Schechter administrator takes helm of Flanders synagogue

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Day school administrator Moshe Rudin has been named religious leader of Temple Hatikvah in Flanders.

The 46-year-old assistant principal and director of Judaic studies at Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange is no stranger to the congregation, where he has served as High Holy Days cantorial soloist since 2003.

He continues at Solomon Schechter four days per week and will serve the congregation part-time — on Shabbat, holidays, in the religious school, and for life-cycle events.

Rudin, who has more than 20 years of experience as an educator and plays five different instruments — including the doumbek (a goblet-shaped drum) — is now pursuing a rabbinical degree on a part-time basis at the Academy for Jewish Studies, an independent rabbinical seminary in New York City.

“When he announced his intention to go on to rabbinical school, we agreed it was a perfect fit,” said synagogue president Dr. Jeffrey Wells. “He’s a very spiritual person with a wonderful presence on the bima and a great background in Jewish education and values.”

Despite not yet having formal ordination, Wells said the egalitarian Conservative congregation would call him Rabbi Rudin anyway.

“He’s not your typical rabbinical student because of his years of experience in education as an administrator and working with children and as a cantor,” Wells said. “Practically speaking, he’s a rabbi in many ways already. We do not feel like we’re hiring a student.”

Nonetheless, Rudin pointed out, AJS will provide him with a rabbinic mentor, and he has been consulting many friends who are rabbis. He knows there will be challenges ahead but said he believes he and the congregation are up to meeting them.

“I feel like this is a joint project — together we’re going to grow a rabbi,” said Rudin over coffee at Starbucks in South Orange.

Rudin replaces Rabbi David Ross Senter, who served the congregation full-time from July 2003 until August 2005. He is now the rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Pompton Lakes.

The personality of Temple Hatikvah appealed to Rudin from the start; he compared it to a kibbutz. At the congregation, he said, “I was struck by the welcoming nature of people there. It’s a close, intimate community. It reminded me of kibbutz — the comfort people have with each other, the familiarity, the warmth.”

Rudin, who grew up in New England and Minneapolis, lived in Israel on and off for 10 years, beginning at the age of 18. He studied at Haifa University and lived for four years on Kibbutz Alonim near Tivon. He returned to the United States in 1988, at the age of 28.

He left Israel and kibbutz life because, he said, he has more to offer in the United States. “I’m American. I was formed here. I feel I’m needed here. I can give the most here.”

He calls kibbutz life “underrated,” saying Americans focus on the lack of property rights instead of the sense of community.

“It’s about being intimately connected with many people. You don’t ring people’s doorbells or call before you come over. It’s, ‘Yossi, come have a coffee with m….’ That’s the way people should live, not focused on what I have or getting ahead, but on the quality of relationships. That’s what makes you happy.”

Rudin said he’s known he wanted to be a rabbi ever since he returned to this country, even if took him nearly 20 years to pursue that dream. “It was just a matter of lining up the circumstances of life and taking the risk.”

Rudin, in a newly grown beard, offers up a mix of passion, sincerity, and idealism more common in people half his age. He talked freely about his beliefs and faith system. “Looking at God and asking do you believe or not believe does a disservice to spirituality. I have trouble with it also because the theological discussion is absent. God is that which we have. It’s the still, small voice unfolding within us and through us. Tefila is more [about] lifting myself up to the heights of the universe than affirming a dogma. Ask 10 people what happens during tefila, and you get 10 different answers. It’s about reconnecting to who you are.”

He quotes liberally from thinkers across the centuries and cultures, from literary figures like Henry James to philosopher Carl Jung to hasidic storytellers like Reb Nahman of Bratzlav. This breadth of knowledge is echoed in his own hobbies and interests. A blackbelt in karate, he speaks Japanese and writes children’s stories.

Rudin lives in West Orange with his wife, Joyce, their eight-year-old daughter Sophie, and his 17-year-old son Yonatan (from a previous marriage). He has another child from the previous marriage, Shimrit, 13, who lives with her mother in Israel.

Appropriately, for someone prone to responding to straightforward questions with a philosophical answer, his main goal for Temple Hatikvah and its 85 member families, he said, is “to inspire and challenge people and see people connect. I want to create a place for meaningful Jewish experiences for children, for families, for older adults.”

Specifically, he will implement a “milestones” model in the religious school that he has used elsewhere, including at Schechter. The curriculum for each year culminates in reaching a Jewish milestone: for example, conducting a Havdala service or receiving a first siddur or Humash. “It gives kids something they can focus on. And it means something to them to see that adults care about these things.”

He wants to reach older adults through educational programs and to create family and community-wide programs. And, he said, he thinks the Saturday evening tradition of the melave malka is too often ignored and would like to bring that celebration to the temple.

He would also like to implement some joint programming with the other synagogues in the area, including Temple Shalom of Succasunna and Adath Shalom in Morris Plains. Getting congregants involved in social action — working with local soup kitchens and food pantries and with battered women’s shelters — is also on the agenda.

Rudin said he sees his work as building the Jewish community in an area with a steadily growing Jewish population. “It’s building; it’s being halutzim,” pioneers, he said.

What he has little interest in is telling people exactly how to observe Judaism. “Who am I to tell them learn this or that. What they need is self-awareness.” He added, “Maybe that’s what a rabbi is — someone who is on that path with everyone else.”