Congregation Ariel Installs Rabbi Fink

At the beginning of February, on the eve of Tu B’shevat, Congregation Ariel installed their new rabbi, Pinchas Fink.

After a brief reception, provided by a dessert committee, members of the congregation and other guests filtered into the sanctuary and took their seats.

Gabe Lembeck, synagogue president, introduced the guest speakers, starting with Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch, who he highlighted as the first Jewish mayor of Dunwoody, and first mayor of Dunwoody to be re-elected. She was the first to officially welcome the new rabbi.

“I know that you are the right person to lead this place, because achieving 85 percent consensus on anything these days is nothing short of a miracle,” said Deutsch, referencing the congregation’s vote for their new rabbi, “and this congregation came together so strongly in choosing you.”

Lembeck then introduced the first rabbi to speak that night, Rabbi Akiva Grunblatt, Rosh Yeshivah at Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in New York, and a personal rabbi and mentor to Rabbi Fink.

Rabbi Grunblatt spoke primarily on the qualities of a good leader, and how Rabbi Fink displayed these.

“Leadership is about seeing the subtleties beneath the surface, and one thing I can say about Rabbi Fink for as long as I’ve known him – which is a decent number of years – he has that unique ability. He’s perceptive, insightful, he sees not just what presents itself, but what’s really going on underneath.

“I think that Congregation Ariel has made a very wise choice in choosing Rabbi Fink – I did not know he had an 85 percent vote,” said Rabbi Grunblatt, before speaking aside to Rabbi Fink, “You’re not planning to run for mayor, are you?”

“Stick to what you do best,” Grunblatt said, after the laughter died down.

Next was Rabbi Elan Feldman, of Congregation Beth Jacob – which he described as Ariel’s sister congregation – who spoke about the installation itself.

“I know there’s all kinds of cynical comments about installation and plumbing and that kind of thing – in Hebrew, the word for installation that’s used is hachtara, which when translated is ‘crowning,’” said Rabbi Feldman. “A true royal figure is not someone who rules over, it is someone who embodies the aspirations and needs and concerns and the sensitivities of his people – and that’s what a rav does. A rav cares, loves, deals with, gets invested in, cares for the needs of his people. That’s real royalty.”

Before hearing from the soon-to-be Rabbi Emeritus, Rabbi Binyomin Friedman, Lembeck invited up Congregation VP Michael Rice to present the search committee leaders, Steve Mendel and Elaine Brasch, with an award recognizing their work towards finding Rabbi Fink. Then it was time for Rabbi Friedman and the installation itself.

“With the installation of Rav Fink as the rav of this congregation, we are going to be adding a link to a chain which is known as the Mesorah. The Mesorah is a tradition, it is passed on from Moshe Rabbeinu, our first rabbi, to Yoshua, to the elders that followed him, and to the prophets, and down to great rabbis, all of which have taken us through continents and around the world and brought us to this very day.”

“With the consent of G-d and with the consent of this congregation, I install, bequeath upon you the title of Moreinu HaRav Pinchas Yoseph Ben Eliezer Shalom – our teacher, the Rabbi Pinchas Yoseph Ben Eliezer Shalom. And with that, this congregation is now under the leadership and direction of the Rav.”

Finally, Rabbi Pinchas himself had a chance to speak, and deliver a d’rash.

“If you would have told me 20 years ago that I would be the rabbi of a shul in Dunwoody, Ga., I would have said ‘Where?’ And honestly, that’s exactly how I felt the first time somebody told me there’s a shul in Dunwoody, Ga., that’s looking for a rabbi. But the truth is there is nowhere I would rather be – this unique and beautiful shul and community.”

Rabbi Fink described what brought him to this day, recalling great-grandparents that escaped the Holocaust, and mentioning how many of them would be surprised about him living in Dunwoody, at least on one side of his family.

“If you told my grandmother, Grandma Bessie, that I’d be living in Dunwoody, Ga., she wouldn’t have been surprised at all,” Rabbi Fink laughed. “However, the ‘rabbi’ part would have been quite a shock.

The truth is there is nowhere I would rather be – this unique and beautiful shul and community.

“Our Torah tells us a human being is like a tree of the field,” Rabbi Fink said, in relation to Tu B’shevat. “A century ago, the poet, Joyce Kilmer, captured this truth in language that feels almost prophetic, describes that a tree lifts her leafy arms to pray, but only because her hungry mouth is pressed against the earth. Aspiration, striving for greatness without being grounded deeply in roots, is fantasy. And being grounded without striving to reach for heaven, that’s stagnation, that’s static.

“A shul cannot be sustained by one branch alone. It’s sustained when all the groups and people show up for one another, for weeks, for years, to build something beautiful. On Tu B’shevat, we bless the trees not for what they are today, but what they will be in the future.”