February 2003 - שְׁבָט .. אֲדָר א׳ תשס״ג Shevat..Adar I 5763

I grew up at Temple B'nai Jeshurun, originally in Newark and later in Short Hills, NJ. We called it TBJ. By the time I became the student rabbi there in 1977, it had reverted to Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, and the teens (and others) simply called it BJ.

I was the second rabbi to grow up at BJ (after WW II). Rabbi Peter Knoble preceded me and I am honored to say that Peter attributes the inspiration for his rabbinate to my father, Bert Manhoff. (My father was asked by the rabbi's wife to teach her daughters in the Sunday School high school department, and he continued doing that for 30 years.) After me comes Rabbi Faye Smith Dantowitz (who was Junior Youth Group president when I was their advisor, and who serves B'nai Jeshurun part time now.) The then Associate Rabbi, now Senior Rabbi, Barry Greene was probably my most significant rabbinic role model. Among his many, many, many duties, he ran our youth group, in which I was very active as a synagogue officer and then a statewide vice president. (NB: My daughter, Rinat, was statewide president and then international president. I pale in comparison.) I spent many hours with Rabbi Greene, so it was natural that I would baby sit for his daughters. When I returned to TBJ to serve as a student rabbi, his daughter returned the favor and baby sat for my daughter. Now, Rabbi Greene's daughter, Lisa, is a rabbi herself, and the fourth rabbi to grow up at BJ.

The senior rabbi during those years was Dr. Ely E. Pilchik. Rescued from Germany just prior to WW II, he attended the Hebrew Union College and was ordained (again, this time a) Reform Rabbi in Cincinnati. He was a great scholar and an orator of national reputation. Often as a teen, listening to his sermons, I would write down some of the vocabulary and go home to research them in the dictionary. He spoke passionately against the war in Viet Nam, and equally as passionately in favor of civil rights. He was always encouraging us to go out and make the world a better place. Rabbi Pilchik taught me (and so many others) that Jewish spirituality was bringing God into our world. He preached prophetic Judaism, that is living the ethics of the Hebrew prophets, and after one of his sermons everyone seemed eager to follow him to the front lines for social justice.

Rabbi Pilchik died last month, zikaron tzadiq livracha (may the memory of the righteous be a blessing). During these last few years he suffered dramatically from Alzheimer's Disease. He has been confined to a nursing home for several years. My father would visit Rabbi Pilchik almost weekly and sit and talk to him for a half an hour or so. My father often would report back to me that Rabbi Pilchik was a little better this time, and that he had filled the rabbi in on everything happening at B'nai Jeshurun. I once accompanied my father on one of these visits. It was immediately clear the Rabbi Pilchik did not recognize us, but the warmth of the relationship was infinitely more important. My father had his usual half an hour "conversation" with the rabbi, and I do not think that my father ever realized that he carried both ends of the conversation. He was a little discouraged after that visit and confided in me that he thought that Rabbi Pilchik was slipping. It was the last time I saw Rabbi Ely E. Pilchik, z"l.

Rabbi Pilchik inspired me to be a scholar and a rabbi. He encouraged a social activism that forms who I am today. Rabbi Greene taught me how to be a rabbi (a story for another day). But it was my parents who lived these lessons, of love of learning, of respect of all people, of compassion and commitment. It was my mother and my father who made me the person who could take the lessons from my rabbis and become a rabbi myself.

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D.

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