CBI Blogs

When I was preparing to leave my first congregation in Norwalk, Connecticut to begin a new chapter at Temple Beth Sholom in New City, NY in 2012, I reached out to a trusted mentor, Rabbi Marcus Burstein z’’l.  I asked him how best to prepare for the new position.

Marcus’ advice was simple: “Read Transitions by William Bridges.”

Transitions, first published in 1980, is a book about the ways in which people navigate the inner process of change in their lives. The book, which has become a classic, went on to shape not only how I approached my first congregational move but also how I’ve come to understand nearly every major change in my life since. 

Transition’s key message is that the external shifts we call change are only one part of our stories. The real journey is found not in the external changes but rather, in the internal transitions that accompany them. William Bridges writes, “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. Change is situational... transition is psychological.”

This distinction feels especially appropriate for our congregation at this moment. My arrival at CBI is not simply an external change in leadership. It is also an internal transition for everyone. I am in the process of letting go of a community I love, stepping into unfamiliar terrain, and reimagining my role. You are saying goodbye to what was and adjusting to a new voice, presence and rhythm.

Bridges would tell us that our congregation is currently in a stage of transition known as the neutral zone. The neutral zone is the space between the ending of the old and the emergence of the new. It is a time in which the familiar has begun to fade and the new is uncertain.

Although this zone can be incredibly disorienting and discomforting, it is also where real growth happens. For CBI, the neutral zone provides us with the time to reflect and to reimagine the very purpose of our synagogue and our Jewish community.

If all of this sounds familiar, it is because the Torah offers us its own version of the neutral zone. In the story of the Israelites, we do not meet a people who go straight from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Israelites wander in the desert, spending time in a long, uncertain and often uncomfortable in-between space. 

Of course, it is in the desert where the Israelites do the difficult and important work outlined in Transitions. They shed their identity as slaves, they wrestle with fear and uncertainty, and they slowly begin to imagine themselves as a people with purpose.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z’’l writes, “The wilderness is not the destination; it is the space in between. But it is there, precisely there, that revelation takes place. It is the nowhere that is everywhere.” The desert is not merely a place of waiting, but a sacred space of becoming.

And so, just as our ancestors did in the wilderness, we too are now invited to use this in-between time not just to endure, but to grow, to listen, and to shape who we want to become—together.