From the Cleveland Jewish News -- Rosh Hashanah edition 5763 (2002)
Area women study for rabbinate in 'yeshiva without walls'
By BETH FRIEMDAN-ROMELL Editor, The SOURCE
Jewish learning sweet for Candy
She's been a radio traffic pilot, a tire engineer, a flower-shop clerk, a flight instructor
and a professional "life coach." But in the back of her mind, Candy Lobb of Canton
always dreamed of becoming a rabbi.
She's pursuing her dream now through the rabbinic smicha (ordination) program
offered through ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. This unusual "yeshiva without walls" provides training and connections to dedicated learners who, for various reasons, cannot or will not attend a full-time rabbinical seminary (see sidebar).
I first met Lobb when she spoke during a Torah discussion at a Shabbat service held at my cousin's home. I was immediately drawn to her sage words, her warmth, her intense, violet eyes. This is a teacher, a learned woman, I thought. I want to learn more from her.
At midlife, Lobb is at last following in her father's footsteps. He was a rabbi with Orthodox smicha who practiced Conservative Judaism. "Rav Sholem" encouraged his daughter's dream, though he warned it would be difficult for her, as a woman. (The first female rabbi, former Clevelander Sally Priesand, was not ordained until 1972).
Lobb enrolled in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College back in 1972, but admits she "wasn't ready then." Her father's untimely death brought her back to her native Pittsburgh to be with her mother. There, Lobb added a master's degree in education to her undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion. After stints teaching Hebrew, peddling petals, and serving as the helicopter "eye in the sky," Lobb took a position as an instructor at Canton's McKinley Air Flight School in 1979.
A voracious student, Lobb added a degree in engineering to her resume while teaching at the flight school. Seventeen years as a Goodyear tire engineer followed. But for many years, her love of Torah learning was unfulfilled.
Nearly 25 years ago, Lobb was hard-pressed to find the right home for her Judaism in Canton's small Jewish community. "I went (to the Conservative shul) Shabbat morning with my tallit (prayer shawl), and the rabbi and 10 men walked out. I thought to myself, 'I can't do this. I can't take my tallit off, but I can't do this to the congregation, either.'" Nor was the more traditionally minded Lobb comfortable at the time in the Reform congregation. "So I became a very private Jew, davening (praying) at home," she concludes.
Meanwhile, Lobb channeled her inclination toward pastoral work into private counseling as a "life coach," which she explains is "working with someone to help them realize what they want and how to get it. You help them prioritize ... to achieve success."
The need to say kaddish for her mother, who died in December of 1998, brought Lobb back to worshipping in a public setting. Finding Rabbi John Spitzer "a neat guy," she became active at Canton's Temple Israel (Reform). "I went from nothing to being the fund-raising and programming VP," she laughs.
Lobb had been considering the idea of private study with rabbis to obtain smicha when she encountered Rabbi Tirtzah Firestone's book With Roots in Heaven. Pursuing the reference to ALEPH in the back of the book, Lobb discovered the possibility of distance learning through the Renewal movement.
She should reach her goal by next summer. In addition to studying locally with Rabbis Spitzer and Shimon Brand and mentor Rob Spira, Lobb has pursued a master's degree at the Siegal College of Judaic Studies, served as student rabbi for Congregation Eytz Chayim here, and participated in weekly distance-learning telephone courses. She's also taught Torah and Talmud at Temple Emanuel and The Temple-Tifereth Israel, respectively. Next year, she'll complete a special project with Renewal's founder, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, prior to an official ordination ceremony in July.
Lobb seems to have handled this dizzying schedule with aplomb. "When you set your own schedule, the onus is on you to do the work and document it," she advises. "I'm very focused, so it's not difficult to stay disciplined."
After smicha, Lobb hopes to combine teaching with congregational leadership. Her husband of 22 years, Bill, will retire after 30 years at Goodyear.
Lobb is enriched by both the scholarship and spirituality of the Renewal movement. "(Renewal is) about providing a loving, open environment that supports and fosters experimentation," she explains. For Lobb, "halacha (Jewish law) is a dance, to wrestle with what works for you. Find out what it says and why it says it. Given today's world, what is the appropriate response?"
Smicha for Simcha
If someone had told Simcha Leavitt (née Susie Schneider) in high school that she would one day study for the rabbinate, she probably would have laughed. For the first few decades of her life, this slender brunette with a winning smile followed a conventional suburban path.
Graduating from Orange High School in 1979, Leavitt went on to Indiana University, where she majored in psychology and business. She married at 22, worked as the director of a business college and had the first of her three children at age 26.
"Growing up, we were cultural Jews," Leavitt remembers. "We were members of Park Synagogue, went to services on High Holidays. I had Jewish friends, was confirmed. We were connected, but not religious."
But the self-described "spiritual seeker" began to explore Judaism more seriously when her children were born. "I had to ask, 'What does it mean to raise them as Jews?'" Leavitt, her then-husband, and some relatives began studying with Aish HaTorah, attending Shabbat services regularly, and observing holidays. They became active members of Congregation Shaarey Tikvah which "shaped the foundation for family life and practices I never would have figured I'd be engaged in."
Leavitt found herself at a crossroads, wanting to become a therapist, but also interested in the "psychospiritual" writings of Jewish Renewal thinkers. Like Candy Lobb, Leavitt found Tirtzah Firestone's With Roots in Heaven transformative.
"The book changed my life. I wrote to (Firestone), met her. It was the key to my thinking that what I was being called to do was feasible."
Leavitt was sold on Renewal after attending a meditation conference in New York City, where she encountered "literally 1,000 Jews chanting, swaying, crying. I said, 'This does exist in Judaism, it's real.'"
After a year of preliminary coursework, Leavitt was accepted into the ALEPH program and has completed two years of study. She still feels like she's at the beginning of her journey.
Right now, Leavitt is taking a "potpourri of learning," including parsha classes, Jewish history, and Hasidic textual study. With three school-age kids to care for, "it may take 10 years," but Leavitt is working on developing patience.
Her son, Noah, 6, made her a kipa. "'For when you're a rabbi,' he said. I said, 'Give it to me now!'" she jokes.
While she admits it's sometimes hard to stay on track without benefit of other rabbinical students nearby, she feels supported by Candy Lobb and others in the program across the country. "People are just a phone call away," Leavitt muses.
Eventually, she'd like to offer spiritual counseling and engage in chaplaincy work, perhaps working for a congregation.
Recalling movement leader Rabbi Daniel Siegal's irritation with the charge that Renewal is "Judaism Lite," Leavitt counters, "It's Judaism light. Light brings people in, makes them want to come back. That's the beginning, not the end. If people connect to (the divine), they'll want to learn more."
Jewish Renewal and the ALEPH Smicha program
Jewish Renewal is an unaffiliated, trans-denominational movement that has influenced all branches of Judaism. Jewish Renewal seeks to transform and renew the kavanah (spirit) with which Jews practice Judaism, and to find the modern meaning of Judaism as a spiritual practice. (For more information, see Jeffrey Levick's story, "Renewing interest in the faith," online in The SOURCE at www.clevelandjewishnews.com/source/ Click on "articles.")
The ALEPH rabbinic and cantorial programs offer structure, guidance and mentoring to students of diverse backgrounds and denominations. The decentralized program currently connects approximately 80 rabbis and scholars with over 40 students across the country.
Entering students must have a bachelor's degree, demonstrate Hebrew proficiency, liturgical knowledge and service-leading skills. The time required to complete the program varies with the individual student's background and time constraints.
From the Cleveland Jewish News -- July 18, 2003 edition
Bima me UP! The next generation of rabbis *
By ARLENE FINE Staff Reporter
With openings across the country for qualified rabbis and cantors, choosing a rabbinic career is more attractive than ever.
It also can be a life-defining decision. As Rabbi Reuven Bulka, founding editor of the Journal of Psychology and Judaism, notes, "The pulpit is a most powerful instrument, both because of what the rabbi can do with it and because of what it can do to the rabbi."
Following are "snapshots" of several area men and women who are about to or will ascend the bima (pulpit) within the next few years. They will see what kind of music they can play for themselves and their congregation with this "powerful instrument."
High-flying rabbinic student
Call her a bit flighty and Candy Lobb will understand; this senior-year rabbinic student
was a flight instructor prior to entering rabbinic school.
Lobb, was also an engineer with Goodyear Tire and Rubber in Akron for 17 years and is
currently working part time as a life coach, a non-judgmental individual who helps
people achieve their goals.
But the calling of the rabbinate is what fills most of Lobb's time. This non-traditionalist
chose to participate in the Jewish renewal's ALEPH Rabbinic Program, also called a
"yeshiva-without-walls." The program involves studies of traditional hasidic texts and
contemporary interpreters of those texts in addition to more standard rabbinic studies.
It is open to Jews of all denominations.
Lobb has taken a number of her classes at the Siegal College of Judaic Studies, getting her MA in Jewish Studies in June 2003. She has also traveled around the country learning from Jewish scholars.
Lobb comes by her interest in the rabbinate genetically. She is a descendant of 22 rabbis, including her father.
"As a child, I told my father I wanted to become a rabbi," says the Brooklyn, N.Y., native. "Even though he was raised Orthodox, my father encouraged me to pursue my dream."
Lobb sees the evolving role of today's rabbi not so much as a prayer leader, but as a spiritual coach. "Many lay people are capable of leading services, but it is up to the rabbi to lead them to the spiritual well and serve as a reference source," she says.
Lobb, who currently resides in Canton with her husband, Bill, intends to finish her course work by January 2004. She says that one of her instructors said something that has remained in her heart: "'As a rabbi, you may not always be great, but your worst has to be adequate.' I ask myself, 'Can I live up to that?'"
* note: some errors have been edited.
-------------------------------------------------- Note by Shafir
The ALEPH rabbinic and cantorial programs offer structure, guidance and mentoring to students of diverse backgrounds and denominations. The decentralized program currently connects approximately 80 rabbis and scholars with over 40 students across the country.
Entering students must have a bachelor's degree, demonstrate Hebrew proficiency, liturgical knowledge and service-leading skills. The time required to complete the program varies with the individual student's background and time constraints.
She sees the evolving role of today's rabbi as a "spiritual coach."
An active ALEPH supporter
Although she still has a house to sell in
Ohio, Congregation Ner Tamid's new rabbi
already feels at home in Tucson.
"When I arrived in Tucson on the second
night of Chanukah, we went to an assisted-
living facility to hear the Ner Tamid choir.
Steve Slaff, Ner Tamid's vice president,
hugged me, and said 'welcome home.' It
feels so right to be here," Rabbi Shafir Lobb
said during her first official trip to Tucson.
The congregation is "so excited about Rabbi
Shafir," says Alan Gilbert, Ner Tamid's president.
"Her great warmth and counseling ability has
already been felt." Her teaching skills are excellent, too, he says: "She conveys complex thoughts in simple terms that everyone is able to understand, which is very rewarding." Lobb, in turn, wants Ner Tamid's congregants to discover what works for them. "Jewish law is a dance," she says. "Nearly 25 years ago, when I appeared in a Conservative shul with a tallit, the men walked out," Lobb remembers, "but the times have changed."
Her own dance has taken a circuitous path.
"As a child, I told my father I wanted to become a rabbi; even though he was Orthodox, he encouraged me to pursue my dream," Lobb says. A descendent of 22 rabbis, she enrolled at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia after receiving her B.A. in religion at Ursimus College in 1972. Two years later, her father died and she dropped out. "I wasn't ready then anyway," Lobb reflects.
By 1975, Lobb acquired a master's degree in education in order to pursue a more marketable profession. At the same time, she began taking flying lessons, which developed into one of her lifelong passions. Lobb moved to Cleveland to work as a flying instructor in 1980 - that was the year she married her husband, Bill, whom she refers to as her "spiritual partner." After receiving a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Akron, Lobb worked at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for 17 years. During her engineering career, she was awarded 11 patents for her inventions.
In 1999, while in shul saying Kadish for her mother, Lobb observed a "bunch of women wearing tallit." Judaism had moved to a new place, she says; she realized that "I had, too." At the time, Lobb was in training to become a life coach and as part of the process was working with one herself. It was time, she decided, to step up her dance with Judaism and return to rabbinical training. "When I face my maker," Lobb says, "God won't say, ÔWhy weren't you like Moses, but were you the best Shafir you could be?'"
In 2003, as part of the ALEPH Rabbinic Program, Lobb earned a master's degree in Judaic thought from Cleveland's Siegal College of Judaic Studies. ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal is a school without walls that offers structured guidance and mentorship, so Lobb traveled around the country learning from Jewish scholars. At her smicha (ordination), Lobb joined the Rabbinic Association of Renewal; her name appeared on a webpage where the Ner Tamid search committee found their new rabbi.
Although Ner Tamid is Lobb's first congregation, her recent activities in Ohio represent her belief that "all people be treated as God's children." She participated on an interfaith panel for the annual "Children of Abraham - A Journey Together" conference in Lakeside, Ohio; taught courses in Akron, Canton, and Cleveland, including an interfaith workshop on sacred texts; and taught distance learning classes through the ALEPH Bet Midrash. Lobb also served as chaplain associate at the Akron General Medical Center and traveled to New Castle, Pa., to work with Temple Hadar Israel.
"My goal at Ner Tamid is to bring in Tucson's many unaffiliated Jews," Lobb says. "There is a grassroots swelling within Judaism aimed at enhancing spiritual growth through a variety of modalities." By offering experiential Shabbat mornings that include Jewish meditation, chanting, music, and drumming, the new rabbi explains, "We will take the time to go deep - for the individual as part of the community."
"Ner Tamid is dedicated to liberal Reform Judaism and social justice. They have gone through some rough times, and I want to help them heal, to nurture and grow the congregation," Lobb says. In her view, there has been a tamping down of emotion among Jews since the Holocaust, and it is time to address an increased awareness of spirituality and the yearning that comes with it.
Like Jewish tradition, Lobb says, she and her husband are "adept at changing with the times." Looking forward to settling full-time in Tucson, she is eager to add a new passion to her long list: macro-photographing purple Santa Rita cacti. Until their Ohio home sells, Lobb will spend at least two weekends a month at Ner Tamid.
Thrilled that the Ner Tamid board emphatically approved her contract, she says, "I have carried a sense of preparing for something until quite recently. It is only now that I feel like I'm doing the work I've been meant to do."
Thirty-five million people had died in World War II. Most of them had been killed in battle. Five million of them were political prisoners, dissidents, anti-fascists of various nationalities, homosexuals and gypsies who had been murdered by the Nazis. Six million — or two out of every three Jews in Europe — had also been murdered ...
One third of the Jews escaped death at the hands of the Germans. Some fled east to parts of Russia that remained unoccupied. Some went west ... ending up in the Americas, Australia, Israel, Shanghai. Some 400,000 to 500,000 Jews who remained in Nazi-occupied Europe survived the war in labor camps; or in forests fighting with small partisan groups; or in the forests hiding out on their own; or in the cities passing as Christians with false papers; or confined for months and years in the constricted quarters of a secret attic, pantry or cellar. No more than 75,000 people outlived the Nazi concentration camps, and two of them were my parents.
— from “Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of the Holocaust” by Helen Epstein
This year’s seven High Holiday profiles tell the stories of members of Tucson’s Jewish community whose parents somehow survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Their experiences prove that the trauma of the Holocaust cannot be dissipated in a single generation. These second-generation survivors, part of the baby boom, all seemed to know at a young age — as if by osmosis — that their parents’ lives were tragically deferred by the Shoah.
In today’s world, where injustice and anti-Semitism still exist, Rabbi Shafir Lobb connects her father’s experience during the Holocaust to her conviction that individuals must constantly work toward justice for all. “My father [who was also a rabbi] would have gone to Darfur today,” says Lobb.
Especially during the High Holidays, the stories of these second-generation survivors remind us to never forget, while we pray that our actions throughout the year can help contribute to “never again.”
RABBI SHAFIR LOBB
Daughter of Zionist rabbi shares his passion for justice
Rabbi Shafir Lobb, of Congregation Ner Tamid, says that as a child she wasn’t ready to hear the story of her parents’ Holocaust experience, even though they were ready to tell it. It came out in dribs and drabs until sometime between her Bat Mitzvah and college, when she started to express interest. “I learned that my father, whom I would have thought of as a pacifist, came to the states originally to run guns back to Israel [then British Palestine]. I come from a family fighting for justice,” says Lobb.
I don’t remember when I found out that my parents were in the Shoah; probably I was very young. They both spoke with accents, my father with a Hungarian accent and my mother with a German accent. My father’s family spoke Yiddish and my mother’s family spoke German. It was a mixed marriage.
In retrospect, my biggest memory is that I didn’t want to talk about their experience during the war with anybody. Every year my mother would get skittish around the time of Kristallnacht in November. That was when she was trying to get out of Vienna [in 1938]. After she came to the United States, she would mark it every year. She would pull out her German working papers, which allowed her to make an income so she could leave. They were the only thing she had left from her life in Europe.
My mother’s sister and brother-in-law lived in Paris and taught at the Sorbonne. She went to visit them when the World’s Fair was there in 1937, before Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. She had an “aha” moment about what was going on; the Vienna press covered absolutely nothing of what Hitler was doing. In Paris, the newspapers carried a lot more detail and Hitler was openly talked about on the streets.
My mother went back to Vienna and told her parents, “We need to get out now.” My grandfather owned some bakeries in Vienna. They were fairly well-off. He had had a first marriage and a daughter who had come to New York. This was a lifeline. My grandfather contacted his daughter and started proceedings for him to immigrate to New York; as her father, he was the only one who could go.
So he left for the States in 1938. Hitler went into Austria and started to arrest the troublemakers. My uncle was immediately taken to a camp. He was a rabble-rouser. His family had money to buy him out, and in the early stages the Nazis were quite interested in that. He got arrested again and was able to escape to England.
My mother was working as a hairdresser in Vienna. My grandfather’s philosophy of life was that it wasn’t enough to just have money; you had to have a trade that you could fall back on. After a while my grandfather sent papers for my mother and grandmother to pick up their visas. It was 1938 or 1939. The visas were sold out from under them.
By this time, my mother, who was a very attractive woman, dyed her hair blond. The Nazis started to impose a rule that Jews had to show their left ear. They had a theory that Jews didn’t have earlobes.
My mother started working with the underground. The Nazis had set up roadblocks to catch people with bad papers. She — in her blondness — would walk men right past the guards and flirt with them to divert their attention. She was also able to pass; one time a guard stopped her and asked, “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing with a Jew?” I think she told the guard, “Just give me time to get rid of him and I’ll be right back.”
Eventually, my mother got out in “the spirit of the night” with my grandmother and went to New York. My father was a rabbi who got out of Hungary when they were rounding up Zionists. He was part of a group that managed to escape by boat to Israel with the Stern gang and all those other “non-terrorist” groups running around. When my father visited me in Israel in 1972, he was still capable of taking apart and putting an Uzi back together in record speed.
My father was trained as an Orthodox rabbi but held various posts in Conservative synagogues from Pennsylvania to California when I was growing up. He was one of 22 children; eight made it to the States.
Basically, the philosophy of life that my parents gave me was if you run into a brick wall, you back up two steps and you hit it from another angle. They taught me to look outside the box for solutions, and in a strange kind of way, not to accept the first “no” as an answer.
They had plenty of anger. What the Nazis did, according to my father, was make my uncle watch the deaths of his seven children, so they could point to him walking around as meshugah and say that Jews were nothing but crazy ones. My father described this vividly. His family suffered much more than my mother’s family, who were wealthy enough to buy their way out and saw enough to move out early. They were threatened but not decimated. My father’s family was decimated.
My family history has made me highly sensitive to hidden agendas. I’m sure that comes from my father having to hide his Zionism and my mother having to hide her Jewishness. I never take the written or published word only at face value. And I treasure that I live in a country where I can speak my mind and be openly Jewish.
Never again means creating a world where nothing like the Shoah will happen again, where people need to be in a constant state of self-justification because of victimhood.
My father died when I was 21. He would have gone to Darfur today. Because of his quiet demeanor, he was able to get people to communicate who might not have. My father was adamant that my brother and I become responsible; we both served in the military and became rabbis. My father always said, “There is enough in the world for all of man’s needs if we share and work together. But there will never be enough for man’s greed.” I do need to walk my talk. I’m my father’s daughter.
