After an extensive search, Pikesville’s Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation recently announced Rabbi Dr. Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi will become the Reform synagogue’s senior rabbi.
Rabbi Sabath will be the first official senior rabbi to serve the congregation since the merger of Har Sinai and Temple Oheb Shalom in September of 2019. She will begin in the position on July 1.
Rabbi Sabath currently serves as rabbi at Ohavay Zion Synagogue in Lexington, Ky., and as a senior scholar at the Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood. She previously served as assistant professor of Jewish thought and ethics and national director of recruitment and admissions at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and as vice president of the Shalom Hartman Institute.
Jmore recently spoke with Rabbi Sabath about her vision for the congregation.
Jmore: What are your plans to help bring the two congregations closer together?
Rabbi Sabath: In the year since the merger, the congregation has clearly started developing bonds, and despite the realities of the pandemic, the leadership has worked in very intentional ways to help all its members integrate into the new congregation.
It continues to be important to be very mindful of the sensitivities and the differences in the legacies, while also embracing all the new opportunities. Becoming a fully united congregation is a process, and we’ll all need patience and a lot of love as we move forward. This process is similar to the complexity of developing the initial bonds in a blended family. We have already seen that the necessary leadership capacities are present, and so many are eager to continue this careful blending into one stronger congregation and already feel it happening.
How do you view as the synagogue’s mission?
Beginning next year, HSOSC will launch new initiatives that will increase the opportunities to engage. HSOSC will be the place for all who are in search of meaningful, authentic, rich and wide-ranging Jewish experiences, for a community of shared values and shared action.
Innovation will be an essential element of our new initiatives while also preserving aspects of our shared legacies that continue to inspire us. We have the incredible and unusual blessing of being deeply rooted in history and at the same time being very new and forward facing.
I am looking forward to deepening and strengthening the developing bonds and bringing the merger toward the next level of being an innovative, welcoming, compelling, influential and unified congregation.
What are your priorities?
In our new world, building connections and deepening relationships and experiences happen in a variety of ways. While many of our traditions are glorious and will continue to evolve over the generations, our new congregation allows us to think creatively about bringing meaning and texture to our lives both at the congregation and in our virtual communal settings.
During the pandemic, many of us have gained a clearer sense of our priorities, of what is most important, and many now have a more personal sense of why we need community, why we need each other, and how deeply we crave being part of something greater than ourselves.
How do synagogues stay relevant, especially during a pandemic?
Innovative programming in outdoor spaces whenever possible, many small gatherings whenever possible, developing more virtual communal settings and most of all the recognition that people need community and connection and support now more than ever before.
One way that HSOSC has responded to these human needs was to develop something called the Shleimut Program. You can learn about it on the contact section of our home page. HSOSC strives to ensure that every person can be heard and be part of the community especially in these challenging times.
What are young people looking for from synagogues?
Our younger members and potential members are looking for inspiration, fresh approaches and an emphasis on real engagement, a way to live their commitment to social justice and more accessible ways to live Judaism in their own lives on their own terms. They have a lot to teach us about our Jewish community and the ways we live our Jewish values. From the thousands of Millennial and Gen Z’ers I have met and taught and worked with in recent years, I have learned how essential it is to both celebrate our beautiful traditions and simultaneously make room for new voices to teach us and lead us as we embrace new possibilities.
All we have to do is really listen. Hear how they want to lead from their wide-ranging understandings of Jewish values. Listening and learning with an open mind and heart is essential if we want to ensure that our community can thrive in the future.
I am eager to help build a congregation that will be multi-faceted and dynamic, will celebrate greater diversity, will fully welcome home those who have not always felt at home in a congregation, and find new ways to respond from the core of our Jewish values to the rapidly changing realities around us.
Becoming the inaugural senior rabbi at HSOSC is a sacred privilege. In this capacity, I will help lead the growth and innovation of the congregation while also contributing to the ways in which Baltimore will continue to be a thriving Jewish community deeply engaged with the most important issues of our time.
For information, visit hsosc-baltimore.org/contact-us.
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