Hi all,

Recently my congregation, Temple Israel in Duluth, Minnesota, completed a many months long process of searching for our new rabbi.  Our current rabbi is headed to another community in a part of the country that is decidedly warmer and has a significantly larger Jewish community, and her decision to move on left us (ok, I will own it and say “me,” but I know others felt the same) wondering how on earth we would be able to attract such a dynamic and engaging rabbi with such outstanding talents in leading us in study, prayer, singing, and living Jewishly.  I mean, seriously.  I live so far north that when our Israeli (and Californian) brothers and sisters are actually planting trees on Tu b’Shevat, we’re looking at another 4 months of the ground being frozen.  See first photo.  Our synagogue is 150 miles from another synagogue with a permanent rabbi; we are closer to a 2 million acre National Wilderness (The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, directly adjacent to Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario) than to a kosher restaurant.  So, really, what chance did we have of replacing our outgoing rabbi with one so good?

Our first couple of visits with candidates went ok, and they were certainly nice young rabbis who will do well wherever they end up next in their careers.  I didn’t feel though that they fit with our community and its unique characteristics very well.  Our third visit was altogether different however, and I am pleased that the candidate we spent Shabbat with that weekend was a fantastic fit; apparently he thought so as well, because he has recently signed a contract and will serve as our next rabbi, to my great happiness.  Being as far-flung as we are, I think there was so much riding on the selection of our next rabbi.  We don’t “do Jewish” in a place where one simply walks down the street and around a corner to find another rabbi if the current one doesn’t work out, and it was hard to not be mindful of the difficulty many of us thought we would face in attracting a rabbi who would bring everything to the table we were hoping for.

It is an interesting milestone of sorts for me too as a Jew by Choice, in that while the outgoing rabbi was not the one with whom I studied the most for conversion, she was my sponsoring rabbi, and was my first rabbi after conversion.  I have gone on to become a pretty capable (I think) and traditionally observant (in many ways; adding more all the time!) member of the Jewish people, yet somehow my “first” rabbi leaving seems significant some how, sort of like moving off to college in a way. When the new rabbi begins his tenure, he will never have known me as anything but a Jew, a gabbai and shliach tzibbur in the synagogue, and a teacher of b’nei mitzvah students and adults both within the synagogue and in the community.  My current rabbi has never treated me in a way that made me conscious of my status as a convert, but she still knew me before I knew what a know now about being a Jew.  The new rabbi won’t have had that experience with me, and I wonder how that will impact how I reflect on my own identity as a Jewish guy living closer to moose and wolves than a yeshiva.   It is a pretty cool place to live though.  See second photo.