Posted on Tue, Aug. 27, 2002
Book Review | Congregation's search, and an author's
By Howard Shapiro
Inquirer Staff WriterThe New Rabbi
By Stephen Fried
Bantam. $25.95

In 1998, Har Zion, a Jewish congregation in Penn Valley, on the Main Line, set out to find a new rabbi. A book focusing solely on that search would be limited, with niche appeal.

But that's not what Stephen Fried has written, even if the subtitle is "A Congregation Searches for Its Leader." Fried, an author and magazine writer who edited Philadelphia Magazine for 21 months while he was writing the book, was mourning the loss of his father when his research began. The death of a parent was - as it is frequently for sons and daughters - the pivotal event that turned Fried, in mourning, back to his religious roots.
So two things were happening to the author at once. He was chronicling the exit of one of America's most prominent rabbis, Gerald Wolpe, who for a stellar 30 years had guided the spiritual life of one of America's most powerful synagogues, a place where there are enough machers - Yiddish for big-deal people, and sort of rhymes with hawker - to even have a macher pecking order. While Wolpe was going through the unsettling process of stepping out, Fried was experiencing the comforting and magnetizing dynamic of stepping in; he was becoming Jewish in a way he had never been as an adult. He was attending services each day to say Kaddish, the mourners' prayer for the dead, which is, in translation, not a prayer for the dead but an affirmation of belief in God. He was studying Jewish texts. He was, in a sense, rediscovering his faith.

And then he did a brave thing.

He wrote a book that blended the two themes. The New Rabbi is about two sorts of searches, the frustrating search for someone to follow the act of a genuine rabbinical icon whose sermonizing was, among his many strengths, the major draw at his synagogue. And a mourner's search for his new self. The seamless way that Fried (he pronounces it freed) weaves the two searches is remarkable; the challenges of the synagogue committee charged with finding and naming the new rabbi complement Fried's own discoveries.

He tells his two stories like a novelist and, in fact, his book has the feel of a good piece of fiction, although it is carefully reported. But the tension is there, and so are the many well-drawn characters who happen to be real. (Only in a few cases did Fried change names, and he makes sure to tell us when he does.)

Will the rabbi from another Philadelphia suburb forsake his congregation to take over the glitzier, more "High Church" Har Zion? Will the organization representing rabbis of the Conservative branch of Judaism allow its rules to be bent, even broken, so that Har Zion's search committee can have its way? Fried captures the emotional range of the players in scenes where even small talk in the synagogue vestibule suggests what's ahead.
Ultimately, The New Rabbi is a book about leadership - what it means, how it works, how you discern it - plus the political, ethical and social questions that bombard you when you assume it. In this, it's pan-religious; you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the book's many qualities. Still, The New Rabbi is essentially taken up with synagogue life, both the life of a synagogue and life in one. Fried is vigilant about explaining the details of being Jewish, in a succinct and comfortable way.

In detailing the design and purpose of a Jewish sanctuary, Har Zion's in particular, Fried writes that the bimah, or pulpit, is "a low stage where all the action takes place" and that the Ark, which houses the Torah scrolls, is a "holy walk-in closet." The Passover seder recounts "a great story with a happy ending, and even though it has been analyzed and parsed for centuries, somebody always comes up with a question that sounds new."
And consider Fried's facile riff on the Torah, whose scroll holds the words of the five books of Moses. He begins by writing that "in Judaism, belief in God is optional, something you may wrestle with your entire life," a statement that would make a good number of observant Jews scoff, and a good number of Jews of varying observance shake their heads knowingly. Then, he continues, elegantly: "But respect for and fascination with the Torah, the first record of men and women's struggles with belief in God, is not optional. And the Torahs themselves are both holy and wholly accessible. There are endless rules about how to dress, undress, unroll and read them, but they are meant to be read and studied, not worshipped. A Torah is meant to be honored as a living presence, not an icon."

Philadelphia's Jewish Federation "is part of a massive nationwide fund-raising network, a Jewish United Way, which takes great pains to make sure possible donors are never caused great pain by its Jewish media." In a synagogue, "kids bring relief, hope. They can be anybody's kids; as long as they are in a synagogue, there's hope."

Fried has an eye for curious issues, at one point even tackling the question of how a rabbi finds a way to pray when he (and in three of the four major branches of Judaism, also she) is at the same time leading prayer, paying attention to the timing of the service, bringing the whole thing off as a meaningful production. I don't know Fried, I've never met him, but I can tell you for certain that he's great company - a thoughtful explainer of difficult concepts (the politics involved, and the established rules and regulations for hiring a rabbi, for instance), unafraid to tie together intellectual threads and, above all, an able storyteller.
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Howard Shapiro is an Inquirer staff writer. Contact him at 215-854-5727 or hshapiro@phillynews.com. Book Review The New Rabbi By Stephen Fried Published by Bantam, $25.95 In stores now

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