Since arriving in Marlton, Evesham Township in South Jersey last summer, I’ve been settling in at my new congregation. I’ve also been adjusting to living in the Northeast, where I was born and raised, after living for 25 years in the Southeast, where I raised my three now-adult children.
My spouse is still living and working in Atlanta, while I’ve gone ahead with our dog to scout out the land, to become reacquainted with local customs—they pump your gas for you here—and to introduce my new friends to the southernism, “y’all.” When I say it from the bima, I feel I’m embracing my listeners with a reassuring hug.
The personal transition, including the disruption of relocating and the establishment of new routines in a commuter marriage, has been more challenging than I’d anticipated.
One constant source of support has been the community of poets I met through Tiferet Journal’s Spiritual Poetry Writing online classes. I’ve been attending Donna Baier Stein’s Thursday afternoon Zoom sessions pretty consistently since July 2020. In the early days of the pandemic lockdown, reading and writing spiritual poetry together helped us process our experiences of loss and grief and gave us language to express gratitude for the natural world.
As our connections to one another deepened, some of us began to meet after class or between sessions. One summer, I convened a small group to work on revising our poems and prose. Periodically, Donna would coordinate poetry readings and other opportunities for us to share our work.
Most recently, a group of us participated in a reading organized by Tiferet Journal, and I found myself in a quandary. By the morning of March 30th, I still hadn’t chosen from among the twenty or so poems I’d written during the early fall session of the Thursday Spiritual Poetry Writing course.
The poets we read back in our September class each identified their muse. Rumi’s compact lines, as translated by Haleh Liza Gafori, exhorted us to listen to nature’s cacophony for inspiration, and Donna prompted us poets to identify our own muse, posing the question: “What ruckus is the muse making in your ears?”
I almost reneged on my commitment to read—to be honest, I wasn’t sure anyone would find these poems relatable. But when I told my poet-friend Gail Kaplan that I was planning to join the Zoom as a listener, she encouraged me to read a poem about my life transition.
At the moment the event’s host invited me to read, I took a cleansing breath, unmuted, steadied my voice, and announced the title of my poem, “Shepherd’s Lament.” It illustrates the pressure of writing inspirational sermons for those who may only attend High Holy Day services while simultaneously serving the immediate pastoral needs of congregants in distress. I hope anyone who has experienced their spiritual attention being diverted by the demands of daily life will recognize themselves in my words.
It’s a privilege to share this poem with y’all in this last week of April, National Poetry Month.
Shepherd’s Lament (after Rumi)
The muse is making a ruckus,
but my flock’s bleating is louder,
more insistent.
They demand to be heard,
diverting my attention
to their cries.With no choice but to abandon
my book of David’s poetry,
I pile it atop
the crumpled pages of sermon notes,
scribbled and strewn across my desk
at 2:00 AM.The words are wholly unintelligible
at daybreak, even after I French press
a second cup.
Straining to hear the muse,
I spend my early hours
answering email.I tend to the flock,
attempt to soothe their souls
with electronic whispers:
You are enough, you are good,
you are loved by the Source of Love
from above.—Rabbi Pamela Jay Gottfried
September 2024~Elul 5784
Rabbi Pamela Jay Gottfried (she/her) is excited to serve as the rabbi at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Marlton, NJ. Since her rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1993, Gottfried has taught in churches, colleges, community centers, mosques, retreat centers, schools, summer camps, and synagogues. She is a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) and the Interim Ministry Network (IMN). Most recently, she served congregations in Metro Atlanta, as an interim rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth and the second rabbi at Congregation Beth Haverim. She previously served as the Dean of Jewish Studies at The Weber School and taught ceramics and Judaics at Camp Ramah Darom. As an artist, she incorporates creative expression and message-driven art in her teaching of teens and adults.
A strong proponent of pluralism and innovation, Gottfried is a board member of Bayit , a collaborative community creating tools and resources for how people are doing Jewish now. She is an alumna of Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders and LEAP fellowships, where she trained to help people access Jewish wisdom and culture to enrich their lives.