When everything turns upside-down

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This isn't the way I wanted to say goodbye.

Back in January, which now feels as if it was a lifetime ago, the news broke that Temple Sha'arey Shalom in Springfield would be getting set to explore a potential merger. As a result of that process, one way or another, the synagogue would be ending independent operations on June 30, 2020.

What should have transpired was a celebration of the temple's life. Perhaps some sadness, but in the end, joy over the temple being what it was. The last Friday night service would have probably been on June 26. There would have been time for one last clothing drive, one last group photo or trip, one last shared memory.

Instead, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic currently tearing its way around the globe...Everything. Just. Stopped. New Jersey has been locked down in some form or another since mid-March, with no end in sight, and at the time this blog post is being written, no clear path forward.

Among the many casualties of the pandemic is the synagogue. My synagogue. It's the place where I was given my Jewish name, where I went to religious school, where I became a Bar Mitzvah and a confirmand. And while I drifted away in recent years from a combination of changing attitudes and work overlap, it always felt like home when I returned for the High Holidays and other celebrations and events.

My sadness over the oncoming closure lies mostly in the fact that the ending is definitive and yet so unsatisfactory. It's the difference between the death of a relative that's drawn out over weeks and months versus one that strikes like a bolt out of the blue.

Both are sad, but for entirely different reasons and sets of circumstances.

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The looming closure of Sha'arey Shalom is just one of the many things that have drastically changed for me in a short period of time. Since my last blog post, which was over a year ago (I really should remember to keep up with this thing), almost everything in my life has shifted uncomfortably.

The starting point for this portion of the essay begins on August 12, 2019. I had just come home after an incredible weekend covering ArenaBowl 32. I also had my continued employment with TAPinto to look forward to, as well as the beginning of a new school and coverage year. The temple was still running in-person services and I had locked down my commitment to a rigorous gym routine that was starting to show results.

And then, at the moment of what felt like my greatest joy, everything began to crumble brick by brick. A draining election coverage season led to me falling off the wagon at the gym. Then, just weeks before Thanksgiving, the Arena Football League, which had just been talking about expansion, folded like a tent under the threat of lawsuits over unpaid bills.

It was an exceptionally dark time for me mentally. I felt like my energy and motivation were both less than zero. There were days where I would lay in bed all day doing nothing, before showering and changing into a new set of pajamas or going out to cover an evening meeting.

Eventually I began to pull out of it. The fine folks at Total Sports Live brought me on board for podcasting. A fellow beat reporter at the Soul games made me an offer to be the team reporter for the Jersey Flight of the National Arena League. I rediscovered my passion for news and got back to basics.

But even that wasn't destined to last. Along the way, my TSL co-writer and I were rejected for press passes to cover the XFL. Then the news about Sha'arey Shalom hit. Then came the pandemic, swallowing lives and livelihood in equal measure, confining us inside our houses for God-knows-how-long.

Like many other people, I am nothing if not a creature of habit. But how do you maintain being a creature of habit, when every single habit is upended?

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Which brings me back around to the main topic of this essay, the closure of Temple Sha'arey Shalom. The natural inclination is to fall back to where I was and where I have been even recently from time to time.

That's not happening this time around

No matter what happens, at the end of next month, I will have to move forward without the congregation I've known my entire life. I'm not really sure where to begin. I don't know what that first service will be like at a new congregation. I suppose in a roundabout way, that I'm most saddened by the fact that I will never again have the option to go in those familiar doors, sit in those familiar pews, or stand behind that familiar lectern ever again.

Normally this is where I bring it in for a landing. Maybe I write some grand sweeping platitudes about hope in the face of an utterly uncaring Universe. This is not one of those essays. I see no clear path forward. But if I stay preocupied over the loss of my temple, or any other thing I've had to shed behind, I will drown in those memories, and I will never move forward.

All that I, and the rest of the congregants and staff, can do is just keep moving forward. We are all Tevye and the Fiddler, and we will leave our little village and its ghosts behind.

"Soon I'll be a stranger in a strange new place,

Searching for an old familiar face

From Anatevka."

-Fiddler on the Roof