Rabbi Laura Geller

Forty is a powerful number. The Torah tells the story that it rained and rained for forty days. Moses was up on Mount Sinai alone for forty days. There are forty weeks of gestation. A mikveh has forty se’ah of water. Our ancestors wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and just as the wandering ended Moses told them: “God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day” (Deut. 29:3–4). Forty suggests renewal, clarity, rebirth, the conclusion of one phase of a journey and the beginning of the next. And if you are lucky, after forty years you have a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear. I was ordained forty […]

I didn’t set out to transform our synagogue by creating an alternative Shabbat morning minyan.  I only wanted a place to pray. I knew that the ultimate measure of the success of my congregational rabbinate would be if I could pray in my own synagogue. When I came to Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills in 1994, it was a congregation in distress. It was close to $5,000,000 in debt, the previous senior rabbi had left, tension between the day school and the synagogue was toxic, and it was about to be acquired by another major congregation in what was called a merger. The Board of Directors of both synagogues favored the merger, as did the rabbis, including the emeritus rabbi of Emanuel who was called […]