Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
Interim Rabbi Leslie Gordon
Cantor Jamie Gloth 
David A. Farbman, President
Reflections on the First Chapter
February 26, 2019 | 21 Adar I 5779
The other day, someone asked me what it’s like “out there in Sabbatical land”?

A sabbatical is like a good book; there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. During the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize that the beginning of my sabbatical has come and gone. It was a long and productive beginning, and there are three highlights that I wanted to share with you.

I: A Focus on Prayer

During the first few weeks of my sabbatical, I focused a lot of attention on worship. 

About a month ago, I travelled to Los Angeles to attend the Kol Tefilla (the “Voice of Prayer”) 2.0 conference in Los Angeles. 
As you can tell from the name, this was the second Kol Tefilla conference. The first took place last year and was very well received. I spoke to a few people who attended. Among them was Rabbi Rachel Zerin. (You may recall that she served as our High Holiday Cantor in 2015.) She spoke with great enthusiasm about that first Kol Tefilla conference, and encouraged me to attend the second. I’m glad I took her advice.

The conference took place at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles. Attending were rabbis, cantors, educators, and congregants from Conservative congregations across the nation. Yes, I was one of the few from the East Coast, but there were also folks from Virginia, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Texas. Understandably, the bulk of attendees were from California.

The purpose of this conference was to explore various ways that we might enliven worship in our communities. It was held at Temple Beth Am, because the leaders there have long been at the forefront in offering a variety of interesting davening (worship) options.

Among the techniques that have proven to be effective in creating periodic lively and spirited services is praying in the round. Note the picture above: it’s an architect’s depiction of what Temple Beth Am’s new sanctuary, now under construction, will look like. Its seats will be movable, precisely to allow for both a frontal seating arrangement and also the opportunity to pray in the round. TBA’s experience has shown that, even in a large room, praying in the round can provide a remarkable intensity to a worship experience. 

Other techniques include making use of a core of singers to share musical leadership; introducing a few new melodies; careful, limited use of drumming; and “curating” services. We had the chance to experience services incorporating each of these techniques and to discuss with those who are regularly conducting them just how these ideas have been introduced within their communities.

I found this conference very stimulating. I enjoyed meeting leaders from around the country who are taking concrete steps to enhance the culture of worship in their communities, and look forward to bringing back some of these ideas to our own community.  
Simultaneously, among other works, I read Professor Jack Wertheimer’s recently published book, The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today. It is a thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of the many different ways that Jews in the well-known movements (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal) -- as well as those who do not identify with any denomination -- understand and express their Jewishness today. Since worship is a key Jewish practice, the book devotes a lot of attention to that. The author highlights the importance of synagogues, the variety of ways in which worship takes place in synagogues, and how these can greatly enhance a feeling of community. 

I also visited Ikar , another outstanding, innovative congregation in Los Angeles.   
Ikar was founded about fifteen years ago. Once known as an “un-synagogue,” it is now raising funds to build its own building. But people are hoping that it will continue to have the lively feel and spirit of a start-up.  Its liturgy is traditional, but the manner in which it is expressed and experienced is novel.

Creating and sustaining lively worship is an on-going challenge. But it is well worth the effort. For innovation is essential to maintaining the freshness of worship. As Rabbi Eliezer said (Talmud Berachot 28b), “The heartfelt quality of worship is depleted when it is routinized.” 

By the way, that Kol Tefilla conference was organized by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), the umbrella organization of Conservative congregations of which Temple Aliyah is a part. The next USCJ convention will take place in Boston, at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel this coming December (6th - 10th). Details will be forthcoming.

  II. What Should a Convert Know?

A second highlight of the first few weeks of my sabbatical was working on an article. The editor of MyJewishLearning.com, an on-line Jewish resource platform, asked me to sketch out the areas of learning that are essential for prospective converts to explore. I was happy to do this, because I’ve long found working with prospective converts to be among the most fulfilling things I do as a rabbi. About twenty years ago, I revised Embracing Judaism , a guide for prospective converts that had originally been written by my late father-in-law, Rabbi Simcha Kling. Since then, much has changed, of course. But the contours of the curriculum that prospective converts would ideally explore hasn’t changed that much. 

I enjoyed delving into this very interesting question, and came up with a 1,500 word article, accessible here . The MJL editor, as editors are wont to do, asked me to condense it into a 900 word version. That’s accessible here .

III. Recovering a Legacy

There was one more project I got involved in during the month of January. Given its focus, it is hard to call it a highlight; but it certainly was fulfilling. You might call it, “How I spent International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2019.” It illustrates not only how much the present and the past impact each other, but also how amazingly interconnected we all are today.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by the United Nations, falls on January 27th. The UN chose this date because it is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. This is to be distinguished from Yom Ha-Shoah, the date on the Jewish calendar (the 17th of Nissan) when Israelis and Jews throughout the world commemorate the Holocaust. (Yom Ha-Shoah falls about a week after Passover and eight days before Israel Independence Day.) Ordinarily, I don’t do anything on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that specifically evokes the Holocaust. This year, I did.

A few days earlier, someone had approached me seeking to identify a baby girl in a picture that had been taken in the 1930s, to find out what had happened to her. 
The baby's mother was this person’s great aunt, who had survived the war and settled in New York City. All she had was a picture of the girl with her parents, and a Yiddish account of what had happened to the family. Unfortunately, no one in the family could read Yiddish, and no one seemed to know the story in detail. All they had were snippets. It wasn’t even clear what the girl’s name was.

I can decode Yiddish, but I don’t know the language well enough to translate an entire article. I was able to identify the girl as “Rena,” the mother as “Leah Yerachem,” and the father as “Moshe Fisher.” To get more details, I sent the article on to two Yiddish-speaking friends of mine. One is a psychiatrist in New York who was born and raised in Cuba as the son of Jewish refugees from Warsaw. The other is a rabbi in Montreal, who had served for a time as the Chief Rabbi of Warsaw. I figured that, between the two of them, we should be able to solve this puzzle.

That’s exactly what happened. My New York friend -- who happened to be in Switzerland at the time -- confirmed the names and the general contour of the story (which unfortunately, as one might imagine, was tragic.) My friend in Montreal provided a few more crucial details: the family had been incarcerated in a particular labor camp near Warsaw named “Poniatowa.” In November, 1943, the camp was liquidated. He told me that I might be able to find out more about the camp online.  

And so I googled the camp. (Yes, there is a Wikipedia entry for it.) I learned a lot about it, and about its liquidation. (It made for chilling reading.) At the bottom of the article, I learned that a memoir of the liquidation had been written by a woman named Ludwika Fiszer, and that her memoir had been translated into Hebrew and English. I also learned something that shocked me:  the English translation of that memoir was available online. 

It suddenly occurred to me: perhaps the “ Leah Yerachem ,” the great-aunt of the person who had asked me for help with this genealogical puzzle, the woman who I had learned had been married to a “Moshe Fisher,” and “ Ludwika Fiszer ” were the same person?! Could it be that the information I was seeking was but a click away? And so I clicked. Within a few moments, it was clear that the memoir I was reading was startlingly similar to the Yiddish account I had originally been given. To be certain, I wrote back to my friend in Montreal. Sure enough, he confirmed that it was indeed a fuller, English version of that Yiddish memoir. (It didn’t hurt that he happens to be a personal friend of the person who had translated the memoir into English. What kind of a coincidence is that?)

What a world we live in! Yes, this required research and snooping around, and emails to and from Switzerland and Canada. But in the end, with a few clicks of the mouse, in minutes, we were able to acquire information that in previous decades would have taken weeks to acquire. The story of that little girl and her parents can now be shared with her living relatives -- one of whom is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah. That girl's story can now be a part of her family’s legacy. 

Back to Sabbatical Land. Looking forward to the next chapter.

Take care, be well, and shalom,


Rabbi Carl Perkins