Rabbi Crawley's Installation

Image - L to R - Rabbi Zemel, Rabbi Crawley, Rabbi Hoffman

Rabbi Crawley’s Installation a Joyous Occasion for All

Wisdom, humour, music and prayer were combined beautifully on Saturday, Nov. 8, to mark the formal installation of Rabbi Stephanie Crawley as City Shul’s new rabbi.

Members of City Shul and special guests packed the shul’s temporary home, St. George’s Grange Park, to the limit for the installation service, a celebratory Kiddush luncheon and a panel discussion between Rabbi Crawley and her two rabbinical mentors, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman and Rabbi Daniel Zemel, who also conducted the installation. Rabbi Emerita Elyse Goldstein, City Shul’s founding rabbi, also took part in another first for City Shul: the transition from one rabbi to another.

“What a joy to be part of this special day with City Shul. I kind of feel like I’m at the wedding of my fourth child, where I really, really like their new partner and look forward to a long future relationship with them,” said Rabbi Goldstein during her remarks. “Even though we are far from the later portions of the Torah where Moses, the Rabbi Emerita of the Jewish people, looks out over the assembled congregation and installs his successor, a young, visionary Joshua— I cannot help but look at that beautiful analogy on this sacred morning.”

Rabbi Hoffman, a mentor from Rabbi Crawley’s student years at Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion, and Rabbi Zemel, Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Micah in Washington, D.C., who worked with Rabbi Crawley throughout her tenure there, created a humorous, meaningful installation ceremony that fit beautifully into the service in place of a D’Var Torah. They envisioned future congregants 200 years in the future, finding letters about Rabbi Crawley in the City Shul archives, an exercise that had the congregants both laughing and crying. Woven through it all was their deep respect for their younger counterpart and her myriad talents.

Rabbi Goldstein presented Rabbi Crawley with a special gift: the envisioning papers from the parlour meetings where City Shul was created by imagining how the founding group’s dream shul would look. And it was only one of the lovely gifts and surprises woven throughout the service: Rabbi Crawley and Hazzanit Tara Abrams included different tunes for some of the standard prayers, accompanying them on guitar and piano. The Shira Harmony group performed two songs, and two of its members, Alia Rosenstock and Meredith Halpern, joined Hazzanit Abrams in treating the congregation to a powerful vocal duet of Ruach Elohim during the installation ceremony.

In addition, a group of guitar-playing City Shulers “magically” appeared in the aisles toward the end of the service to accompany song leader Dawn Bernstein, who led the entire congregation in singing If Not Now, Tell Me When. The song has special meaning for Rabbi Crawley, because her Washington, D.C. congregation sang it regularly to take heart, despite the current political climate in the United States.

“The installation was a momentous occasion,” said Barbara Wade Rose, City Shul’s president. “It lived up to all the expectations and hopes we had for a meaningful recognition of the next phase of our life as a congregation under Rabbi Crawley’s thoughtful, creative, passionate leadership.”

Looking back on her installation service, Rabbi Crawley said, “I am still floating from it, frankly.”

Echoing the sentiments expressed by many in the congregation, she added, “I know that I feel, and think
the community feels the sense that we are ready to move forward into our next journey together, and
that we are the right partners for each other.”