Not even the biblical story of the Great Flood could prepare Rabbi David Widzer for the news that his Fairfax Station synagogue had been overrun with water.
He picked up a Dec. 15 call from a colleague at Temple B’nai Shalom, who informed him: “Rabbi, there’s an emergency. There’s a flood in the building.”
It was a Monday — Widzer’s usual day off.
“Personally, I was quite startled and could tell from the level of — I don’t want to say panic — but excitement and agitation in the phone call that I needed to be here right away,” said Widzer, who’s served the Temple B’nai Shalom community since July 2020. “I’ve never experienced anything like this in my rabbinate.”
Hearing an unusual noise, the temple’s staff members opened the door to Director of Education Stephanie Ben Simon’s office, and saw that a pipe from the sprinkler system had broken. “Water started cascading out and down the wall, then all across the floor, and from there, out into the building,” Widzer said.
The small team moved quickly. “They called all the right people at the right time,” the rabbi said. “I got here just after the fire trucks arrived.”
“Extensive damage” to Ben Simon’s office forced the team to evacuate her office entirely.
The flood also affected Temple B’nai Shalom’s classroom hallway of most of the religious school classrooms, about two-thirds of the social hall and two-thirds of the sanctuary.
“Fortunately, [the water] did not come all the way down to the bimah end of our sanctuary,” Widzer said. “Our Torahs were never in jeopardy.”
As soon as they heard what had happened, a handful of lay leaders sprang into action, clearing items out of the way from 3 p.m. until 9 or 10 p.m. that night.
“There’s a lot of disruption,” Widzer said. “We had to move everything. Nothing in the temple is where it usually is, but it’s much more disruption than damage, fortunately.”
Most of the damage is to the carpeting, floorboards and drywall. The community also lost about 30 prayer books out of several hundred.
Widzer and his three colleagues are still able to work in their offices for the “business end” of the temple.
“But every nook and cranny of the building that is dry is stuffed with stuff from the other rooms,” he said. “So, we have been displaced for our worship service and our religious school.”
The flood came mere days before the temple was scheduled to host Shabbat of Chanukah that Friday night. “We had a big Shabbat service planned, and lots of people. We needed a place to do it,” Widzer said.
The rabbi’s first thought was to contact the staff at Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, a 10-minute drive from the temple. The two houses of worship share a history.
“When our congregation was founded in 1986, we very quickly found a home at Abiding Presence,” said Widzer, adding that for its first nine years, Temple B’nai Shalom was housed at the church.
Pastor Thomas Bailey of Abiding Presence and Temple B’nai Shalom’s then-Rabbi Amy Perlin formed a “true partnership and a real friendship,” which Widzer continues through joint Thanksgiving services and adult education classes for both congregations.
So, he made the call, and the Abiding Presence community “opened their doors with such generosity and graciousness.”
Temple B’nai Shalom held Friday night services, Shabbat dinners, Tot Shabbats and Saturday morning minyan at Abiding Presence in Burke, Virginia.
Since the temple is 40 years old, Widzer said the community has a good number of founding families who recall attending services at Abiding Presence.
“So, some of this has felt like a homecoming,” Widzer said. “We’ve been partners with them, so this is not our first time back in their sanctuary. But the notion of doing regular worship there and bringing out the OG ark and having our worship service there has been a little deja vu for some of our founding families, but also that sense of comfort. These are our friends. This is our family.”
Widzer realized that the church couldn’t host religious school on Sunday mornings.
“We quickly moved to finding a home for our religious school,” he recalled. “The flood happened just at the start of winter vacation, so we had a couple of weeks to try and figure this out.”
Widzer went with Gesher Jewish Day School in Fairfax, a community that’s maintained a relationship with the temple over the years, knowing that the school would be able to accommodate Temple B’nai Shalom’s 150 religious school students. “Gesher was an obvious choice,” the rabbi said.
“We asked, and they said, ‘Yes,’ instantly,” Widzer said. “From the beginning, they welcomed us with such generosity and graciousness, opening their classrooms and their beit midrash — a small school chapel — which we’ve been able to use for tefillah for the religious school students.”
Years ago, Gesher experienced a flood that affected some classrooms, so Head of School Aviva Walls said she understood the disruption that can bring.
“I just felt for them, and we wanted to be a good neighbor,” Walls said. “We want to be a warm and welcoming Jewish home to a fellow institution in northern Virginia. … I was very heartened that they called upon us and that we could be there for them.”
Lay leaders and staff loaded their cars with prayer books and the Torah and went to their temporary worship spaces: “We all have been grand schleppers from one campus to another,” Widzer said.
Widzer added that teachers, students and families have adapted well during the recent session of religious school.
“When you break in routine, and we’re not in our home building, things can be a little dicey, uncomfortable or unfamiliar,” he said. “All of our teachers, all of our students instantly felt at home at Gesher.”
The school also lent its prayer space for Shabbat morning services when one of the shul’s students became b’nai mitzvah. Between January and February, Temple B’nai Shalom is set to celebrate three bat mitzvahs and one bar mitzvah at Gesher instead of the temple.
“There is definitely disappointment at not being in our home sanctuary,” Widzer said of the b’nai mitzvah students. “What we’ve told them is that if the [repair] work goes amazingly fast, as soon as we can be home in our home sanctuary, we will be. But in the meantime, we have this lovely space to use.”
He added that there’s a “good amount of uncertainty” regarding the timing of repairs and insurance matters.
“We are going ahead with our full slate of activities and services and adult [education] offerings and social events, just off-site. Some of our activities have already moved back on site,” Widzer said.
“We have found that being a multi-campus congregation takes a good bit of work for our little community, but I’m tremendously grateful to our congregation, to the lay leadership,” he added, expressing thanks also to Abiding Presence and Gesher.
“I am so thankful to be part of a Jewish community that knows how to reach out and take care of one another, and we are tremendously glad to build on that friendship with Gesher,” Widzer said. “They really have shown what it means for the Jewish community to help take care of each other.”
