A Poem About Synagogue Presidents and Lay Leaders

I don't know why I do it
If I don't someone else will have to
If no one does I can tell you what will happen
The snow won't get shoveled and the cleaner won't get paid
There won't be any toilet paper
The rabbi won't have a contract
There won't be teachers for the school.

The kids are screaming and my long-suffering spouse
Is giving me the look as I walk out the door again
to another meeting.
I'll go to bed late and have to get up too early
I don't really have what this needs me to give.

I am not sure if I used to pray in shul.
Now I go more and pray less.
I'm looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling,
wondering when the roof will leak again.

But then I stood on the bimah as the ark opened
And the light streamed through the window
And the Torah glowed.
In that moment I was at Sinai.

Later someone came up to me to say
Thanks for coming to the shiva
And bringing the chairs and the prayerbooks
And I said you're welcome,
and remembered why I do it.

dedicated to the memory of Paul E. Policow z"l.