that our days are so few, and yet, we procrastinate as though we had an endless supply of time.

We wait too long to show kindness. And often we thereby lose the opportunity. How many lines of thanks or encouragement are waiting for us to be written? How many words of solace are waiting for us to be spoken?

We wait too long to be charitable. Too much of our giving is delayed until much of the need has passed and the joy of giving has been largely diminished.

We wait too long to speak the words of forgiveness which should be spoken, to set aside the hatreds that should be banished.

We wait too long to discipline ourselves and to take charge of our lives. We feed ourselves the vain delusion that it will be easier to uproot tomorrow the debasing habits which we permit to tyrannize over us today, whose command over us grows more deeply entrenched each day they remain in power.

We wait too long to be parents to our children – forgetting how brief is the time during which they are children, how swiftly life urges them on and away.

We wait too long to read the books that are waiting to be read, to see the beauty which is here to be seen, to hear the music which is here to be heard, to seek repentance which is within reach, to utter the prayers which are waiting to cross our lips, to perform the duties waiting to be discharged, to show the love that may no longer be needed tomorrow.

We wait too long in the wings, when life has a part for us to play on stage.

Our prayer book reminds us that God is waiting – waiting for us to stop waiting, and to proceed with all haste to begin to do now, all the things for which this day was made.

Many in this B’nai Mitzvah class have waited too long, but now we wait no longer. We each have reached the time for us to take charge and renew our devotion to God and to Judaism.

I wait no longer to be strengthened in my determination to be a Bat Mitzvah. I have found renewal and regeneration in my efforts to accomplish this achievement. I am grateful for the opportunity that was given me, and I have enjoyed the learning involved and the companionship of this wonderful group of people who have made this journey with me. We are a group of people from our twenties to Ruth who is now 100 who have decided to wait no longer. We are now a Bat or Bar Mitzvah.

Sharon Cross
Sisterhood President