Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi Elias J. Lieberman was born in Baltimore, MD, in 1953. He attended Vassar College, where he earned his A.B. degree in Drama, cum laude, in 1975.
Rabbi Lieberman was ordained in 1984 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. From 1984 to 1990 he served as Assistant, and then Associate, Rabbi of Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, Maryland. In July, 1990 he accepted the call to serve the Falmouth Jewish Congregation.
Rabbi Lieberman has been actively involved in many social justice concerns during his rabbinate including freedom for Soviet Jewry, equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people, and furthering understanding between the Jewish and African-American communities. He is active in the effort to combat HIV/AIDS and is an eager participant in a variety of interfaith efforts. In December, 2005 he was appointed as an inaugural member of the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission.
Rabbi Lieberman has written:
“Judaism cannot be lived in isolation … to be a Jew is to be part of a community. Those Jews who actively affiliate with a synagogue are already making a significant statement about the importance, in their hearts and minds, of Jewish survival. Mine is the privilege, as rabbi, to encourage and counsel, to inspire, and be inspired by those whose lives intersect my own.”
“It is my fervent desire to see the Falmouth Jewish Congregation become a place where Judaism is enshrined as a vibrant force in our collective lives–a congregation eager to mine the riches of our tradition for inspiration; to fashion innovative interpretations of time-honored rituals to carry us into the future; to build bridges across chasms of alienation and despair; to create a legacy for our children which will nourish their aspirations; to try to find meaning in a world long on material comforts but short on the stuff of the spirit.”
To reach Rabbi Lieberman by e-mail: rebelias@comcast.net
RABBI'S THOUGHTS
David’s Old Silver Swim
[I am pleased to relinquish my column-space this month to my friend and FJC member Dr. Mike Fishbein, who has an important message to share about another friend and FJC member, Dr. David Garber] The 9th Annual David Swim event is scheduled for August 10th. The swim is a fundraiser for ALS but also a way of honoring a [...]
Medical Aid in Dying
If all goes according to plan, by the time this Newsletter reaches you I will have spent the better part of Tuesday, June 25 in Gardiner Auditorium in the State House, waiting to offer testimony to the Joint Public Health Committee. The focus of my testimony will be a piece of legislation being considered by the committee “An Act [...]
Spring!
Spring Linda Pastan (from Heroes in Disguise. © Norton, 1991) Just as we lose hope she ambles in, a late guest dragging her hem of wildflowers, her torn veil of mist, of light rain, blowing her dandelion breath in our ears; and we forgive her, turning from chilly winter ways, we throw off our faithful sweaters and open our [...]
Sing to the Eternal a New Song!
Shiru l’Adonai shir chadash...sing to the Eternal a new song.... (Psalm 96:1) For the past eight years our High Holy Day services were graced by the voice, artistry and persona of Stephanie Horowitz, our cantorial soloist. Earlier this year Stephanie informed us that, because of health issues that she is addressing, she could not commit to returning to us [...]
Toppling Pharaohs
Thinking back on more than six-decades-worth of Passover sederim I have attended or led, quite a few stand out in my memory: the warm family sederim of my childhood in Baltimore, led by my uncle, Rabbi Morris Lieberman, and the old Union Haggadah that we used; congregational sederim in the temple in which I grew up when the consolation [...]
Why I support medical aid in dying
As I write this column I am anticipating an opportunity on February 20 to mix pleasure with “business”. The pleasure involves seeing a number of friends, current and former members of Falmouth Jewish Congregation, who are now living at Orchard Cove in Canton . The “business” involves an invitation from Elaine Seidenberg, a past President of FJC who is [...]
What’s in a name(tag)?
Name-tag Etiquette 101 One of the undergirding principles of life in Falmouth Jewish Congregation is our desire to build and maintain community. We strive to do so in many ways, one of which is by providing a name-tag for each member of our congregation and encouraging them to wear it whenever they find themselves at FJC. It has been [...]
Resolve
As American Jews we stand astride two cultures, American and Jewish, and we’re blessed with their respective fruits. At Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, we indulge ourselves in rituals of introspection, seeking a trajectory in the new Jewish year that, with work, will make the new year feel less freighted with regret. Come January 1st, we get to [...]
In the dark, kindling light…
In the dark, kindling light... On Monday evening, October 29, hundreds of people gathered for a candlelight vigil on Falmouth’s Village Green in response to the murder of eleven Jewish worshipers at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh two days earlier. Introducing that vigil, I spoke these words: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to [...]
A Jewish Journey
Through the decades that I have worked as a rabbi, some of my deepest satisfactions have come from the interactions I have had with individuals who sought to become Jews and with whom I was privileged to study and learn. In every instance, I have been given the gift of seeing Judaism from the outside, from the perspective of [...]