Rabbi David Greenstein A Celebration of Love and Leadership
What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith.” — Willem De Kooning
Rabbi David Greenstein A Celebration of Love and Leadership
By Nick Levitin Foreword by Dale Russakoff
Presented with love and gratitude to Rabbi Greenstein on June 26, 2022 by the members of Congregation Shomrei Emunah on the occasion of his retirement.
Acknowledgements My thanks to those members of Shomrei whose photographs I used in addition to my own. While most of the photographs in this book are mine, I couldn’t possibly cover everything that happened during the past thirteen years. For many of the photos of the preschool and JLC and the last one in the book, I drew upon Shomrei’s photo bank, where parents, teachers and others contributed their work for use by the synagogue. Unfortunately, I don’t know who the photographers are by name, but they deserve to be acknowledged for their wonderful photographs, even if they remain anonymous. Special thanks to Dale Russakoff for writing the foreword to this book, a continuation of a collaboration that began many years ago with Rabbi Greenstein’s encouragement. It was he who introduced us to each other shortly after his arrival at Shomrei when I realized the synagogue no longer had a newsletter. He said, “You and Dale should start it up again," and we did.
Cover photo and all portraits of Rabbi David Greenstein (with the exception of photo on page 149) plus those of the rabbi with his wife Zelda Greenstein are © 2009-2022 Nick Levitin. All Rights Reserved.
Foreword Rabbi David Greenstein’s tenure as spiritual leader of Congregation Shomrei Emunah started not with a bang but a silence. A sanctifying silence. On his first Shabbat on our bimah, in August 2009, he introduced us to the practice of maintaining absolute silence until all congregants finished reciting the Amidah to themselves. No kibbitzing with your seat-mate about afternoon plans. No rabbi moving on to the next reading once most of us were seated. At every Shabbat and holiday service for the next 13 years, if anyone was still praying, the rest of us held the silence. In time, the silence itself felt like prayer. It was an early lesson from our new rabbi in achieving communal holiness, not through words or deeds but through respect. A community of all for one, as well as one for all. Rabbi Greenstein announced upon his arrival that his greatest value was building Jewish community. And in a recent conversation, that is how he looked back on his years as our rabbi: “I tried as hard as I could to share my love for living a Jewish life, for studying Torah, for connecting people, to be there for people. That’s what I tried to do.” His actions were true to his words—from bold strokes such as a congregational trip to Israel, Shomrei’s daring adoption of voluntary dues, and his re-interpretation of Leviticus 18 that eliminated the Biblical ban on homosexuality, to the quiet of study groups, pastoral visits, and of course our practice surrounding the Amidah. Along the way, he taught us by example to find opportunities for holiness in overlooked spaces, chance encounters, everyday experiences. The extraordinary pictures in this book, worth many thousands of words, capture him and his rabbinate in loving detail. What follows are several more ways of thinking about his impact. Never had Shomrei had such an accomplished scholar as a rabbi, and Rabbi Greenstein shared his love of Jewish texts by leading intimate classes in Zohar, Talmud and Torah every week – deftly switching to Zoom when the pandemic intervened. Rather than insist that congregants meet him at his level of scholarship, he humbly welcomed perspectives that our diverse membership brought to the interpretation of great texts. At every class of the last 13 years, he celebrated the ways that Torah study was enriched by John Lasiter’s insights into theater, Audrey Levitin’s into criminal justice, Fern Heinig’s into business, the late, great Herman Gollob’s into literature and numerous others’. Rabbi Greenstein created such a dedicated learning community that the group continued to meet without interruption throughout his sabbatical. And it continues to hold space for those no longer here, such as when an especially literary passage recently prompted one member to observe, “Herman would have loved that.”
Rabbi Greenstein set out to make religious services accessible to everyone regardless of their background knowledge. On some Shabbatot, he would leave the bima to lead an “alternative service” later renamed Avodah SheBalev (Service of the Heart) in the social hall, where he taught the meaning of individual prayers and rituals like the donning of tallit. He also led monthly healing services on weeknights. Foregoing sermons on Shabbat in favor of weekly interpretations of Torah readings, he turned the sanctuary into a place of learning as well as worship. It was also at his suggestion that we replaced the first few rows of pews with a semicircle of chairs to make the sanctuary more welcoming. Rabbi Greenstein pushed to bring musical instruments into the Friday night service to encourage individual expression and defended the participation of young children on tambourines and doumbeks to some members who found it cacophonous. When interest surfaced in hiring professional musicians for certain holidays, he argued for tapping our in-house talent first, leading to the creation of Shomrei’s one and only Park Street Band. Perhaps Rabbi Greenstein’s most consequential contribution in institutional terms was our move from traditional dues to a sustaining share model, which Shomrei calls Open-Door Judaism. It was his idea to explore this shift, again in the context of community-building. The year was 2013, and Shomrei was mounting a capital campaign in the face of a financial crisis. Rabbi Greenstein recalled seeing the campaign as an opportunity for institutional soul-searching: “Why are we raising money? What are we building?” As rabbi, he attended board meetings, hearing ongoing laments about budgetary shortfalls and members not able or willing to pay their dues. He sought out congregant and board member Andy Silver, an economist, to propose “a different economic model and a different way of thinking about who we were. We aren’t a country club that you pay dues to. We’re more of a co-op.” An exploratory committee was created with Andy and Fern Heinig as co-chairs. This became the extraordinarily fertile 2020 committee, a years-long exercise in strategic planning that led not only to the sustaining-share dues model but also a new statement of core values, “Shabbat school” in place of Sunday school, and the creation of alternative Shabbat programming (Shabbat yoga, @Nourish) to attract less traditionally observant members, all culminating with a community-wide Kiddush. In spirit and in fact, Shabbat became the heart of Shomrei’s week. The congregation’s vote to adopt the sustaining share model has made Shomrei both more financially stable and more inclusive. Many of our members consistently give more than their share. And while few preschool families chose to join the synagogue under the old model, many now do and have become active members, bringing new life to the Shomrei family. Membership is now equally accessible for younger families with limited resources, those who are more established and older adults on fixed incomes.
Shomrei also became more welcoming to interfaith families under Rabbi Greenstein’s leadership. With the approval of the ritual committee, he offered interfaith couples who planned to create a Jewish home an aufruf ceremony on the Shabbat before their weddings. He also invited non-Jewish spouses to read English-language prayers at their children’s b’nai mitzvah celebrations—a “no-brainer,” in his view – and to sit shiva when family members died. His support of LGBTQ Jews didn’t stop with his re-interpretation of Leviticus 18. He also won the backing of the ritual committee to offer congregants the option of being called to the Torah in gender-neutral terms rather than as their parents’ sons or daughters, a change gratefully embraced by parents of trans and non-binary children. Rabbi Greenstein led by example in the field of social action. Beginning in his first month as rabbi, and consistently for the next 13 years, he and Zelda supported Shomrei’s Interfaith Hospitality Network chapter, which hosted homeless families with young children for one week every August and December. Shomrei’s first couple faithfully volunteered as the families’ overnight guardians for one night of each hosting week, bedding down on air mattresses and sleeping bags on the YAC floor. Their dog, Kasha, always came along, bringing smiles to the faces of the children despite all the upheavals they were navigating. Insisting that Shomrei should do more than merely lament America’s escalating income inequality, Rabbi Greenstein advocated successfully to raise the pay of our custodians well beyond minimum wage. And when he attended a Montclair community meeting in 2019 where an officer of the town’s NAACP made antisemitic references to Hasidic Jews – unrebutted by anyone in the audience, which included elected officials – Rabbi Greenstein rose and eloquently called out the sin, as he characterized it, and the silence that greeted it. Rather than allow the confrontation to fester into a black-Jewish schism, he quickly convened a meeting of Montclair’s rabbis and African American pastors who pledged to work together to combat bigotry in all forms, including antisemitism and racism. The NAACP official publicly apologized, and the organization suspended him for six months. As a result of Rabbi Greenstein’s leadership, the episode led to more rather than less interracial and interfaith cooperation among Montclair clergy. Unknown to many congregants, Rabbi Greenstein, who expressed support for many aspects of Black Lives Matter, also served as a volunteer chaplain to the Montclair police. This came about, he said, when he received a notice from the police department about training sessions for clergy willing to serve as chaplains. “I said to myself, `You don’t really want to do this, and that’s why you should,’” he recalled. “It cuts to the heart of where our society is struggling. It goes into the question of how we honor people who put their lives on the line to protect us and help them not become brutalized by what they have to do.”
He said he never had to counsel an officer following a violent encounter. Rather, his duties included offering prayers at certain gatherings and spending time with officers and their families. “I have tremendous awe and respect for people who devote themselves in good faith to being peacekeepers of our world,” he said. When the Covid pandemic struck New Jersey, Rabbi Greenstein moved quickly to insure the safety of the congregation, advocating closing down the synagoue and moving Shabbat services online. He also provided weekly online classes that susained many members whose worlds had shrunk to the confines of their homes. And he made certain that every member received a check-in by phone from him, lay leaders or a check-in from the Mensch Squad. From the start of the pandemic, he assembled a committee of Shomrei physicians to guide him and lay leaders in protecting the health of all members and staff and assessing when and under what conditions to reopen the synagogue. That collaboration continues even as in-person services have resumed with restrictions and with hybrid options still available. It is impossible in a limited space to do justice to Rabbi Greenstein’s many contributions over these past 13 years. His leadership is by nature, intangible, drawing on his character, courage and spirituality. It manifests itself in public but also in countless private acts -- the way he treats others and engages with the world around him, modeling what it means to live a Jewish life. Much like the silence of the Amidah, his impact has grown on us over time. In giving so fully of his heart, mind, and soul, he made us a better, stronger and holier community. Exactly what he set out to do.
Dale Russakoff
Shomrei Welcomes New Rabbi
I am devoted, heart and soul, to making a life for myself and for others that is suffused by Jewish tradition. This has always been my commitment - even when I was adamantly certain that I would not become a rabbi. Even then, I had become convinced that my life would have no meaning without granting Judaism a major role in it. And I believe that, in this divinely created world, so richly various and wondrous, we are all called to live full and committed religious lives. Rabbi David Greenstein Installation Speech, 11/01/2009
I have just begun to get to know Shomrei – each member, individually, as well as collectively, as a community – personal stories, desires, capacities and challenges, as well as communal history – Shomrei’s struggles, along with its many, many gifts, accomplishments, yearnings and strivings. Rabbi Greenstein Installation Speech, 11/01/2009
Creating a Sacred Community through Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Chasadim: Learning, Worship, and Acts of Loving Kindness
The Power of Shared Experience I have spoken about how important it is for us to invigorate and enrich our connection with Israel. We cannot do so through reading newspaper reports about that faroff place. We cannot even adequately do so by welcoming Israeli visitors or eating Israeli foods. If we are to remain one Jewish community we need to have shared experiences with our Israeli counterparts. And if we wish to continue to grow as a strong Shomrei community we must do everything we can to create shared experiences around the reality of Israel itself. Our trip promises to be an amazing journey into the beauties and wonders of Israel and her people, as well as into the vital complexities that make Israel one of the most challenging and demanding places in which a human being and a Jew might live. The trip will be a thrill for those who have been to Israel before and it will be a pleasure for those visiting for the first time. We are committed to making the trip work for the very young and for the very mature. It is great to go to Israel whenever possible. But there is a special value to going to Israel as part of one’s community. The beauty part is that, not only will we be bonding with our Israeli cousins, we will be bonding with each other. And, even after we return to Shomrei, when the trip is only a memory, we will be a stronger and more vital community, thanks to our shared experiences. Rabbi Greenstein Kol Emunah , October 2010
2020 Committee and Sustaining Share Membership
_______________________ Montclair Synagogue First in the Area to Provide “Choose Your Dues" TAP in West Orrange By Pam Golden May 30, 2015 ...According to Nick Levitin, President of the 110-year-old
...Fern Heinig, co-chair of the committee responsible for
synagogue, the motivation for the change is that “Shomrei is seeking to
developing and initiating this step, says “the new membership model
align its membership model with its core value of being open and
is more – much more – than simply a change in the way the
welcoming to any member – regardless of financial wherewithal – who
synagogue raises money. We are no longer asking people to make a
wants to participate in a Jewish life.” Under the new system, the
purchasing decision, but asking them to determine their own stake in
synagogue will not charge dues or a building fund assessment and will no
ensuring the vitality and survival of Shomrei. That instills a deeper
longer conduct its annual Kol Nidre appeal. “Instead,” says Levitin, “we
engagement in all of our community’s activities and leads to a richer
are asking our members to make a commitment to Shomrei based on
synagogue life for us all. And, with the new membership model,
each individual’s ability to pay.” He added, “this provides an opportunity
Shomrei will be able to focus on its core values: Spirituality,
for those who are unaffiliated or put off by high synagogue membership
Education, Tzedakah, Tikkun Olam, and Community – not on
fees to find a level that is comfortable for them and to grow in their
perpetual fund-raising.
commitment to the community.”
...Andy Silver, co-chair of the Sustaining Share Model
...Shomrei’s Rabbi, David Greenstein, added, “It has been such a
subcommittee said, “In addition to asking each member to make a
moving and inspirational experience for me to take part in and witness
personal financial commitment to the synagogue, another important
this amazing congregational process. So many people have engaged in
part of Shomrei’s new membership model is to ask for a commitment
difficult and time consuming efforts to examine all aspects of our
of volunteer time. Again, we understand that each member’s ability to
community, to research issues and debate them honestly and thoroughly,
commit to volunteering varies, but our community is sustained by
and to open our minds and hearts. With this decision we have given our
volunteerism and we ask and encourage each to participate in
core values meaningful expression."
whatever role they can.” Photos: Shomrei Board of Trustees that recommended the Sustaining Share model and the congregational meeting that voted to adopt it.
Community
Shomrei’s Presidents 2009-2022
Shomrei Celebrates
Education
Preschool
Jewish Learning Center
Holidays
Social Justice
KIDDISH A sit-down kiddush, prepared by the community, with Aileen Grossberg as coordinator, follows Shabbat services and includes socializing, singing, and Birkat Hamazon.
CAROL STARR MESH CAFÉ - Feeding the Hungry Shomrei Emunah, partnering with MESH (Montclair Emergency Services for the Homeless) feeds food-insecure neighbors. We offer food that is comforting as well as nutritious.
FAMILY PROMISE Interfaith Hospitality Network. Shomrei partners with IHN of Essex County to house and feed homeless families for two weeks at Congregation Shomrei Emunah. The entire program is dependent on volunteers from the congregation.
MENSCH SQUAD Perhaps the best-known and most popular volunteer activity at Shomrei Emunah, the Mensch Squad is made up of more than 60 dedicated men, women and teens who are always on call to perform acts of kindness for members in need.
The Original Park Street Band
Roads to Utopia
RABBI WALKS READERS THROUGH THE KABALAH
A little-noticed motif sends David Greenstein on journey into Zohar By JOHANNA R GINSBERG June 3, 2014, 12:00 am ...Greenstein wrote his book, published by Stanford University Press, not only for academics, but also for serious students of religion. He hopes that we are entering a moment in time when being an educated Jew will include some knowledge of the Zohar. ...The Zohar is the foundational text of the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabala. Most scholars, including Greenstein, believe the Zohar was written in the 13th century by Rabbi Moses De León; however, De León claimed he only copied a text written by the second-century rabbi Simeon bar Yochai. Some in the Orthodox world continue to ascribe to the idea of bar Yochai as the author. The book focuses on a recurring literary motif in the Zohar, in which teachings emerge from conversations between rabbis walking along a road. The walking motif is very brief, “then you get to the meaty parts of the Zohar — stuff about the soul and about God, and you ignore the walking. It’s a very flickering motif. It’s there for half a second, and it disappears,” Greenstein said. “I think my contribution is to slow things down and say, ‘Did you see that flicker?’”
The DVD!
Take-off of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby Road to Utopia movie. (Created by Nick Levitin)
A Sabbatical Rabbi Heads to Harvard By NJJN STAFF January 23, 2019, 12:22 pm Rabbi David Greenstein of Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Montclair will be spending the spring of 2019 in Cambridge, Mass., as the recipient of the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. This fellowship is awarded to a congregational rabbi who has demonstrated exceptional intellectual and academic ability and interest, originality, and energy in the pursuit of Jewish scholarship.
Return from Harvard
Zelda First and foremost – there are no words to express my love for and debt to my life partner, Zelda. We have traveled together on a path many thousands of miles longer than even Sarah and Abraham. And I, too, believe, like Abraham, that God has commanded me – “whatever your wife says, listen to her voice.” Rabbi Greenstein Installation Speech, 11/01/2009
Yonah And we, too, have been blessed with - b'nenu, y'chidenu, asher ahavnu - our unique son whom we love, Yonah. May we merit to see him grow in his own path of Torah, good deeds and loving commitment. Rabbi Greenstein
Kasha
Knowing and Giving To this day, even though I no longer dedicate my life to paintings, I carry with me, in my pocket, a teaching of (Franz) Kline’s. He said: You paint the way you have to in order to give. That’s life itself, and someone will look and say it is the product of knowing, but it has nothing to do with knowing, it has to do with giving. Rabbi Greenstein Kol Emunah, Synagogue Newsletter
To Our Rabbi David Greenstein who has blessed us in so many ways during these past 13 years, we offer this blessing: As God blessed our ancestors on their journeys, so may you and Zelda be blessed as you embark on this new journey of your retirement. May you find rest and challenges, quiet and adventure. May you be sustained by all you have accomplished here at Shomrei, and inspired by the possibilities of what lies ahead. May you allow yourself to experience silence and rest, and may you open yourself to the new music that may emerge from that silence. With love and gratitude, Congregation Shomrei Emunah
Nick Levitin is a documentary and portrait photographer. He joined Shomrei in 2009. Since becoming a member, Nick volunteered almost immediately for a number of synagogue projects. He was Shomrei’s president from 2014-2016 and is the congregation’s unofficial photographic historian. He attends Shomrei with his wife Audrey, who is a member of Shomrei’s Board of Trustees. They have two grown children, Josh and Nina. Dale Russakoff was a reporter for The Washington Post for 28 years and is now a freelance writer. She is coordinator of Shomrei’s Mensch Squad and co-coordinator with Shirley Grill of our work to house homeless families through the Family Promise program. She and her husband, Matt Purdy, an editor of the New York Times, have been Shomrei members for more than twenty years. Dale and Matt have two grown sons, Sam and Adam.