In honor of the 25th yahrzeit of Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, who died on November 15, 2000 (17 Cheshvan 5761), we have crafted this special Shabbat service supplement filled with his words and teachings to lift the spirit of worship and reflection. Sustaining nearly 1,000 Reform congregations was his passion during his tenure as president of the Union for Reform Judaism (formerly the Union of American Hebrew Congregations) from 1973 to 1996. You can learn more about the life of Rabbi Alexander Schindler in Dr. Michael A. Meyer's "Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler" (CCAR Press, 2025).
On Time
Before L'cha Dodi
Time flies like a shadow... not like the shadow of a house, so the Talmud reminds us, nor like the shadow of a tree, but like the shadow of a bird in flight.
Yet is it really time that flies? Is not time, like space, an aspect of infinity? It was, it is, it will remain. It mocks all of our efforts to encompass it with our feeble instruments, our clocks and calendars, with their petty markings of hours and of seasons.
No, time does not fly...we fly. Our journey through time is a flight, and it is speedily gone.
Rabbi Schindler reminds us to celebrate the time and lives we have. That notion is embodied through our celebration of Shabbat.
(Address at the 75th Anniversary of Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 11, 1996)
On Prayer
Before the Amidah
Prayer is not purely an act: all things pray,
and all things pour forth their souls.
The heavens pray, the earth prays,
every creature and every living thing.
In all life, there is longing.
Creation is, itself, but a longing,
a kind of prayer to the Almighty.
What are the clouds, the rising and the setting of the sun,
the soft radiance of the moon and the gentleness of the night?
What are the flashes of the human mind
and the storms of the human heart?
They are all prayers --
the wordless outpouring of a boundless longing for God.
(Written by Rabbi Schindler, as found in "Mishkan T'filah," CCAR Press)
On Jewish Survival
Before Prayer for Peace
We will survive, let there be no doubt about it, even as we survived in the past, over and over again. Twenty years ago, Look Magazine spoke of the vanishing American Jew. Well, Look Magazine vanished, but we live.
Not soon thereafter, Life Magazine also predicted our eventual demise. Life survives in but a truncated form, whilst the American Jewish community continues to grow in strength.
I hold in my hand a coin which was minted in the days when our ancient homeland was conquered by the Roman centurions. On its face the following words are inscribed: Judea est perdita...Judea is destroyed... the Jewish people are no more. Well, Rome fell and remained fallen, but the Jewish people did not.
(Address on the 25h Anniversary of Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1985)
On Jewish Solidarity
Before the Mi Shebeirach
Wherever there is a Jewish community which is embattled, our help will be forthcoming.
Wherever there is a single Jew in danger, in whatever country or continent or the remotest corner of our far-flung world, there will we find him-there will we reach out to him, offering our hands, our hearts, our life. Never more will it be said that we had eyes but did not see, that we had ears but did not hear, that we had mouths, but that we failed to speak.
(Yom Kippur Sermon, Union Temple, Brooklyn, New York, 1986)
To be a Jew
Before the Aleinu
To be a Jew is to be something more than a surviving endangered species.
To be a Jew is to be a goad to the conscience of humankind,
to bear a heart of flesh and blood and not of stone.
To be a Jew means to weep where there are tears and suffering.
To be a Jew is to be part of the civilizing and humanizing force
of the universe.
To be a Jew is to defy despair though the Messiah tarries.
To be a Jew, as God told Abraham thousands of years ago,
is to be part of a great and enduring people, YES,
but also to be a blessing to all humankind.
(Rabbi Schindler was to deliver these words at The New Reform Temple in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 17, 2000; he died November 15, 2000. Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn read them in his stead as a loving tribute.)
Our Lives Are a Wilderness
Before the Kaddish
Our lives are a wilderness, uncharted and unpredictable-untimely deaths, unexpected blows, unsuitable matches, unfulfilled dreams.
And yet, by gathering our heartaches into a house of worship, we find something transformative happening: our sorrows become windows of compassion.
Paths through the wilderness, hewed and marked by past generations, give us our bearings. Patterns of meaning and significance emerge. We are moved from self-pity to love. Our individual heartbeats merge with the pulse of all humankind. Suddenly, we no longer tremble like an uprooted reed.
The synagogue is the regenerative soil of Jewish life. Just beneath its statuesque surface, our roots densely intertwine.
Like giant redwoods, standing shoulder to shoulder in ever-shrinking forests, we Jews share a reality of interdependence, holding one another up.
Nowhere is this reality more strikingly revealed than in our congregations, our houses of gathering. Bialik called the synagogue "the mystic fount . . . the treasure of our soul." The Talmud called it the place "where heaven and earth kiss," the Zohar: "an earthly copy of the heavenly original." I simply call it home.
(URJ Biennial Address, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996)
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