Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

When I arrive at the Bushey United Synagogue, Rabbi Nick Kett is in the midst of his afternoon prayer. A group of men stand together in the main shul, a bright open space with blue curtains adorned with stunning embellishments and gold embroidery.

Behind the curtain, the Torah scrolls are concealed as the men continue in silent prayer. Orthodox Jews pray three times a day and I have arrived amid Mincha, the afternoon service.

I wait outside the main shul and feel like an intruder as I peer into the room where the men are huddled in prayer. I turn my eyes away to avoid interrupting their personal prayers, their opportunity to connect directly with God.

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Rabbi Nick comes out to meet me shortly after, and I am greeted with a welcoming smile. I have seen just a small fragment of his day. That morning, they had held a Bar Mitzvah celebration. Rabbi Nick then taught a class before the men prayed and I arrived. After I left, he would be officiating a funeral.

"And who knows what will come about by the evening?", he says. "You get these peaks and troughs. On Tuesday, I did a wedding at lunchtime, and after that it was back to back funerals and home visits for the bereaved family, so you ride the waves."

Nick has been the community Rabbi at Bushey United Synagogue for nearly five years. He and his wife Shira, who also plays an important role as part of the Rabbinic team, had previously worked in Hale in south Manchester, where they had been working with the young families and youth.

Rabbi Nick shakes his head and laughs when I ask if he had always wanted to be a Rabbi, adding: "I grew up in a very observant home. It was very community focused. My parents were always very involved with, not just the Jewish community, but other community initiatives as well. So I always knew I was destined to get my hands dirty."

He studied law in Manchester but was working as a youth leader alongside his degree and realised he was better at community work than law. After university, he studied for the Rabbinate in Israel, during which he met and married Shira.

But he explains that there is so much he did not know about being a Rabbi until he started working in the community, saying: "You teach but you're also a counsellor in some ways, because you're speaking to members of your community and officiating at their life cycle."

He chuckles as he adds: "You're also a glorified events planner. I'm now a YouTuber, because of Covid and everything going online. Those are the things you don't know when you're studying for the Rabbinate."

Rabbis are there for so many stages of a person's life.

Rabbi Nick explains: "You step into people's lives at the point of birth, at the point of Bar Mitzvah for a boy, Bat Mitzvah for a girl, a wedding. Then when they have children, they step in again, and at the end as well with bereavement. In the last four weeks, I think we've had 10 bereavements unfortunately. It's a lot of juggling and a lot of families to try and support.

"We're also teaching. We've got different classes, on different topics and for different people. We have our regular services here, so three daily services, a big event on a Shabbat (Saturday) morning. Beyond that, is trying to squeeze in every email, phone call."

When asked if the pressure of so much responsibility ever feels overwhelming, Rabbi Nick says: "It can do, especially when it all builds up, but I have a great team around me. I feel very privileged. You get a sense of feeling very privileged that you can be there for people when they need it. And it's great when that's for a happy time.

"But when people are at their most vulnerable, and when they need you the most, it's very...", Rabbi Nick hesitates as he struggles to find the words. "It really strikes a chord. You can be there for someone, and it's always nice when it's for a joyous occasion.

"But often it's not for joyous occasions, and people really need that support, especially in a case of bereavement when things are so raw. We're able to hold their hands and be there for them, and they're often very grateful. We can be a comfort for them."

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A Rabbi's role is different to that of a therapist or social worker, however, in that these are people who they know well. They are a part of the community and sadness is often deeply personal. It is more difficult to create a professional detachment.

"I think that's probably a really interesting difference," Rabbi Nick says. "Speaking for myself and my wife, we embed ourselves in the community. Our home is their home, their lives are our lives. We all mesh.

"It's not quite the same as someone who is in a therapist setting or an event planner, who can close the door. I do feel for Rabbinic families who don't really close the door. We don't really switch off. It does require resilience."

Rabbi Nick adds that it is very much a family commitment. His three children, Miri, Doniel and Dassi, are very much a part of the community and have built relationships with members of the synagogue. The wives of Rabbis are also employed by the synagogue and Shira plays a vital role in delivering support to the community. Rabbi Nick says you could argue they work even harder than Rabbis.

There are multiple Rabbis at the Bushey United Synagogue. Rabbi Elchonon Feldman is the senior Rabbi, and he joined shortly before Rabbi Nick, although he is currently on sabbatical.

"When Rabbi Feldman joined, the community felt like it was ushering in a new era," Rabbi Nick says. "The previous Rabbi who had been here for four decades and had really built the community from scratch. He knew every single family that moved into the area.

"He's got a phenomenal mind, and can recall all sorts of family connections. That level of familiarity and closeness was vital really in seeing this community blossom and grow. We've got members here who've been here since the beginning."

Rabbi Nick adds: "There are people living here who were there 50 years ago. They remember services taking place in people's homes and the very early stages of the community starting to emerge over here. They're still around today. So they look back and just can't believe how much we have grown in size. This building is too small for us now."

According to Rabbi Nick, there are an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Jewish people in the Bushey area. There are over 1,300 household units who are members of the Bushey United Synagogue alone, which equates to thousands of people.

"We've got a big community here," Rabbi Nick says, but he adds that the pandemic has meant that they have had to readjust the way they communicate with their members. "It's hard enough to reach them when everyone could move around freely.

"It became even more difficult to reach them when people were locked down. But it meant that we could come up with creative ways and put things into motion that would have probably taken years in any other situation. But we rolled them out in a couple of weeks.

"As with most religions, most organisations and most businesses, we had to move everything online. We had to do that very, very quickly. All of our programming moved online. A lot of our programming changed. New initiatives came to the forefront, and there was more social engagement online."

They worked to ensure they maintained a connection to every single one of their households. They had a team of volunteers who contacted every single family to ask how they were coping with Covid.

They have initiatives in place to support people who are struggling financially, which were in place before the pandemic and continued to run. They also made deliveries, filled with gifts, to every family a couple of times during the pandemic.

"In a way, it helped things emerge," Rabbi Nick says. "There were things that people were struggling with that we weren't aware of before. If people didn't telephone the synagogue to let them know that their father is not well, or someone is struggling with their mental health, then we wouldn't hear about it. But we were able to connect with people because of these new initiatives during Covid."

The synagogue is involved with local schools, offering tours and helping to educate people about the local Jewish community. They have a nursery too, and when I see Rabbi Nick interacting with the children as we leave the building, each of them knows him by name.

"I think the way that community has evolved here," Rabbi Nick adds, "is that this physical campus acts as the community hub. You could call it the pulse, heartbeat, the centre for Jewish life in Bushey. It's been around for 50 years and it's ingrained in people's Jewish identity."

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Originally posted here:

'I feel very privileged': The Herts Rabbi at the heart of his community - Herts Live

Category: Synagogue
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