Categories
Rabbinic Innovation

Rabbi Jessy Dressin: Building Innovative Jewish Communities by Taking Paths Less Taken

The Central Conference of American Rabbis, Reform Judaism’s rabbinic professional leadership organization, is home to more than 2,000 Reform rabbis across North America and beyond. And while Reform rabbis wear many hats, often at the same time—Torah scholar, officiant, pastoral counselor, chaplain, educator, organizational leader, activist—they also serve in a wider range of settings, changing the shape of the sacred work of the rabbinate with innovative new visions for Jewish communal life.

We’re proud to share the stories of CCAR members who are taking our ancient Jewish traditions and imaginatively and courageously building new programs, practices, collaborations, communities, and transformational approaches to Reform Judaism. We’re also sharing how, even in dark times, so many CCAR members find joy as rabbis, and we share their hopes for the future of the Reform rabbinate and Reform Judaism.

Rabbi Jessy Dressin ordained byHebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2012. After over a decade of working as a community rabbi, she founded Third Space at Shaarei Tfiloh in Baltimore, reinvigorating a once-thriving landmark synagogue into a new center for both Jewish and local programming, learning, and connection.

Here, Rabbi Dressin discusses her entrepreneurial and innovative approach to building Jewish community and cultivating engagement.

How do you describe your rabbinate, and what makes it unique?
The through line of my rabbinate has been a combination of entrepreneurial spirit and disruption in an effort to ensure that Judaism and Jewish tradition can be relevant and resonant in the lives of those who are not connecting to the community in “traditional” ways. I’m deeply committed to the belief that meaningful Jewish engagement is about the real basics of Judaism: learning, practice, service, and kindness to others. I aspire to be a conduit to individuals and communities engaging deeply with the wisdom of Jewish tradition as both a voice and influence on how Jews and their loved ones move through the world today. I also like to think of myself as an agitator for the sake of heaven.

What is your rabbinic motto or words that guide your rabbinate?
“There’s Torah for that.”

Can you describe a way in which you’ve been innovative in your career?
I’ve been an entrepreneurial rabbi for thirteen years (it’s my b’mitzvah year of being a rabbi—my rabbinate is an adult!). I helped found Charm City Tribe, a nationally recognized model for 20s and 30s Jewish engagement in Baltimore and led it, along with other Jewish engagement initiatives over the eight years I was at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore. Then I then wrote and implemented a Jewish educational strategy and served on the executive team as the rabbi on staff at Repair the World. I am now reactivating a century-old synagogue in West Baltimore as a place for Jewish learning, relationship, and community building. A close follower of Pew research and demographic trends, my entire rabbinate has been about serving the “periphery” in an effort to affirm that no person (due to identity, Jewish experience, etc.) is peripheral to their own lived experience.

How has your rabbinate evolved throughout your career?
I have been very lucky that my path as a rabbi outside of traditional spaces has really progressed in an ever deepening way. I wrote a rabbinic thesis in 2011–2012 about emergent strategies and models we might explore. I’ve had the opportunity to help support or launch efforts in all three program models and am currently working on an article to be published next year that reflects on that thesis thirteen years later and shares examples of what’s great that’s happening in response to those trends and behaviors.

I’ve also gone from being considered someone who was a bit hard to “box in” to a person who is tapped to present, share, and mentor around those who are looking for innovative Jewish programming and those who are looking to become rabbis outside of traditional spaces. In my own community, what was once looked at as a fad, narrow constituency or “alternative,” is now established, respected, and contributing in meaningful ways throughout the ecosystem of our local Jewish community and city. 

What do people find unusual or surprising about your rabbinate?
My love of the beit midrash? My comfortability with being Rabbi Jessy. The fact that people who are often non-engaged or underrepresented in traditional Jewish spaces flock to my rabbinic leadership, programs, and initiatives. Maybe that many people who are not Jewish call me their rabbi? 

What is the most rewarding aspect of your rabbinate?
One of the most rewarding aspects of my rabbinate is the fact that there are those who believe so much in my work that they’re providing me the support and resources to lead with real vision and without having to fit into a limiting framework. I can make a difference without barriers.

What brings you joy in your rabbinate?
I love learning, and I love chavruta. I love the rhythm of Jewish time and seasons and ritual and practice. 

What excites you or makes you feel the most hopeful about the future of your rabbinate?
So many younger rabbis are seeing the potential to have a rabbinate outside of the traditional settings. I get excited when I see people taking ownership of their Jewish experience and growing in their confidence and competence to be able to be drivers of their own Jewish life.

Categories
Books CCAR Press Passover

How to Design an Inclusive Seder: Alan S. Yoffie on ‘Sharing the Journey’

Alan S. Yoffie is the author of Sharing the Journey: The Haggadah for the Contemporary Family, published by CCAR Press. In this interview, he shares insights on creating a meaningful and inclusive Passover experience.

What inspired you to create Sharing the Journey: The Haggadah for the Contemporary Family?
When my son, a recent college graduate, announced that he was bringing a young woman of another faith to our seder, I wanted her to be comfortable with our traditions and to embrace our family’s celebration of freedom. When I was not able to find a Haggadah with a special focus on the inclusion of persons of other faiths, I decided to create one.   

Was there something new you learned while working on the book?
We tell the story of the Exodus using symbols—some traditional and some new ones reflecting our contemporary times. A symbol I included in the Haggadah that I had not used in my family seders was the return of the second half of the middle matzah to the seder plate as a symbol of hope for the oppressed and a symbol of the responsibilities of freedom for free people. 

Sharing the Journey was illustrated by Mark Podwal, z”l. What role does the artwork play in the Haggadah?
My goal for artwork for Sharing the Journey was to amplify the voice of the text, add richness and beauty to the seder, and for the artwork to be a learning tool that encouraged seder participation and discussion. I was fortunate that a library curator at Yale University was able to provide me with the contact information for Mark Podwal, a prize-winning artist with a strong color palette, a sense of Jewish history and a demonstrated ability to tell stories through his artwork. His illustrations greatly enhance the Sharing the Journey seder experience.

What are some tips for creating Passover seders that are engaging and meaningful for all ages?
Welcome a little chaos while engaging children and encouraging discussion. Introduce a contemporary reading or question about freedom every year. At the conclusion of the seder, ask everyone (who is willing) to share a blessing they have received or a special family memory of Passover. Make the story of the Exodus your own. 

Alan S. Yoffie is the author of Sharing the Journey: The Haggadah for the Contemporary Family published by CCAR Press. Mr. Yoffie wrote The Seder Leader’s Guide, also available from CCAR Press, which includes two CDs (instrumental and vocal) that provide a “musical companion” for the Seder.   

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Neal I. Borovitz’s 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi: Reflections on Torah, Worship, Acts of Lovingkindness, Truth, Justice, and Peace

Having just finished reading the new CCAR Press biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, with whom I was blessed to share a bimah on the High Holy Days during my tenure in Brooklyn, New York (1983–1988), I realized again, a thought I shared with my classmates at NAORRR this year: our class was blessed to serve in a golden age of the American Reform Rabbinate.

Two of the initiatives of Alex that Michael Meyer documents in this book, namely, outreach to interfaith couples and their children and the commitment to strengthening and expanding the commitment to Zionism, played a central role in my rabbinate.

Reform outreach initiatives, begun during the early years of my rabbinate, offered me the opportunity to fully welcome Jews into the communities I led. Over the last fifty years I had come to understand that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, all identifying Jews are Jews by Choice, regardless of their parentage. Welcoming, teaching, and counseling Jewish families from a variety of backgrounds, has brought immense professional satisfaction. The title of Michael Meyer’s biography of Alex Schindler, Above All, We are Jews, a quote I heard from Alex forty years ago, has been a guiding principal of my life ever since.

The centrality of Israel to my Jewish identity preceded my interest in the rabbinate. I grew up in a Conservative synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio led by Rabbi Rudolph Rosenthal, a 1933 HUC-JIR ordainee, who instilled in me a true love of Israel and helped me to spend my junior year of college (1968–69) at Hebrew University. He, along with my Hillel rabbi at Vanderbilt, Rabbi Lou Silberman, both of whom shared  a commitment to the Civil Rights movement in America and a deep responsibility to be advocates for Israel, became models for me of the possibilities that the rabbinate offered me to dedicate my life to the words of Deuteronomy: צדק צדק תרדוף

Born in 1948, when the memories of the yellow star of degradation was still a vivid reality incised upon the hearts and souls of Jews, I have been blessed to stand in pride next to the blue star of Israel’s flag. While for Frank Rosensweig, the Star of David was a symbol of God, Torah, and Israel connected by creation, revelation, and redemption, ever since a Mishnah class in 1968, where I first seriously studied Pirkei Avot, I have had a different interpretations of the Magen David.

In Pirkei Avot 1:2, Shimon HaTzadik teaches that the world stands upon three things: Torah, worship, and acts of lovingkindness. At the end of the chapter, Shimon HaTzadik teaches that the world stands upon three things: truth, justice, and peace.

I believe that these two triads superimposed upon each other, creating the Jewish star, teaches that it is through Torah, worship, and acts of lovingkindness, that we can achieve for ourselves, for our people, Israel, and the world, truth, justice, and peace.

Rabbi Neal Borovitz is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge, New Jersey. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2025.

Categories
Rabbinic Innovation

Rabbi Heather Miller’s Innovative, Sacred Approach to Jewish Text and Community

The Central Conference of American Rabbis, Reform Judaism’s rabbinic professional leadership organization, is home to more than 2,000 Reform rabbis across North America and beyond. And while Reform rabbis wear many hats, often at the same time—Torah scholar, officiant, pastoral counselor, chaplain, educator, organizational leader, activist—they also serve in a wider range of settings, changing the shape of the sacred work of the rabbinate with innovative new visions for Jewish communal life.

We’re proud to share the stories of CCAR members who are taking our ancient Jewish traditions and imaginatively and courageously building new programs, practices, collaborations, communities, and transformational approaches to Reform Judaism. We’re also sharing how, even in dark times, so many CCAR members find joy as rabbis, and we share their hopes for the future of the Reform rabbinate and Reform Judaism.

Rabbi Heather Miller is the founder of Keeping It Sacred, a global progressive Jewish community dedicated to exploring sacred Jewish texts, deep learning experiences, ritual practice, and the pursuit of social justice. Offerings range from Torah study and holiday celebrations, to healing sessions and spirituality, interfaith guest dialogues, and racial justice topics. Here, Rabbi Miller discusses how she created the Keeping It Sacred community and her innovative approach to Jewish community and education.

How do you describe your approach to your rabbinate, and what makes it unique?
Keeping It Sacred (KITS) is named after my grandmother, Fruma Kit Endler, who always made Judaism accessible, relevant, and empowering. And that is what we do through intrepid exploration of sacred texts, the practice of meaningful rituals, and the unwavering pursuit of social justice. My approach acknowledges that everyone has their own Torah (teaching) to teach. And the intersection of their lives and the texts is where the beauty of Judaism happens. 

How has your rabbinate evolved throughout your career?
Just before the global pandemic, I started a center where tenderhearted people could nerd out studying together. This center has become a full-fledged congregational community with shabbat and holiday services, social groups, social action book clubs and lifecycle ritual offerings including a yearly community confirmation ceremony for those who want to confirm their love for Jewish life and the community. In building Keeping It Sacred, I have drawn from the best of my experiences having served congregations, schools, hospitals, non-profit organizations, and as an author and scholar. 

How have you been innovative in your rabbinical career?
Our communal structure is global: we incorporate our members from all over the world into the fabric of the community, one and all. We do this by providing ample opportunities to interface and exchange ideas, perspectives, and life lessons based on their experiences. Everyone learns a bit more about one another, the texts, and themselves.

We’ve built a community with sacred text at the center: We began by studying texts and have evolved to incorporate them in everything we do from social justice to rituals to social activities to fundraising. Texts center our lives, and every day is a new opportunity to experience revelation.

We have successfully built a business model where membership is not dues-based. People become members by signing up for our newsletter or participating in our programs. We are fortunate that our members also value this incredibly accessible model, and they freely offer their financial means to help keep the organization running strong.

What do people find unique, unusual, or surprising about your rabbinate?
One of the hallmarks of my rabbinate has been my pursuit of social justice, particularly through the work of interfaith organizing. Rarely does a week go by without me speaking at a house of worship about Jewish perspectives on various topics, leading a meeting for a governmental interfaith advisory board, or engaging in the sacred work of mutual understanding with interfaith partners. This commitment has led me to engage in governmental meetings, displays of solidarity, and consulting for the entertainment, professional sports, medical, energy, and fashion industries. 

What is the most rewarding aspect of your rabbinate?
Sharing the relevance of Jewish texts in accessible, empowering ways.

What brings you joy in your rabbinate?
Visiting with members from around the world, whether they travel great distances to visit, or I do!

What excites you or makes you feel the most hopeful about the future of rabbinate?
Our community keeps growing both in terms of the numbers of our members but also in the depth of their relationships—with Torah, with Jewish identity, with me, and with each other. We welcome and hold sacred space for one another, and we champion one another. The future is bright!

Categories
Israel Rabbinic Reflections Torah

Rosh Chodesh Adar: Leadership From Below—The Heroic Work of Our Israeli Reform Rabbis

Rabbis who have served congregations know the power of standing at the pulpit before an assembly of our people to teach and preach the words of Torah. On such occasions, we bear the mantle of Moshe Rabbeinu, who brought Torah to our people at Sinai. Could there be a more important leadership role for a rabbi? Yes, I believe there is—a role that is equally critical and perhaps even more important, just as there was for Moshe.

In our Torah study in recent weeks, we have read the accounts of Moses in his quintessential role as lawgiver, prophet, and intimate partner of the Holy One. He ascended Mount Sinai and stood face to face with God—panim el panim—and received the Torah. But the moment didn’t last. The holiness and purity of the scene on high wasn’t matched with appropriate piety from the Jewish people below. They grew anxious and fearful that they had been abandoned, and so they committed an epic act of apostasy by building and the Golden Calf.

Seeing what was happening on the ground, God told Moses to “go down…” (Exodus 32:7), to descend from on high. In the Talmud, Rabbi Elazar offers an important understanding of the words “go down.” “What is their meaning? he asks. The Gemara replies: “Go down from your exalted position, for I granted you greatness only for Israel’s sake” (Bavli B’rachot 32a).

Moses had a world-shaping role to play at the top of the mountain in receiving Torah, but as Rabbi Elazar suggests, his most important leadership role was performed at the bottom of the mountain with his people. He advocated for them and helped them to find their way forward when all seemed lost.

This is true for rabbis today. The greatness of our service is not primarily in grand public oration or in great scholarly teaching, but in the ways in which we hold and heal our people in their times of crisis and trial.

This “leadership from below,” this binding of the wounds of our people and walking with them from darkness toward light, may be the truest measure of our value as rabbis. We see it here in America among our colleagues in their faithful service to their communities, and we see it among our colleagues in Israel in particularly powerful and poignant ways.

Consider the story of Rabbi Yael Vurgan, who has served the regional council of Sha’ar HaNegev, right on the Gaza border, since her ordination six years ago. Working in partnership with a handful of dedicated lay leaders, Yael has brought Jewish culture and spirituality to secular Israelis in a beautiful spirit of openness, inclusion, and pluralism. She has led from below, meeting people where they are and helping them grow individually as Jews and together in community.

Since the brutal massacres on October 7, for so many members of the communities she serves, Yael has been there, heart and soul for her people, spending hours upon hours listening to them, supporting them, conducting funerals, offering spiritual care, and traveling all over the country to bring a healing presence and the power of Jewish ritual to thousands displaced from their homes. One small but powerful example of the impact of her work on the ground are the two hundred mezuzot she delivered to two hundred displaced families that are now affixed to the doorposts of their temporary homes.

Another shining example of leadership from below is the work of Rabbi Orit Rozenblit. Orit grew up a secular kibbutznik who began to search for her Jewish identity as a young adult. She studied Judaism and then taught at the Oranim Academy. In 2000, Orit moved with her family to Metula, in the far north, and began working in Kiryat Shmona. In 2008, she established a pluralistic beit midrash for young adults. Shortly thereafter, she was recruited to HUC-JIR, where she received her rabbinic ordination while also building a congregation that by 2022 had grown to eighty members.

Then came the war, with its daily bombardments from Hezbollah, which forced Orit, her entire community, and tens of thousands of others in the north to evacuate, scattering them throughout the country as far away as Eilat. Wherever her people have gone, Orit has stayed connected to them and been there to support them individually. But how could she keep her community together in its dispersion? Though unable to restore them to their physical homes, she helped them find spiritual shelter: together, they would write a new sefer torah. Thanks to a generous donor from the US, she was able to commission the first Israeli Reform sofer, Rabbi Shlomo Zagman, to write a Torah scroll, bringing the community together to join in the process, restoring their spiritual center, and giving them hope for renewal.

These are but two of the many, many moving and inspiring stories I could share of Israeli Reform rabbis who are leading creatively and dynamically, imitating the Holy One as “healers of the broken-hearted,” (Psalms 147:3) taking account of every individual they can and drawing them close to one another in life-affirming communities. They are our heroes, and we are blessed to have them as our friends, colleagues, and role models of the power of leading from below.

L’shalom ul’shuvam shel kol hachatufim.

If you are able, consider supporting the sacred work of our Israeli colleagues by supporting the IMPJ.

Rabbi Arnie Gluck is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth-El in Hillsborough, New Jersey where he served for thirty-three years as a tireless teacher, scholar, and advocate for social justice.

Categories
Rabbinic Innovation Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Stacy Schlein: Innovation in Jewish Education

The Central Conference of American Rabbis, Reform Judaism’s rabbinic professional leadership organization, is home to more than 2,000 Reform rabbis across North America and beyond. And while Reform rabbis wear many hats, often at the same time—Torah scholar, officiant, pastoral counselor, chaplain, educator, organizational leader, activist—they also serve in a wider range of settings, changing the shape of the sacred work of the rabbinate with innovative new visions for Jewish communal life.

We’re proud to share the stories of CCAR members who are taking our ancient Jewish traditions and imaginatively and courageously building new programs, practices, collaborations, communities, and transformational approaches to Reform Judaism. We’re also sharing how, even in dark times, so many CCAR members find joy as rabbis, and we share their hopes for the future of the Reform rabbinate and Reform Judaism.

Rabbi Stacy Schlein was ordained at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in 2001 and received her Master’s in Jewish Education from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in 2017. After serving in congregations including The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, she is now the Director of Educational Capacity Building at the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, a renowned organization that aims to create transformative, meaningful Jewish educational experiences for Jewish children and families in Cleveland. Here, she shares how Jewish learning and innovation are at the center—and future —of her rabbinate.

How do you describe your approach to your rabbinate?
My rabbinate has grown, shifted, and changed over the years. Throughout it all, my focus has been on learning. My main passion is the Jewish spiritual and educational growth of children. In my current role, I support the synagogue’s early childhood and retreat programs in Cleveland.

How has your rabbinate evolved throughout your career?
My rabbinate has always centered around teaching. I have consulted with a children’s author about Judaic content, worked as a chaplain, ran a weekly family learning program, served as an education director in a synagogue and now at the JEC. I am grateful for the opportunities to expand and grow throughout the years. After being a rabbi for twenty-four years, I appreciate working in a central agency where I can consult and support my colleagues.

How have you brought innovation to Jewish education?
The greatest innovations that I have been involved with have been experimenting and developing curriculum with my colleague Nachama Moskowitz. Together, we’re launching a new initiative in Cleveland to create prototypes to address declining enrollment in Jewish education.

In 2022, after many years of observing enrollment declines in congregational education, the Jewish Education Center in Cleveland conducted a study to understand these trends and gain deeper insights so we and our partners could strategically identify areas for opportunity.

We discovered that Jewish education matters to parents; children are the drivers for decision-making about enrollment, there is an interest in informal education, and a need for more formal data. This provides an incredible opportunity to reimagine congregational education and think more broadly about how we support all Jewish children with enriching educational experiences. Based on our findings and national data, we adopted our strategic action in March of 2023 to address these challenges.

We launched a Design Thinking Task Force to oversee and support our efforts. The task force includes a diverse group of community members representing the breadth and depth of our community careholders, as well as JEC board members. We plan to provide grants to test prototypes and to test our principles.

What do people find unique, unusual, or surprising about your rabbinate?
The spiritual fulfillment that I gain from educational work.

What is your rabbinic motto or words that guide your rabbinate?
In my office, I have a beautiful art piece from Pirkei Avot 4:1 “Who is wise? One who learns from every person.”

What excites you or makes you feel the most hopeful about the future of the rabbinate?
Rabbis are now considering a wider range of settings to work and share their gifts.

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

The Challenges and Joys of Teaching Our Teenagers: Rabbi Josh Goldstein Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination, it’s a natural impulse to reflect on the most wonderful rabbinic moments I’ve experienced. Tuesday evenings are among my fondest memories.

Each Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., at the mid-sized synagogue I served for more than three decades, sixty to seventy post b’nei mitzvah students would arrive for their weekly two-hour dosage of Jewish learning. In my sections, we would take on some eclectic topics, from Masada to Maimonides to mixed marriage. I always felt that a great deal was at stake each week. I wanted each student to leave feeling some degree of Jewish inspiration. And I desperately tried to avoid the greatest sin of all—being boring.

I had an advantage. I could “talk the talk,” whether bantering about hoops, or movies, or rock music, or being a bit irreverent. I was also drawn to those students who felt like outsiders. So, over pizza dinners, I’d schmooze with everyone, lead Birkat Hamazon, and then engage in topics that were carefully chosen, not only to draw interest, but really to teach and discuss about the remarkable story of our people. We avoided using the word “confirmation” (too assimilated), and we declined teaching comparative religion (we wanted to spend those precious two hours on our own heritage). We never had the resources to take our teenagers to Israel each year, but I constantly talked up the joy of Camp Harlam summers, and soon, a semester or year in Israel.

I made a point of keeping in touch with our students after their high school graduations, and even surveyed them, years later, about the impact of Tuesday evenings on their Jewish identities. Warning them not to “kiss up” to me, I invariably was told: “Those evenings were a wonderful part of my Jewish growth. It was great to have dinner with friends, to be encouraged to share thoughts, and to develop a greater appreciation of my Jewish story.”

These days, in semi-retirement, my challenges are on another level: Sally has dementia, and I’m now a caregiver for my wonderful wife of fifty-three years.  I am supported in many ways, especially by the deep friendships of my colleagues in NAORRR. And I feel bolstered, as well, by the memory of Tuesday evenings with our teenagers. I remember them all—the jocks, the rebels, the conformists. I loved them all. It was profoundly challenging to try to inspire them Jewishly. Sometimes I succeeded. But the challenge was a deeply meaningful part of my life. I miss it more than anything else I ever did as a rabbi.

Josh Goldstein is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sha’arey Shalom, in Springfield, New Jersey, and founding rabbi of the Chai Center for Jewish Life in Watchung, New Jersey. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Paul Golomb’s 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi: Establishing a Camp, Editing the ‘Reform Jewish Quarterly’ and Much More

There is an instructive comment in the Talmud that one should not profit materially from imparting Torah. Torah was given freely by the Eternal, and therefore one cannot charge for what was given at no cost. Hence, we rabbis cannot be paid to be teachers of Torah! If that is the case, then what are rabbis paid for?

In my forty years as an active rabbi, I found out. I had the opportunity to work in small, midsized, and large congregations, direct Hillel Foundations and a region of the URJ, and teach a number of university courses. My favorite story regarding how a rabbi earns a living arose when I spent a morning at the Hillel House at the University of Buffalo fixing a stubborn leak in one of the bathroom sinks. As I went outside to get some lunch, I bumped into a professor I knew who was walking his dog. We chatted a bit, then the professor commented, “I always have wanted to know just what a rabbi does.” At that point, all I could think of was some light plumbing.

There are numerous activities and events of those years for which I am proud—and quite a number I regret. Focusing on the positive, let me mention two particular highlights: 

As the URJ regional director in Canada in the late 1990s, I had a significant role in establishing Camp George in Ontario, culminating an effort that had been in place for over a decade. The need for a Reform Movement camp in Canada was reflected by having all its beds filled in that first summer of 1999. Further, it posted a first-year operating budget in the black. I had been a camper, counselor, and faculty member at Union camps since 1959. Almost nothing in all those experiences compare to getting a successful camp off the ground.

From 2013 to 2018, I had the honor of being the editor-in-chief of the Reform Jewish Quarterly. With the withdrawal to digital-only format or outright disappearance of many publications, the RJQ remains a critical outlet for modern liberal Jewish scholarship and expression. I am delighted to have had a part in producing and promoting so many thoughtful essays, poems, and reviews.

My fifty years as a rabbi (plus four as student at HUC-JIR) would have been greatly diminished without the love and care of my wife, Debbie. She has been my severest critic and my steadfast support. Any success I have had is at least in part due to her. Although she had a legal career as a litigator and mediator, she served—as do most rabbi spouses—as an unpaid employee of the congregation; a task that can be as socially and emotionally demanding as any profession. As I achieve honorary status in the CCAR, I extend all my honor and love to Deborah Grand Golomb.

 Rabbi Paul Golomb is senior scholar at Vassar Temple in Poughkeepsie, New York and is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Norman Roman on 50 Years of Fulfillment and Meaning as a Reform Rabbi

Spring of 2025—50 years since ordination in Cincinnati (and further memories of five previous years of HUC-JIR with student pulpits, and two and a half years of serving/training as “pre-rabbinic intern” at my home congregation in Cleveland). It has been an entire lifetime of identifying and finding fulfillment as a rabbi.

When asked why this was my chosen lifestyle, I inevitably respond that I never seriously considered doing anything else; teaching, working with youth, supporting those in need, being on the stage, helping the Jewish people, repairing the world, and wrestling with God. I knew that I could do all of them—praying that I would be successful in at least some of them—in the role known as rav. Gratefully, my mentors and family have all lovingly been with me on my journey.

I take great pride in knowing that I have had a positive influence on many people in the communities which I have served. I am humbled that many have overlooked or forgiven my faults and mistakes. I look back with fondness and approval at the number of my former students and campers who have chosen to devote their lives to Jewish professional life. B’kitzur, I have immense satisfaction and contentment in what I have accomplished. Ani samei-ach b’chelki.

From the pulpit, I have tried to instruct and interpret Torah. In the university classroom, I have tried to represent our tradition and history in such a way as to further interreligious respect and understanding; and (in the happiest experiences I have shared) working with NFTY teens in their leadership development, I have tried to be a role model and guide, while at the same time, relishing in the ruach that recharged my soul’s batteries.

What do I look forward to? Im yir’tzeh HaShem, I will continue to be a “part-time” rabbi to my community of seniors and retirees. And hopefully, being blessed with the strength, health, wisdom and love to be a better husband, father, father-in-law, and zayde.

Rabbi Norman Roman is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. He is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield, Michigan and also serves Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley, Arizona. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

A Career of Great Depth and Dimension: Rabbi Benjamin Lefkowitz Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

As I look back on fifty years, I reflect on how my life has gone in two different directions, frequently simultaneously—pulpit and college teaching. As I have made my way through these years, I have kept in mind the advice of two treasured colleagues and teachers, now sadly both in the yeshivah shel maalah. One was to remember the beloved Jacob Rudin’s advice to me and my classmates to always find time and a way to study. The other, which at times could be understood as humor and at others in a far more serious vein, was our cherished Lenny Kravitz’ dictum, “If you don’t like Jews, don’t go into this business.”

There is the title of a book I will never write:  B’nai Mitzvah and Other Natural Disasters: My Life Throwing the Knuckleball from the Bimah. We find ourselves in pursuit of teaching and touching lives, with some great successes and yet other occasions where things don’t go as planned or hoped, or events when the saving grace was having a sense of humor and seeing it in the most unanticipated situations, like a Kol Nidrei where a senior colleague failed to check with the organist about the length of Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei”rhapsody, or a Kol Nidrei where a 10-year old burst into the sanctuary to proclaim how the home baseball team had been saved by a dramatic home run. 

We all know that there are times when uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—or the kippah and tallit. There are times when I found myself feeling as if I was in an episode of a series that could have been called Tales of the Unexpected—situations our education never taught us about or that we often felt would not happen to us. But those times of challenge were more than compensated for by the times of knowing that I had made a difference in someone’s life, sometimes in very unexpected ways. Three examples in brief: finding a way to reunite a guilt-ridden teenager with her parents; learning that a simple statement of reassurance to a college student had made all the difference to her in her studies; and when a simple sermon about the significance of nerot Shabbat led a woman to start lighting them again after many years of not having done so. The rewards remain so fulfilling—touching lives, and the relationships that now continue long after leaving the pulpit.

Nine years ago I retired from the pulpit and focused on college teaching—ironically, what I thought my goal would be when I entered college. At the time, several people asked me if I was still going to be a rabbi. My response was a reference to the exclamation by a Marine general in Korea when the Chinese came pouring in and the Marines had to move south. A reporter asked the general how it felt to be a Marine and retreating. Replied the general, “Retreat? Hell, we’re attacking in a new direction!” In other words, I was just “rabbi-ing” in a different direction, and on campus I frequently found myself both teacher and counselor.

All told, these years have been quite a ride, and I am eternally grateful for the friendship of colleagues and the love and support of my wife, Barbara, and our children, Amy and Daniel and their families, who have been on the ride with me. Let me close with some excerpts from Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (with fond thoughts for classmates sadly gone, along with a heartfelt d’rishat shalom and y’yishar kochachem to those still here):

“I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone…
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move….
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts…strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Rabbi Benjamin Lefkowitz is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.