THE RABBI’S CORNER

Not Frequently Asked Questions
of Rabbi Rim

What kind of a name is “Rim?”

My full name is Richard Isaac Meirowitz. My parents were very “into” initials and called my sister “P.J.” for Phoebe Joan. They called me Rim and in my case it stuck. Many famous rabbis are known by their initials, including Rambam (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides) and Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Ben Yitzchak). There once was a famous rabbi named “The Rim,” who was the first rebbe of the Hasidic Dynasty of Ger. I am not at all like those rabbis.

What did you do before Shir Tikvah?

I was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1975. After working in the Conservative movement until 1985, I entered the Reform movement and founded The Rashi School, New England’s Reform Jewish Day School. I resigned from the Conservative movement and became an official member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the official Reform rabbinic organization) in 1989. From 1992 until I came to Shir Tikvah, I was bi-synagogal, serving as the Rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in Waltham (where I was between 1986–97) and as the Educator at Temple Sinai in Brookline.

Who is your favorite Beatle?

I never liked the Beatles in high school. I was trying to be cool by being anti-cool and listening to big bands and dixieland. Later, in college, I took the softer and more acoustic route and listened to Simon and Garfunkle and Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band. I play very bad bass fiddle, piano, vibraphones, and clarinet. Today my children listen to the Beatles.

What was the single most formative religious experience of your early life?

From 1971 until 1981 I was a member of the New York Havurah, an intentional community made up of graduate students in Manhattan. It was there that I learned to appreciate group leadership and group control of the religious and spiritual environment. Many of the people who influence our Jewish landscape today came from that group, including the people who wrote The Jewish Catalogs and Judith Plaskow, the noted feminist theologian and author of Standing Again at Sinai. (I’m proud to be the only man given thanks in the introduction to that book.) I also shared a suite at the Seminary with Everett Fox, whose translation of the Torah came out in 1995 to critical acclaim. I was honored and humbled to have been at the conception of the creation of that document (Everett’s translation, not the Torah).

What’s your family like?

I live in “The Pink House” in Newton at 1161 Boylston Street, at the intersection of Route 9 and Bacon Place (no kidding!). I am married to Anne Meirowitz, whom many you know; we’ve been married for almost 16 years. Between us we have five children: The Meirowitz three: Sara (30, studying and editing in Jerusalem), Eliana (25, in New York, working for Mt. Sinai hospital), and Ben (22, living in New York and working for Hebrew University). And the Tavan two: Ilana (29, a social worker at the Dearborn Academy and getting married to Jackie [we love her] in August) and Ethan (26, who works for the state government).

I noticed that you fiddled with your hearing aides during the High Holiday services. How bad is your hearing?

I have a loss of hearing in the higher frequencies. This means that consonants are hard for me to hear. This has gotten me into trouble. On the High Holidays one of the people getting an honor said: “How heavy is the Torah?” I thought he had said, “How heavy is the tzoris (trouble)?” I replied: “I’m doing fine.”

If you think my response is out of line or otherwise makes no sense, please check with me. You may have said, “In my relationship there is some rubbing.” And I may have heard, “In my relationship there is some loving” and then my response would have been: “I hope you have more of that.” So check out these seemingly off-center responses.

What denomination of Rabbi are you?

I was trained as a Conservative Rabbi and graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1975. In 1985 I became the founding Head of The Rashi School, the Reform Jewish Day School in Boston, which now has more than 300 students. In 1989 I resigned from the Conservative movement and joined the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinic arm of the Reform Movement.

My split with the Conservative movement started when I wanted a mentor of mine, who was a woman, to introduce me at my senior sermon given on Shabbat at JTS. At that time the Conservative movement was not egalitarian. The rabbi of the synagogue said: no woman may speak from the bimah of JTS. I said it wasn’t from the bimah; it was from the floor where the students spoke. He said no. As my views became more inclusive in many ways, including the roles of non-Jews in Jewish ceremonial life and marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, etc., the Reform movement became my home.

A basic disagreement between the movements is the placement of authority. The Conservative movement — which conserves Judaism and Jewish law — places authority in the hands of the rabbi and the rabbinical assembly law committee and ultimately in the historical records of the Jewish people, particularly the legal traditions — the Halacha. The Halacha is seen as binding: one ought to do x or y or z.

One of the Conservative movement’s challenges is what happens when there are no formal or informal sanctions regarding not following the law. How can “law be binding” if the existential reality is that each person chooses? It was hard for me to be a Conservative rabbi with this problem unsolved.

In addition, my own philosophy and nature tends towards autonomy. I need to question the tradition, to help others question the tradition, and I dream of a time when each of us will have our own, intelligent, robust, and informed connection with the body of the Jewish tradition and we will be able to make our own choices to use Judaism to enhance our lives. I see our autonomy as given by God and that the genuine religious life is found in the constant awareness of the choices of life and in the choosing.

One of the Reform movement’s challenges is how to form community, particularly a diverse community, if each person is on his or her own journey and is the authority on his or her own religious life. But I find deep joy in trying to answer that challenge.

So given all that, how do you do your rabbinic work?

I walk with people through their lives and help them use Judaism to enhance their lives. When I was studying to be a rabbi, I was taught that our job as rabbis was to help people observe Judaism for the sake of preserving Judaism. My own thinking has undergone a Copernican revolution. I now think that I ought to help people observe Judaism for the sake of enabling these people to lead richer and fuller lives, aware of the spiritual and holy dimension of existence. So I try to listen carefully and help each and every person move at his or her life as best they can, using the wisdom of Judaism as a tool and the wonderful community of Shir Tikvah as a framework for sharing all of life.

Do you have other interests other than Jewish stuff or are you intensely boring?

I play very bad bass fiddle. In 1968 I used to play in New York with a group of amateurs called “Jazz at Noon.” The height of my joy was playing bass when Ray McKinley, the drummer for the old Glenn Miller Band, sat in with us. He was my boyhood hero. Of course my kids like rap (who is Dr. Dre anyway? Did I spell his name correctly?). I also like novels. (Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s Disturbances in the Field is my favorite single novel.) And I have a complete Hill Street Blues on tape.

—Rabbi Rim Meirowitz