Oct 1, 2017

If you’ve already checked out the pictures, you’ve probably guessed that I’ve just completed my first day of volunteer work known as “muck & gut”. But, I want to set that aside for a minute and catch you up on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur with Beth Yeshurun, held at Lakewood Church. The facilities are freaking magnificent. Can you imagine taking an old Basketball arena and renovating it so that resembles Benaroya Hall only 12.5 times larger? With the ability to project live images throughout the entire hall…which seats 15,000 congregants. It would either be a Rabbi’s dream or worst nightmare…. We’ll have to ask Rabbi Rosenbaum to weigh in here.

Until Kol Nidre, I was not aware of the total destruction of BY’s campus and buildings. It is totally and completely destroyed – every square foot of their campus, (the largest conservative congregation in the US!) flooded – with much of the space taking on 4 feet of water. This, despite an extensive remodeling mitigation with high technology drainage intended to prevent such a disaster. Now the facilities sit open and gutted. (Thankfully, the Torah scrolls were rescued – every single one!) The Rabbi spoke frankly about his fear that rebuilding is going to create a near impossible hurdle for their community. Many of their largest benefactors lost homes in the flooding. The Rabbi, and I suspect many of the congregants, had total or near total losses.

So, it turns out that Joel Osteen provided his Lakewood Church facilities as a GIFT to the Beth Yeshurun congregation – as in everything was covered. EVERYTHING. It enabled BY to hold holiday services. PERIOD. No where else was prepared to seat 2,000+ people, with 2 weeks’ notice. Of course everyone is extremely grateful for this generosity! At the same time, (and here I speak ONLY for myself), I find it more than a little disturbing that Lakewood Church was completely welcoming to the needs of an (upper) middle class community, when during the flooding, Lakewood stood by silent and closed for the neediest of the community, only ultimately and reluctantly succumbing to pressure. There is a moral dilemma here that is above my paygrade to adequately parse, but, at the most basic level can be described as disturbing and awkward. Thoughts? I’d love to hear!

Today was my introduction to the art of “muck and gut”. It is neither art nor science – it’s just a long day of heavy, hot, dirty, manual labor. It’s exactly what I expected and what I wanted to be doing. It provides a different kind of satisfaction than the work at JFS. Today I joined a team that was nearly finished gutting a house – and we completed it by noon, and then moved on to start another one. Within 30 minutes, I had a handle on the work: If the wallboard is still hanging, take a crow-bar to it and pull it off. If the wallboard is on the floor, cart it to the curb in a wheelbarrow. And sweep and sweep and sweep. Nechama is an incredible organization. https://www.nechama.org/ They are capable, organized and drove down vans from Minneapolis with all of the tools and equipment to do the work! The residential volunteers are staying at a local church – 20 in one room, on cots, with showers down the street, eating donated meals, and doing their laundry at a laundromat. I left the worksite this afternoon feeling more than a bit awkward, heading back to Tina’s where I dumped my nasty work clothes in the Condo’s commercial washers, headed upstairs for a hot shower, opened a refrigerator full of food, and now I write this email in Tina’s spare bedroom on a very comfy bed. I have completely acquired a version of “non-flooded” guilt which is rampant throughout Houston – and is discussed extensively. People nearly apologize for not being flooded. Bizarre but, true – this city has been traumatized.

I *can* report that I most certainly provided a good laugh to the neighborhood after we finished work today. As you know, Tina’s loaned me her lovely BMW convertible, and there was NO way I was driving it home in my totally legit but, vile Carhartts. So, I crouched behind the sportscar and proceeded to strip off my clothes and change into clean attire before driving back. It evoked memories of our kids changing clothes in the car as they went from school to sports. Only they were INSIDE the car. I can unequivocally state that Houston’s gotten to see the back of me, and I haven’t even left yet!

If you’ve already clicked on the pictures, you’ve probably guessed that I’ve just completed my first day of volunteer work known as “muck & gut”. But, I want to set that aside for a minute and catch you up on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur with Beth Yeshurun, held at Lakewood Church. The facilities are freaking magnificent. Can you imagine taking an old Basketball arena and renovating it so that resembles Benaroya Hall only 12.5 times larger? With the ability to project live images throughout the entire hall…which seats 15,000 congregants. It would either be a Rabbi’s dream or worst nightmare…. We’ll have to ask Rabbi Rosenbaum to weigh in here.

Until Kol Nidre, I was not aware of the total destruction of BY’s campus and buildings. It is totally and completely destroyed – every square foot of their campus, (the largest conservative congregation in the US!) flooded – with much of the space taking on 4 feet of water. This, despite an extensive remodeling mitigation with high technology drainage intended to prevent such a disaster. Now the facilities sit open and gutted. (Thankfully, the Torah scrolls were rescued – every single one!) The Rabbi spoke frankly about his fear that rebuilding is going to create a near impossible hurdle for their community. Many of their largest benefactors lost homes in the flooding. The Rabbi, and I suspect many of the congregants, had total or near total losses.

So, it turns out that Joel Osteen provided his Lakewood Church facilities as a GIFT to the Beth Yeshurun congregation – as in everything was covered. EVERYTHING. It enabled BY to hold holiday services. PERIOD. No where else was prepared to seat 2,000+ people, with 2 weeks’ notice. Of course everyone is extremely grateful for this generosity! At the same time, (and here I speak ONLY for myself), I find it more than a little disturbing that Lakewood Church was completely welcoming to the needs of an (upper) middle class community, when during the flooding, Lakewood stood by silent and closed for the neediest of the community, only ultimately and reluctantly succumbing to pressure. There is a moral dilemma here that is above my paygrade to adequately parse, but, at the most basic level can be described as disturbing and awkward. Thoughts? I’d love to hear!

Today was my introduction to the art of “muck and gut”. It is neither art nor science – it’s just a long day of heavy, hot, dirty, manual labor. It’s exactly what I expected and what I wanted to be doing. It provides a different kind of satisfaction than the work at JFS. Today I joined a team that was nearly finished gutting a house – and we completed it by noon, and then moved on to start another one. Within 30 minutes, I had a handle on the work: If the wallboard is still hanging, take a crow-bar to it and pull it off. If the wallboard is on the floor, cart it to the curb in a wheelbarrow. And sweep and sweep and sweep. Nechama is an incredible organization. https://www.nechama.org/ They are capable, organized and drove down vans from Minneapolis with all of the tools and equipment to do the work! The residential volunteers are staying at a local church – 20 in one room, on cots, with showers down the street, eating donated meals, and doing their laundry at a laundromat. I left the worksite this afternoon feeling more than a bit awkward, heading back to Tina’s where I dumped my nasty work clothes in the Condo’s commercial washers, headed upstairs for a hot shower, opened a refrigerator full of food, and now I write this email in Tina’s spare bedroom on a very comfy bed. I have completely acquired a version of “non-flooded” guilt which is rampant throughout Houston – and is discussed extensively. People nearly apologize for not being flooded. Bizarre but, true – this city has been traumatized.

I *can* report that I most certainly provided a good laugh to the neighborhood after we finished work today. As you know, Tina’s loaned me her lovely BMW convertible, and there was NO way I was driving it home in my totally legit but, vile Carhartts. So, I crouched behind the sportscar and proceeded to strip off my clothes and change into clean attire before driving back. It evoked memories of our kids changing clothes in the car as they went from school to sports. Only they were INSIDE the car. I can unequivocally state that Houston’s gotten to see the back of me, and I haven’t even left yet!