TJ Hirst

My teenage daughter and I watched this talk together, which I think was primarily meant for teenagers caught in the midst of a confusing time, but these words have stayed with me, “You make choices every day and almost every hour that keep you walking in the light or moving away toward darkness.”

Every day I experience a bit of confusion and begin to second guess my choices before and after I make them. It usually happens with silly things like which brand of facial cleanser to buy, but this confusion causes me greater angst when my choices are of greater importance—like health care decisions.

That confusion feels dark and disjointed. My mind feels like it is running all over the place and isn’t settled.

In contrast, I want to make choices based on good information and good inspiration, choices that will work for me and be successful. When that happens, my mind feels clear and connected.

This scripture in the The Book of Mormon answers that desire:

But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.

Moroni 7:13

And when I reread that talk, I found these words:

I promise you that within the next few days you will feel the illumination of the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Ghost in your everyday life. When you walk in the light, you will feel at that moment some of the warmth and the happiness that will finally be yours when you are welcomed home again with the hundreds and perhaps thousands of others whom you will bring with you, who have walked in the light because you did.

President Henry B. Eyring
Walk in the Light

The majority of life’s time is spent in ordinary moments. How reassuring it is to know that even those moments—especially in those moments—we can and will receive light.

Rabbi Morris Zimbalist is the rabbi of Montebello Jewish Center in Montebello, New York. He was ordained from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2002 and was the recipient of the Lillian M. Lowenfeld Prize for excellence in the field of practical theology. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Rabbi Zimbalist grew up in the Conservative movement and was very active in his synagogue, participated in United Synagogue Youth and attended both Camp Herzl and Camp Ramah. He firmly believes in the importance of living a Jewish life and that there must be continuity in Jewish education from the classroom, to the synagogue and in the home. Rabbi Zimbalist graduated from Boston University where he earned a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Political Science.

Bishop Paul Hirst is the bishop of the Brainerd Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brainerd, MN. He was ordained and set apart on April 29, 2007. A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, he was baptized a member of the LDS Church when he was eight years old and served a two-year full-time mission for the Church in Finland. Bishop Hirst graduated from Brigham Young University, receiving a B.S. in civil engineering, and from the Washington University (in St. Louis) Graduate School of Architecture, receiving a masters of architecture. He is a licensed and practicing architect.

How did you come to be a member of the clergy in your religion?
Rabbi Zimbalist: I always felt the strong need to help others, and being raised in a fairly observant Jewish home, I was ingrained with the core religious value that we should care for one another. While in college, I pursued psychology, which gave me a deeper understanding of people but left me with a certain sense of a religious void. So I took my passion to help and the insights from the study of psychology and pursued Judaism from a more serious and in-depth perspective. The rabbinate seemed like a natural and logical path.

Bishop Hirst: I was “called” to the position by the Duluth stake president, who received approval for the call from the First Presidency, the highest governing body of the Church. This is not a call you can “sign up for” or volunteer. You usually don’t directly know you’re being considered until you’ve been called.

What education and/or training have you received or do you continue to receive?
Rabbi Zimbalist: I graduated Boston University with an undergraduate degree in psychology and a minor in political science. I then attended The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in Manhattan (a six-year program), in which I earned a Masters in Judaic Studies and was ordained as a rabbi. I am currently finishing a two-year program, studying the laws and acquiring the skills to write writs of Jewish divorce (a get). For four of my six years there, I served as the student rabbi at Congregation Sons of Israel in Amsterdam, NY, a very small, elderly and loving community near Albany. I assumed all rabbinic duties there, and Alison and I went there twice a month and for all Jewish holidays so that I could lead services, visit the sick, etc.

Bishop Hirst: There is little formal training. We receive a “Church Handbook of Instructions” that outlines the basic policies and procedures for the Church. Additional administrative training is available from the stake president, other stake leaders and online at the Church’s web site. Ecclesiastical training, however, comes through experience in the Church, personal study, and occasional leadership training meetings provided by the leaders of our stake (a stake is a group of congregations in a geographical area).

How many families/members in your congregation?
Rabbi Zimbalist: We have 270 families in our congregation, approximately 950 individuals.

Bishop Hirst: We have about 250 families in our congregation, which is called a ward, with about 475 members. Ward boundaries are determined geographically.

When and how do you participate in Sabbath worship?
Rabbi Zimbalist: The Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat) begins at sundown on Friday evening and ends an hour after sundown on Saturday evening. I conduct worship services on Friday evenings, which last approximately one hour. Services are primarily in Hebrew, and the liturgy focuses on welcoming in Shabbat. On Saturday mornings, services last approximately three hours. We read from the Torah (the Old Testament), and I deliver a sermon on a teaching from the Torah or the books of the prophets. The liturgy includes morning hymns (psalms), the daily morning prayers with special inclusions for Shabbat, a service centered around the Torah, and an additional service for Shabbat. After services, the entire congregation shares lunch together.

On a personal level, the Sabbath is a time of complete rest in which I refrain from normal work day activities. For example, I do not use the car, computer, telephone, etc. on Shabbat. I do not turn on appliances or cook, write, or spend money. In Judaism, there are 39 major categories of work that are prohibited on Shabbat, all of which were derived from the work that our biblical ancestors did as they constructed the Tabernacle.

Bishop Hirst: For us, sabbath worship is very personal. As a church, we try and keep the sabbath, which means avoiding certain things and making an effort to do other things. There aren’t any hard rules about keeping the sabbath. The doctrine is that we take one day a week (Sunday) to rest from our wordly labors and spend time on more spiritual things. We’ve been asked to avoid working (where possible), shopping, recreating, etc. on the sabbath. We’ve been encouraged to attend worship services, spend time studying the scriptures, visiting the sick and lonely. The principle is to do those things that increase our spirituality and draw us closer to God, and avoid those that don’t. I would add that it is probably one of the most difficult commandments for our members to keep.

Our main meeting on Sunday is sacrament meeting. The most important aspect of the meeting is the partaking of the sacrament (or communion). Since it’s an ordinance, I make sure it’s conducted properly. We sing hymns, occasionally conduct business and hear messages from members of the congregation previously invited to prepare remarks. Once a month, we have a “testimony” meeting where members of the congregation are able to bear testimony of various principles of the gospel-what they’ve learned and know spiritually.

What are your responsibilities for the Sabbath worship?

Rabbi Zimbalist: I conduct services, read Torah, deliver sermons, sometimes lead congregational prayer, and sometimes teach study sessions.

Bishop Hirst: My primary responsibility is to preside at the sacrament meeting, making sure that it is conducted appropriately. I share the sacrament meeting conducting duties with my two counselors. We rotate each month. The person responsible suggests who speaks and makes the invitations. We ensure those asked to speak know where to get their information and stay on topic and within doctrine. I also can, and do, occasionally take a few minutes at the end of the meeting to teach, exhort, expound or encourage the members in attendance. When it’s my month to conduct, I have the opportunity to also bear testimony at the beginning of the monthly testimony meeting.

Rabbi Zimbalist and Bishop Hirst will continue this conversation on Wednesdays throughout April. A new entry will be posted next Wednesday, April 16. You may read previous entires here and are welcome to share your comments below.

Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, I will be watching the broadcast of General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers will include the First Presidency and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church. I am looking forward to hearing their messages of counsel and inspiration and sustaining a new prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and his counselors. If you are interested in listening or viewing, you may go to this broadcast page.

The beginning of this conversation started in a suburban St. Louis high school in the late 1980’s. Alison, a member of a Conservative Jewish synagogue, and Teresa, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were best friends during those years.

After years of pursuing educational and career paths in different parts of the United States, solidifying their own belief systems and establishing their own families, Alison and Teresa are now reconnecting with something new in common—they are both wives of clergy.

Alison is the wife of Morrie Zimbalist, a rabbi of a Conservative synagogue in Suffern, NY. Teresa is the wife of Paul Hirst, a bishop in the LDS Church in Brainerd, MN.

Their seemingly different life paths have brought them together in a common conversation about their husbands’ roles. This series is a comparative look into those roles. These conversations begin where they started, from the wives’ perspectives:

What kind of involvement do you as the wife have in the congregation? How do you support him there?

Alison: As a rabbinic family, we strive to be examples, in all ways, for those in the congregation to follow. This is true not only in our religious observance in public and at home but also in our dedication to the synagogue. When Morrie became a pulpit rabbi six years ago, I decided that my dedication to and involvement in the synagogue would be focused on the things that most interest me and where I can be truly useful, rather than spreading myself too thin across every element of synagogue life.

For example, I’m not really very active in Sisterhood (the women’s branch of the temple), and I don’t attend every service that many probably think I “should” attend. But, when our son was an infant, I decided to start a mommy-and-me class that would hopefully develop into a nursery school.

We started that class twice a week in one classroom with eight moms and babies, and now, four years later, we have over 50 children ages 4 months through Pre-Kindergarten, five days a week, taking over six classrooms. We even have a summer camp!

I help direct the school and serve as its registrar and as a baby-and-me teacher. I also saw the need for toddler services (we call it Tot Shabbat), and I designed and lead those. I am a founder of the Young Couples Club, and I run junior congregation for the kindergarten through second graders on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

In terms of directly supporting my husband, I think he’d agree that I’m his right-hand woman. I support him in every way, from being a sounding board to helping him develop programming to nagging him to get things done (people tend to nag me to nag him!) to occassionally filling in for his secretary.

Teresa: In the LDS church we do not have a paid clergy. All leadership, teaching and service is provided by the members themselves. In our congregation, called a ward, each member is given a responsibility, known as a calling, which is prayerfully determined by the bishop and his counselors who work with him. As a member of the ward I also receive a calling, just like the other ward members, but out of respect to the burdens placed on a bishop, the calling for a bishop’s wife is generally not a leadership responsibility.

When Paul was called to be a bishop in April 2007, I was a president of the Relief Society, the organization for women in our church, and served women and trained presidencies in the eleven Relief Societies in our area. Shortly after he became bishop, I was given a new calling as a family history consultant, helping members to research their own family history. I also teach a youth religion class two days a week, and I am a visitng teacher, which is an assignment in the Relief Society to watch over several women by visitng and calling them regularly.

Although I do feel my responsibilities support his efforts, I often want to do more when I know that human resources to meet needs and accomplish goals are limited. However, I restrain my tendencies to offer my own time and talents (or even opinions or reminders) so that other individuals can have the opportunities to develop their capacity by fulfilling assignments.

What is the personal impact of his responsibilities on you? On your family?

Alison: As much (or more) as he is a spiritual leader, Morrie is an employee of the synagogue. His “employer” is about 1,000 members. Thus, he’s on call 24 hours a day, and days off are scheduled but certainly not always used. We are fortunate that we live on the synagogue grounds, and he is able to arrange his schedule so that we usually have three meals a day as a family! And with Zachary in the nursery school and me as a work-at-home mom, we do see each other a lot. I would say that’s a very, very rare situation for a rabbinic family.

Teresa: Paul gives a lot of time as bishop. He has a full-time job in addition to being a bishop, and so he fulfills most of his church responsibilities in the evenings and on the weekends, more than 20 hours per week. Much of that time is put in on Sundays, which can be long and a little lonely for me, at home and at church. Sometimes I feel somewhat invisible as the bishop’s wife to other members of the congregation.

We do set aside time for just our family, though, like Sunday dinner followed by a walk, Monday night for a family home evening, and Friday night for dates. Despite the sacrifices, I see more positive impact than negative and appreciate the blessings from his service. The most important blessing is the increase of spiritual strength I feel in our home because he and I and our children are more focused on living the doctrine he is teaching and leading others to live.

How do you give him support at home for his responsibilities?

Alison: The biggest way I support him at home is making sure things are being taken care of so he doesn’t have to worry about them. In Yiddush, the expression is “ba’alah bust’ah” - the woman head of the house who basically is a whirlwind of psychotic energy. I’m the very hands-on mommy, the cleaner, the cook, the fishtank cleaner, the bill payer, the laundress, the errand-runner. I’m also his at-home secretary, sounding board, and head cheerleader. Fortunately, he is all of those things and more for me too.

Teresa: In a temporal sense, I make sure his needs are met. My husband always wears a suit with a white shirt and tie when he serves, and I keep busy ironing white shirts. While he does have an office at the church and an executive secretary, he still receives many phone calls and all his mail at our home, which involves me staying organized. He used to cook dinner on Sundays when I was a leader; now, I do that for him. In a spiritual sense, I try to create a calm, spiritual tone in our home with regular routines like family and couple prayer, eating dinner together as a family, and studying the scriptures. We try not to add too much mental and emotional stress to his load. And all this creates a good atmosphere so that he may receive the inspiration he needs.

Alison and Teresa continue their conversation next Wednesday, April 7, when they introduce their husbands, the rabbi and the bishop, and share some of the similarities between the congregations they lead.

I am the wife of an LDS (Mormon) bishop. My best friend from high school is the wife of a Jewish rabbi. By reconnecting on the Internet we have discovered that as wives of clergy we have a lot in common and that the congregations our husbands lead have far more similarities than we imagined.

A common theme has emerged in my mind as I travel around the world of mothers on the Internet—the deep emotional response of women about the divisiveness in our current world culture.

Robin at Around the Island writes in her post Why Do We Hate,

How is it that so many millions, billions, of people in this world honestly feel it is better to hate and to fear than to extend a hand in friendship? How can anyone raise their children to hate, to fear, even to murder those who are different? Are we really so different from each other? What would happen if we all chose to enact a change, to let that change begin right here, right now. To let go of hate and fear and learn to celebrate our differences.

In another of Robin’s posts, The Importance of a Supportive Community I found another Mother in Israel writing this true statement, “Every family needs to be part of a connected, supportive community.” Her post includes an important list of ways we can make our community stronger.

Building social capital has been a topic in our community of late, and I posted a poll on what helps you feel that you belong to a community.

As I consider Robin’s statement to “celebrate our differences” I wonder if our real purpose is not to find what is different but to find as she says that we “aren’t so different from each other.”

Lis of Woolgatherings, in an interview with Michelle at Scribbit, talks about blogging and staying away from controversial topics like religion and politics. She says,

Although every blogger has the right to include what she wishes on her blog, I don’t think it’s fair to force your opinions on others. I tend to stay away from blogs that are overtly negative or criticize, and especially those that are close-minded. I have one real-life friend whose religious and political views have always been the complete opposite of mine. And yet, we have so much other than that in common.

Our intolerance of differing opinions is contributing to broken families, divided communities and ultimately to hate, fear, murder and war, and that itself is a controversial topic.

However, it is a topic that mothers especially should be considering and writing about in a positive way precisely because as Lis says, “We do have so much in common and we aren’t so different from each other.”

I served as a regional president of a large women’s organization for nearly five years. I found that the more we focused on diversity, the less unity we attained. And, the more we focused on what we have in common, the more unity we gained.

As we aim to build communities throughout the world, despite our differences, our purpose should be to seek unity, not diversity, by finding what we have in common.

There is a movement to highlight diversity as a goal rather than a fact. Differences are real and the very word itself implies a lack of agreement. But magnifying our differences divides us.

In our culture we have come to look for what differentiates us from those we disagree with, explore or magnify those differences, build evidence for our side, find others who agree with us, and ultimately divide ourselves into separate groups who engage in divisive communication with the groups who oppose us.

Once these separate groups occur, we have little ability to move between separate groups and regain or form larger and stronger communities.

The website Indivisible: Stories of American Community

portrays—through the original artistic contributions of leading photographers and interviewers—the creativity, energy, and richness of local involvement in America, a largely untold story of the many individual and combined acts that are shaping communities and ultimately the future of the country.

While each person will have their own experience in this documentary gallery, I am inspired by the similarities of individuals and places, not their differences.

I envision a community to be just what it means—a group of people in the same place or locality who build on their common interests. And our ability to communicate about what makes us compatible will connect our communities, one family to another, the world over.

^{Read more of Finding What Inspires in April when I post the series, “Conversations with a Jewish Rabbi and a Mormon Bishop” on Wednesdays as part of Everyday Biography.}