It is a familiar tale, and I have been via it before, and so have you. In January the Synagogue Personnel Committee informed me that they had been recommending that the synagogue not renew my agreement. I had been here 6 many years, and now they said it was time to go. I could have contested their decision by heading public to the whole congregation, but I made the decision that if my leadership did not want me any longer to be their Rabbi, that I was leaving. And then arrived the grief…

Why did not they want me any longer? What had I carried out, or not carried out, that displeased them? How had I failed them? Did this suggest that I was a “poor” Rabbi? A “poor” person? And even even worse, did they finally “find me out” as the imposter I occasionally think I am? It is known as “The Imposter Syndrome,” feeling that occasionally I have no idea what it is that I am supposed to be doing in my task, but if I could just “pretend” tough sufficient to be doing the correct element, I could pass for a “great” Rabbi. I had small idea how I had failed them, and myself, but I felt that a small piece of me had died. Here I was, 57 many years aged, once much more searching for a task. Who needed it? Subsequent would arrive interviews with much more congregations, asking me the unavoidable–Rabbi how did you screw up? Properly, not in so several phrases, but that is really what they needed to know. Subsequent would arrive phone interviews and individual fly-up-there-for-the-day interviews, and perhaps even weekend interviews. Again??? Maybe the rabbinate wasn’t for me any longer, perhaps I should appear in other directions…

So, I had misplaced some thing, a piece of myself, my dignity, my honor, my feeling of task satisfaction. How would I mourn, would I be angry and not speak to people I had acknowledged for 6 many years? Would I trash my congregation’s leadership and wish that they would be cursed by obtaining a rabbi who was incompetent and ineffectual? Would I start to gossip and inform nasty stories about these who fired me? Properly that is how I felt, and it was completely normal for me to really feel that way. I was hurt, I was in pain, and I was searching for a focus to my anger. But I also realized that if I left angry, I would then not be completing my relationships with my members and pals, and that I would continue to carry these emotions of anger with me as I began a new rabbinic location. They would remain with me for as long as it took to conclude them. The problem would be, even as I began the new task, I would not be totally cleansed of the aged 1.

So I had to consciously set out to depart in a great way, and I did. What was the solution of my great leaving? I spoke about it in public, constantly, correct up till the day I left. You see, I had to assist my pals and members say goodbye to me as well, and so talking about leaving permitted every them and me to carry out what needed to be carried out. At initial it was extremely difficult for me to do this, but it did get easier as the yr went on. Not each and every thing went easily, nevertheless, particularly when I was turned down by congregations in favor of younger and much more handsome candidates–they thought I was as well aged to be a great rabbi, can you imagine that??–but by the finish, all went nicely.

And so, the finish of the tale is that my new congregation, which you can see at the bottom of the internet web page, is these days e-mailing me a agreement. When Ellen and I went there two weeks back again, they fell in love with us and we with them. I really think that it is a match meant to be my gifts match their requirements, and vice versa. And, I have concluded my romantic relationship with my previous congregation and am now emotionally prepared to start much more. Had I not left appropriately, I would be paralyzed in the future. Simply because I left appropriately, I am raring to go!

Dr. Mel Glazer is a Grief Therapist, Rabbi, Writer and Speaker. His website is http://www.yourgriefmatters.com