Every morning for the last 15 years or so, I log-on to “Religion News Service,” an online publication with reliable, well-researched and documented coverage of global religion news. I learn about faith as practiced around the world by Islamists, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and indigenous and folk tribalists living in the far corners of this earth. Through the years, I have passed on to readers of The Shofar many of these stories about Jewish traditions and rituals likely unheard of here in this country.

In the aftermath of the thoughtful and introspective High Holy Days services at our shul, I want to continue the theme by sharing with you some highpoints of an article recently published in the “Religion News Service” newsletter, written by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin. The rabbi explained that he had hiked a trail while in Whitefish, Montana, a resort town in the Rocky Mountains, located in the northwest corner of the state. He wrote of an epiphany he had experienced on that hike, and said that he had shared it with the Glacier Jewish Community in Whitefish on Yom Kippur this year.

“At the trailhead,” he wrote, “was a sign with a set of terse instructions for the proper behavior of hikers: ‘Leave No Trace’ it said, a reminder to carry out what you bring in, to avoid leaving debris behind. On the trail, that’s wisdom,” the rabbi said. “In life, the rules are the opposite.”

In life, you leave traces, traces that you were here, that you made a difference, he said. You leave your personal trail on the trail of life as a guide for those who come after. “I invite you to believe, as I do, that something of us lasts forever,” Rabbi Salkin wrote.

We live on through our children and grandchildren, he said, many of them named to honor family members, and we carry the goodness of those family members — their traces — forward. We live on through our work. Our accomplishments, no matter how seemingly insignificant, become traces to emulate. We live on through our deeds, our favors and kindnesses to dear friends and neighbors, our willingness to stand tall, to step forward for them. We live on through our creativity; writers, artists, musicians leave traces that can alter the world. We live on through our teaching — the traces of knowledge we impart to our students, the examples we set for our families.

My own daughters used to say that I was not “an early adopter,” that often I was skeptical of the new and unfamiliar. I didn’t want a Cuisinart when other meal preparers were swearing allegiance to their helpfulness. Yet ultimately, I opted for one that was double-sized. I fought hard to keep my state-of-the art IBM Selectric, pooh-poohing this computer thing intruding on my writing with the ridiculous claim that with it, I could write faster — and better. The very idea, I thought. Now, however, I am writing this piece on my MacBook Air, using MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1, my iPhone within sight, my Apple Watch strapped to my left arm. The IBM Selectric? I couldn’t even give it away. The local church charity bazaar turned it down. “It would never sell,” they said.

At our shul, too, I am trying to leave traces, to be open to new ideas — to new programming at Shabbat services, to new melodies of our songs, new translations of blessings. I welcome the new people joining and re-joining our shul, bringing in new ideas that add polish to our vibrant gem on the North Fork of Long Island.

Every contribution to our shul, whether it’s time — helping to build a Sukkah, chopping veggies and slicing bagels for a meal, making a minyan — or funds that allow us to move our shul forward — leaves a trace, an image of who we are and how we conduct our lives.

So yes, on the trail, leave no traces. But in life, leave as many as you can. Leave traces through our children, our work, our creations and teaching. Leave traces in kindness and faith. As Rabbi Salkin says, “These are the footprints we press into the path of time, the echoes of our voices long after we fall silent. Living a Jewish life,” he says, is “marking the trail with love, and that trace is forever.”

 

—Sara Bloom