Rabbi David Greenstein, in front of one of his works of art, says that at Shomrei Emunah, he has found “people who are authentically searching for how to be Jewish.”
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
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August 20, 2009
Two new rabbis have joined the local community. Both have taken nontraditional paths to the rabbinate; both describe themselves as being on a search for authentic Judaism.
This week, NJJN profiles Rabbi David Greenstein, a painter and former rosh yeshiva of the nondenominational Academy for Jewish Religion, who was once a student of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University. He has taken the helm of Shomrei Emunah, a Conservative synagogue in Montclair.
Next week: Rabbi Menashe East, a guitarist and graduate of the “Open Orthodoxy” Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, who leads the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph.
David Greenstein puts little stock in denominational Judaism. “I think the issues facing the Jewish people do transcend movements and denominations,” he said. Although he is a member of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, he said, “I’m frankly not interested in creating Conservative Judaism or Conservative Jews; I’m interested in helping create a Judaism that’s more engaged in an authentic and honest and sacred way with the real world.”
Greenstein is slight; he greets a visitor to his office in casual attire — a plain checked shirt and khaki pants, with a large, bright blue knit kipa over his curly hair. Just a few days after moving in, his office is almost bare; a large painted canvas leans against the back wall, waiting to be hung. Greenstein invites a visitor to comment on the piece, one of his own.
The subject of the painting is a parohet, the curtain that hangs in front of the Torah scrolls in the Holy Ark. In his version, a red parohet is drawn aside to reveal a black space. “Black includes all the colors,” explained Greenstein.
The rabbi was attracted to Shomrei Emunah because he has experienced it as a community of searchers, something he noticed almost from the moment he first read about the congregation. “It was clear that this is a little bit different kind of community than others,” he said.
Renata Worab, who headed the search committee, said the feeling was mutual. “After interviewing 42 rabbis, he was a real standout,” she said. The group particularly liked his approach, which she characterized as having “an openness, a feeling of spirituality.
“We love that he is a painter,” she said. “We feel he will bring something artistic and special to Shomrei Emunah that not every Conservative rabbi has.”
Greenstein succeeds Rabbi E. Noach Shapiro, who made aliya with his family on Aug. 18.
Raised Orthodox, Greenstein was heading for the rabbinate from the time he was about five years old. But his plans came to a screeching halt in 1973 while studying at Yeshiva University with Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, a revered figure in Modern Orthodoxy. “He was a very authoritative figure who brooked no disagreement, no opposition. What he said was the revelation of what was.” Soloveitchik’s “all-encompassing vision of reality through Halacha,” as Greenstein described it, left no room for his own artistic and religious identity, nor, as he saw it, the reality outside the yeshiva world.
He needed to find a new approach, but he “didn’t know how to do that. I certainly didn’t know how to do that as a rabbi.” He left YU and, eventually, Orthodoxy, but he never left Judaism.
Twenty years later, he figured out how to “do Jewish a new way” and returned to his original career path, but with a nondenominational approach.
Looking back now, he realizes that what he wanted was to be part of the havura movement, the countercultural congregations emerging in the 1970s. “But I was spoiled by my Orthodox background,” he said. Proponents of the havura movement, he said, “didn’t know how to learn Gemara and Rashi and Tosefos. I had standards and criteria.”
The degrees Greenstein holds trace his Jewish journey, beginning with the degrees he earned from YU, a bachelor’s in 1972 and a master’s in Talmud in 1976. After leaving YU, he turned to painting, eventually earning an MFA from Queens College in 1989. And then he found an outlet for professional Judaism outside the rabbinate — a weekend position as a cantorial soloist at New Hyde Park Jewish Community Center. He likened it to playing jazz — “I could try this out, try that out, let my emotions overflow without making it into a coherent philosophical system. I could really be intensively involved in Judaism, and I was free — I had no responsibility, and I could be creative.”
‘Guide and teach’
But in a turn of fate Greenstein calls “God’s joke,” the rabbi of that congregation died between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in 1993. The community turned to Greenstein to take the helm. He had just made a decision to pursue a PhD at NYU. So he did both, and in 1996, three years after becoming the religious leader at New Hyde Park JCC, he received rabbinic ordination from AJR; in 2003, he earned a PhD in medieval Jewish thought (Kabala and rabbinics) from NYU.
He stayed at New Hyde Park until it merged with the Shelter Rock Jewish Center in 2004. During that time he taught at a variety of institutions, including AJR and the Jewish Theological Seminary, serving as president of AJR from 2001 to 2003. He became rosh yeshiva at AJR in 2006.
At Shomrei Emunah, he said, he has found “a big havura of people who are authentically searching for how to be Jewish. They accept all my mishegas and don’t put me on pedestal.”
One of his goals at the Montclair synagogue is to help everyone in the congregation find new doors into Judaism — from hard-core minyan attenders to those who are considering joining a synagogue perhaps because friends already belong.
“I want to facilitate and guide and teach people,” he said. “I would love to see more people engaged ritually. I would love to see more people get something out of it — that’s the point…. I have great faith there’s stuff people can discover and that we can create something meaningful together.”
Greenstein, who lives in Montclair with his wife, Zelda — their 20-year-old son Yonah, now in college, no longer lives at home — said he is willing to try everything to implement his vision, from late-night musical jam sessions to drumming to traditional Torah study.
Already on the calendar for the fall are events that combine a commitment to community, tzedaka, and Torah study. Examples include a mitzva bakery, in which congregants gather on the Sunday before Rosh Hashana to bake hallah rolls for a food pantry. The day will include Torah study, music, and a barbecue. Greenstein views the event as keeping “in the spirit of the Yom Kippur haftara [from Isaiah] that the real fast day is when you worry about other people’s hunger and not your own.”
He is also planning a “paint the synagogue roof white” party. White roofs are considered energy efficient and can lower heating and cooling bills while reducing carbon emissions. “We all talk about and give donations to this organization and that organization. I like physical, hands-on activities,” said Greenstein. “We’ve got bodies and we can put them to very good use.”
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