My Story 6

Rabbi Sharfstein arranged for me a position as the assistant rabbi of Cincinnati's Orthodox German Jewish Congregation, New Hope. This was an unlikely match; I, a 24 year old Hasidic baal teshuvah, in a congregation of mostly seventy and eighty year old stayed, very formal immigrants who had escaped from Germany on the eve of the holocaust. But they were proud Germans nonetheless. Arguments about politics, all too common in most synagogues, centered there not on then President Richard Nixon, but whether Kaiser Wilhelm was or wasn't a great man. All were proud of their war records in "the war to end all wars". They were not comfortable with any displays of emotion, or even talk of spirituality. Judaism was, for them, about how to be a good neighbor and citizen. Some were actually observant, others were there in the name of clinging to the German Jewish tradition, which was, I was to learn, very different from anything with which I had been familiar. They referred derisively to other Ashkenazic Jews as "Ostjuden" (Eastern Jews). Some would chide me for how I could hope to be a rabbi when I had not studied Goethe. Most of their children were in the local Conservative congregation, and most of their grandchildren were intermarried. I was specifically instructed not to mention this from the pulpit. My salary was minimal, but it afforded me the opportunity to study daily with Rabbi Sharfstein. Rabbi Sharfstein was, in my eyes, the epitome of the ideals enshrined in the Chabad literature. He was learned, wise in the ways of the world, compassionate, and open to people who were not like him.He even had non-Jewish friends, which was unheard of in the Chabad I had known. I would come to his home every day. I would pose a question, and he would give me a two hour discourse; tracing the issue from Talmud through responsa literature. He would open books that covered many centuries of rabbinic thought. Although very loyal to Chabad and its seven generations of Rebbes, he was knowledgeable in, and respectful of, other approaches. Nevertheless, he was very open about who "the bad guys" were at various stages of history. He was dismissive of the Mishnah Berurah, the widely accepted non-Hasidic early twentieth century halachic work, because of its extreme interpretation of halachah, as well as its anti-Hasidic prejudice. He preferred instead the Aruch HaShulchan, which was published at the same time as the Mishnah Berurah, but re-examined halachah based on classical sources, letting the chips fall where they may. It was he who showed me that in American Yeshivot, the Aruch HaShulchan had been the standard text for halachah until about 1950, when the heads of Yeshivot switched to the far more conservative Mishnah Berurah. This gave me perspective on the "Yeshivish World", and the dynamics behind political issues it was dealing with. Rabbi Sharfstein had risen from a modest teaching position, to become the de facto Chief Rabbi of Cincinnati. He was in charge of supervising the kosher slaughterhouse, the bakery, three butcher shops, running a Beit Din to deal with community disputes, as well as conversions and divorces. He took me to the various places he was supervising, showing me how he kept them kosher, as well as the pitfalls that needed to be avoided. He taught me how he could make the kitchen of a non-kosher hotel kosher for a community event. He put me on his Beit Din, which afforded me practical experience in ways that few rabbis ever know. In many ways, that was the most productive learning experience I had ever known. Everything was amazing for a year and a half. Then a turn of events occurred that radically challenged him as well as me. He decided that the time was right for a Chabad house in Cincinnati. The powers that be in Brooklyn sent him a protege of the Chabad house rabbi I had just "escaped" from. All I had experienced in my ill-fated Chabad house experience had now come to Cincinnati. After a few months, Rabbi Sharfstein ordered the new man out of town. He received orders from New York, including from the Rebbe himself, that he must take the man back. It was a crisis for my beloved rabbi. He felt that everything he had built in Cincinnati over two decades was crumbling. At the age of 46, he suffered a massive heart attack. I visited him in the hospital. He said to me "Jeff, I want you to know that this is because of him". He never opened up to me how he reconciled the treatment he had received at the hands of the Chabad organization, including the Rebbe, with the new reality. But he maintained his faith and commitment. I realized that I could not do the same, although I stayed in touch with him until his death in 2008. But where to go?