It is not my way to emotionally reflect on what has led me to the present. It is not generally my way to take time to assess, analyze, celebrate myself or even wallow in the snake pit of my own regrets. In fact it’s not my way to stop and take time to measure anything. I am constantly, for those of you who know me well, churning onward, incessantly keeping busy and filling my life with what I believe needs to be done.

In writing about Moses, Elie Wiesel indicates that Moses’ portrait “as sketched by tradition is carefully balanced; we are shown his shortcomings as well as his virtues…. one even gets the impression that the Talmud would like to convince us that the greatest of our leaders was not really qualified to fulfill his duties… he was even a poor speaker… how could he possibly hope to galvanize his public? And yet, were it not for Moses we the Jewish people would not have become what we have become today.”

Well, I know I am no Moses. And yet there are moments such as these, moments that are profound in the scope of one’s own personal history, moments which mandate that one takes—that I take account and share with you, if not a complete full-length movie, at least some snapshots of what is for me now, what I reflect on, what I have done, what I am grateful for, and even perhaps a bit of what concerns me.

It was in March 2013 that I, after sitting with David Edelson, announced my decision to step aside as senior rabbi. As you know, it was not a decision taken lightly. It was in the spring of 1990 that I was asked by Central Synagogue to consider becoming its senior rabbi. I had not sought the position: I had no desire at that time to leave San Mateo, California, which was a pretty nice place to live. And it was in November 1990 that I met with the congregation in order for them to vote the decision of the search committee to make me the senior rabbi.

I have lived the fullness of my life therefore during the last 23 years with you. It was during my time here, in fact just two months before my first congregational meeting in 1992, that I met the woman who, like Moses’ wife was not born into the Jewish people. But Kerry fell in love with Judaism and this congregation, for which I am grateful, and she fell in love with it even before, I know, she fell in love with me. It was while I was here that Kerry began her conversion studies by her own choice with the rabbi who became “her rabbi” in San Rafael, California. It was during my time here, in 1995 (I believe), that Kerry converted, responding to my concerns about her motivation with the now-classic line, “I’m more convinced about being a Jew than I am convinced about being with you.”

It was in our Sanctuary in March 1995 that Kerry and I were married having invited the entire congregation. A thousand of you were at our wedding, presided over by our now-Cantor-Emeritus Richard Botton and Kerry’s two rabbis from California. This congregation only heard about one-quarter of what was being said at our wedding because our sound-system faded in and out. (That moment might be on the top five list of Livia Thompson’s worst moments as executive director.) You were there to provide the incubator for Kerry’s love of Judaism. You were there to celebrate our marriage, and then forty of you joined us on honeymoon which was a congregational trip to Israel that had been planned prior to our decision to get married. That congregational honeymoon trip began Kerry’s training in what it meant to be a rabbi’s wife.

It was also during my time here that both my parents died, my dad in July 2001 and my mother in September 2004. You supported me and my family. You consoled us during those terrible moments.

It was during my tenure here that my sons got married, my older son Michael in 2003 in the living room of our apartment, and our younger son Noah in New Orleans. Noah and Missy brought in their favorite rabbi to officiate, Angela Buchdahl. You were the first to hear about the birth of our first grandson as I announced it from the pulpit during Yom Kippur in 2009 and we left immediately following Neilah. We broke the fast that year on our flight to Los Angeles in order to be at our grandson Gabe’s brit milah the next day.

We, you and I, have been together for an incalculable number of life-changing events in all our lives. And we have been together for profound events that broke our collective hearts: a fire that destroyed our Sanctuary on that Friday afternoon just prior to Shabbat on August 28, 1998. We had lost our beloved Sanctuary, the home of our memories. It was a tremendous trauma but I insisted it was not a tragedy since no one was hurt, thank God. We cried, held hands, vowed that while we would need to wander, one day we envisioned that we would throw open the doors to a restored Sanctuary and return our Torah scrolls to their home in the ark. We did that on September 9, 2001. Remember that glorious Sunday, when with a platform built out onto Lexington Avenue, with the street closed to traffic, with the mayor and the governor and the cardinal and Israel’s counsel general and a host of city and religious leaders in attendance, the shofarot were blown on the steps outside our Sanctuary and we fulfilled our vow. We did throw open the doors of our Sanctuary, we did carry our Torah scrolls, we did place them in the ark. We returned home.

None of us would have imagined that afternoon would be the last time we or any other Jewish gathering, perhaps any other large public gathering in this country, would be held without snipers, security guards, metal detectors or bomb-sniffing dogs. Just two days after the euphoria of our rededication, on that morning of 9/11, the world changed forever.

Intuitively, hundreds of people, Jewish and not, our members and not, found their way to our Sanctuary for solace and strength on those days following 9/11.

Our congregation, which had become a national and local example of rebuilding from the ashes, was brought to the attention of President Bush when Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani introduced me to him during his first visit to Ground Zero. You may remember when Ronnie Sobel, the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, and I came to our Shabbat services then being held in Beir Chapel, I still had the ashes of ground zero on my shoes and I vowed to keep those ashes as a remembrance. Both Pataki and Giuliani came back to visit us after 9/11. Whatever one may think of their politics, I tell you these two men stood by us with unqualified personal and professional support when we needed help during the fire, when we needed permission to use the Park Avenue Armory for what became the perfect example of how we can be home wherever meet.

The congregation built and rebuilt, but it was not only our buildings. It was our character, our soul, our mission, our identity as a synagogue.

Today we are very much the same, and very different, from what we were 23 years ago. What has not changed one iota is the commitment of our membership. Some of you here remained by our sides even when you were not entirely happy with the changes I introduced.  What has not changed is your love of this synagogue, your belief that at times the health of this congregation is more important even than your comfort.

What has not changed is your faith that this congregation has a place at the heart of New York City. When asked the question after the fire, you didn’t want us to move from where we had been. You didn’t want us to build anywhere but where the four exterior walls of our destroyed building remained standing as though sentries after the collapse of our roof and the destruction of our Sanctuary’s interior.

What has not changed is the honor and personal support you give our clergy and our staff and the love and gratitude that you have always offered me. And what has not changed is the excellence of our leadership, the level of your support, both financial and otherwise.  What has not changed is that you stood by us at significant times of loss and in thunderous moments of celebration. And you continue to do that.

So what has changed? Well, almost everything else. For starters our liturgy and worship. This is not the same worshipping community I found when I first arrived 23 years ago. The tenor of our worship, the ever-evolving liturgies, the experiment with the use of more Hebrew, new rituals, the starting times, reading Torah on Friday evenings. Double services on Shabbat morning to accommodate significantly increased numbers of b’nei mitzvah. It is all so very different, it’s hard to imagine how it was 23 years ago.

And our size and demography has changed. We’ve more than doubled in size to what will become 2,300 household units as of July. Our schools have grown and this year we will have the largest Confirmation class since I’ve been here: 35 talented, gorgeous, and supremely good young men and women who are ready to take their place in Jewish life. I beg of you, come and celebrate with them on the evening of Shavuot, Tuesday, June 3 at 6 p.m. In them, you will see your future right in front of you.

But it is more than numbers that have changed. The demography of the congregation has changed. As a membership we are considerably younger than we were 23 years ago. There are more people in each one of our household membership units than before. All totaled, we have between 7,500 to 8,000 individuals who are members. And because our family units are younger, we are often responsible when the parents or siblings of our adult members are in need. So the pastoral responsibility of our clergy keeps expanding exponentially, as do the number of life-cycle events at which we need to officiate. Fortunately and gloriously we have more baby namings this year than I can remember and most of those choose to name their babies in front of the ark on Friday Shabbat.

And to indicate the youthfulness of our congregation, I computed that the average age of our executive committee, the officers of the congregation, is in the mid-50s. And the average length of their membership is only 14 years—but that includes one member, Peter Jakes who has been a member for 33 years. If he weren’t counted, the average length of the membership of our executive committee would be only 11 years.

We are a younger congregation. We have a younger leadership.

And we are a more robust congregation. We continue to increase our involvement in social justice programs, educational opportunities, involvement with the interreligious community, and with the Jewish community locally, nationally, and internationally. We are involved with and concerned about our national Reform congregations and through the WUPJ with progressive Jewry worldwide. We travel extensively to be with Jews around the world.  We were able finally to understand that, parochially, American Jewry is not all there is. This past year alone we were in Israel, Austria, Hungary, France, and Poland twice. We have been supportive of a day school in Mendoza, Argentina, a Reform seminary in Germany, the reform movement in Budapest, and upstart progressive congregations in Krakow, along with our continuing strong connection with the Jewish community in Minsk that now stretches over 8 years.

We believe that we cannot speak of Jews around the world as family without being with them in their times of need. We understand that to be a synagogue that matters, we need to be involved outside our walls as much as we are taking care of our own membership inside these walls.

In other ways we are not the congregation we were 23 years ago. We have full-time educators for our religious school children. We have new people in new positions that are being supported by you through the budget of this congregation and through an amazing YKA campaign, probably one of the largest, if not the single largest, annual campaigns of any congregation in the nation. We have a growing number of small groups within the congregation who are meeting, talking, studying, and learning about each other in order to continue what we have always set as our goal, to maintain a level of intimacy and knowledge of each individual in the congregation independent of the congregation’s size. We have hundreds of students passing through our Exploring Judaism class, and dozens of converts, somewhere upwards of 80, who have now become Jews through our program.

We keep travelling on the road to greater exploration, exhaustive creativity, and magnificent excellence in pursuing the mission of Jewish life and survival.

Now I have specific hopes with more practical implications.

1. On my wish list is that this congregation remains as supportive of progressive world Jewry as it has been. The WUPJ has a new president, Danny Friedlander. We have probably been the single biggest support of the WUPJ. I’d hope that we would reconnect in our commitment and support but now to additionally do it by engaging beyond the financial. The organizations of Reform Judaism need us, they need us to teach them how to be visionary, to be effective, and to matter.  They need you on the front lines of leadership. They need us to express our expectations. They need you to help them with what you’ve done for us here. Bring your wisdom, leadership, aspirations, and commitment to the larger stage. Stay committed, and stay supportive.

2. I also hope that we become active in improving with the quality and the increasing number of young people training to enter the Jewish professional world. We need more cantors, more rabbis, more educators, and more executive directors. We are not doing as well as we should be in channeling the best of our young people into Jewish professional life. We need as a congregation to engage in setting goals which would beckon, even urge our youth into a Jewish professional future. We should not be embarrassed about suggesting to them that the business world, the medical world and legal world is not all that should be considered.  There is a Jewish world that will be both fulfilling and wonderful for them. We need them now and we will need them even more in the future.

3. Lastly, on my list of concerns is our college students. I tell you we have not done enough. In fact, I tell you we have done nothing. We haven’t even begun. I’m not going to criticize Chabad or Hillel or the Orthodox Union for what they’re doing. To the contrary, I honor them and want to emulate them. We should be on the college campus. We should be hatching as a congregation new initiatives, using our own college graduates as interns to stay on their campus for two more years to help birth Reform Jewish life in their own alma maters.

I know it is one more responsibility, but why not. We‘ve had outrageous goals, we’ve believed in the impossible, why not take on the college campus and make sure that throughout this country, no Jew needs to be without a Reform Jewish presence. We can prove everything in the Pew Report wrong.

We’re about to enter a time of exquisite and exciting change as I step aside as Senior Rabbi. I also know that I could not have done it without my professional partners, all my colleagues, and, especially in these last years, the incomparable Angela Buchdahl. As it should be, she will be my rabbi, our rabbi in the years to come. She herself has added magic even more than music to our lives. She has lifted us, she has lifted me, and she has moved us, taught us, and strengthened us. No doubt this will continue and even more. I’m honored to have her as my successor.

It will be different. Of course it will be different and that’s as it should be. The world is changing and the Jewish world is keeping pace. Angela Buchdahl is the right rabbi at the right time to lead our congregation.  I’ve always said that not only will we be known, any one of us, for the leg we’ve run in the race of Jewish life—it is not about the 23 years I have spent or hopefully the decades she will spend—but we will also be judged by how we pass the baton. I will tell you that as careful as I’ve been, I know that without Angela running next to me stride by stride, without the deference and respect that she has shown me every step of the way, we in this congregation would not be as calm, as peaceful, as loving, and as certain as we are. I thank her for everything that she has given me.

And of course I want to pay special attention to my partnership with Livia Thompson. You know what I know, in fact what the entire community of Reform congregations in this country knows. Livia is far more than a senior director, our executive director. She is a visionary in her own right. She is impeccably honest, boundlessly courageous, and dazzlingly brilliant. But even more than that, she cares about each of you and she cares about each of us. She stood beside and behind me every step of the way entirely committed to making my dreams, our dreams for this congregation come true. She added muscle and sinew and flesh to the skeleton of my ideas. She is a treasure. I know it.  I know you know it. And the fact of the matter is that we should treasure her as much as she treasures us. The fact is we should know that as much as we may have birthed her from the time that she came to this congregation 22 years ago, she has birthed us in return.

Lastly, I want to make special note of the presidents of this congregation with whom I worked. No rabbi could ever imagine, much less believe the line of forcefully dedicated and wholeheartedly committed presidents with whom I’ve been partnered. They not only believed in this congregation, they believed in me.

I take special note of Michael Weinberger who took a chance on a young renegade from the West Coast and made my transition flawless. He decided to stay on an extra year just to assure that I didn’t falter or fall or get too bloody. He stood by me, he stands by this congregation even today. He is a great man. He was the president of this congregation but he is much more to me. In some extraordinary way, he was the person who began to make me believe that my dreams would be realized.

Following Michael was Mitch Rabbino who, sadly, many of you don’t know. Mitch had been the chair of the search committee that invited me to Central. He was the one who sent Carolyn Breidenbach and Harriet Kaufman in their dark black suits to San Mateo, California, explaining to them that they should blend in. There is no way that anyone in black suits would blend in in San Mateo, and my entire congregation knew immediately what was happening.

Sadly, Mitch died as a relatively young man in 2003 after a short illness. His presidency was only two years. He decided to retire from his legal career and move to Accord, New York. Mitch had an indelible soulfulness, an elegant grace, and great heart. His death pained both this congregation and Kerry and me personally. His wife Skit remains a good friend; she continues to live in Accord and often comes to this congregation to worship.

After Mitch, Marty Klein was our president and then Sam Wasserman. Sam too died as a relatively young man. He filled this place with his humor and laughter. Proudly a Baltimore product, he helped us in our rebuilding and was president during the rededication of our Sanctuary. He suffered a great trauma as the then-attorney general of our state investigated him. He was a man of integrity who would not admit to guilt for something he had not done and so in fact he spent every penny he had defending himself only to be found innocent just before he died. Sam began Mitzvah Day in his son’s memory and we who remember Sam honor his place in this congregation’s history.

Following Sam was an incredible list of extraordinary presidents: Alfred Youngwood, Howard Sharfstein, Ken Heitner, and now David Edelson. David Edelson has been my partner, my support, my counselor, my friend during what has been obviously a very challenging time in my life. He and Cindy have been by our sides, Kerry’s and mine, and I simply, as a man and not only as a rabbi, thank David for being there when I needed him. And there are others of you in this congregation this evening who in fact have left an indelible memory in guiding me through my life decisions.

Every one of these presidents has been enormous in their support and their belief in me, in Central Synagogue, and in Jewish life. There is no way to measure the difference they’ve made. But this I know. They stood up for this congregation when we needed it. They took chances on initiatives for which, though the purpose was clear, the success was not assured.  I remember Alfred Youngwood once explaining what his role as president was: “After the rabbi sends me three emails saying that he has an idea, after I set them aside on my desk three times, I know when I receive it the fourth time I better take him seriously. And it was my responsibility as president to make what he dreamed come true.”

They represented us with dignity and soulfulness and often with great humor. They themselves often said that servicing the congregation did as much, if not more, for them as for us. I can’t say whether that equation was true. But what I do know is that each of them touched my heart, sat with me when I was struggling or feeling sad or weak or uncertain, and they never, ever betrayed my confidence. And that’s miraculous in this day and age.

More so they buoyed me up, affirmed their support, and propelled me forward. They and their spouses gave honor and friendship to me and Kerry. The line between the official and the personal became porous. We were just friends standing shoulder to shoulder on behalf of and in support of Jewish life.

You and our presidents have always been extraordinary. I tell the story to others. My colleagues can’t really understand it until they come and sit in one of our meetings, or spend a day with us and understand that in fact we have done what they say we’ve done, which is to create a remarkable institution with a remarkable national and international reputation.

And of course I’m grateful to my clergy and other colleagues who have served with me in servicing this congregation.

Do you know how lucky we are? I do. The events that have taken place in testimony and gratitude these past weeks could not have been more perfect. Under the overall chair, Beth Rustin, who together with her committee and with all of you have been as gracious, loving, decent, thoughtful as could be imagined and even beyond. I have been deeply touched to the very limits of my soul.

One other thing. I’ve mentioned Kerry. My ability to do what I’ve done here entirely depended on her support, her willingness to give me the nod to leave from vacation because a family needed me for a funeral. She graciously had dinners in our home, greeted each of you with her understated loveliness, joined me at shivah calls, almost never missed a Friday evening service—for sometimes it was the only time during the week we could see each other. Kerry is not only the love of my life. She is my mentor in goodness. She is my helpmate in supporting my rabbinate. She is a proud and passionate Jew.

In some ways, we will go in different directions, but not entirely. Because my heart remains here. My love for this synagogue is boundless and forever. My hopes and dreams for this congregation and for myself continue to soar. The future remains in our hands and it is bright. Jewish life is in our spirit and it is glorious. And our Jewish mission pulses through us. That is our promise. That is our vision. Not let us make it our reality.

Thank you.