synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
Keneseth Israel Starts a New Era
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
W ith its 800 families, 175
years of history and
important programs like
the Temple Judea Museum, Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins
Park remains one of the area’s most
prominent synagogues.

And this summer, it welcomes a new
rabbi in Benjamin David.

Th e 45-year-old marathon runner
is replacing the 67-year-old Jewish
historian Lance Sussman. Th e latter
announced his retirement last summer
and formally stepped down on July
1, opening the door for his succes-
sor. Sussman led KI for 21 years aft er
moving to Elkins Park from Temple
Concord in Binghamton, New York, a
congregation of about 250 families.

David, like Sussman, is leaving a
smaller community for a bigger one.

His former home, Adath Emanu-El in
Mount Laurel, New Jersey, has a little
less than 400 members.

In the weeks and months leading
up to July 1, the two rabbis, one of
Generation X and the other a baby
boomer, spent time together.

“I think he’s much more athletic than
I am. He’s a distance runner,” Sussman
said, laughing.

Endurance is a quality David will
need if he’s going to learn the dynamics
of such a big community.

Sussman explained to him that
inside KI, there are diff erent cohorts.

Th ere’s a preschool community, a
religious school community, a social
action group, an adult education group
and a museum team.

Members “cluster around their inter-
ests,” the older man said. It is on David
to “learn all of them and how they work
together,” he added.

David must build a calendar in which
every cohort has space to do its thing.

But he also needs to fi nd areas where
diff erent groups can cooperate.

“Can you bring religious school fam-
ilies in to talk to preschool families?”
Sussman asked.

Sussman’s other big lesson was about
governance. Sussman has a Ph.D. in
24 JULY 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
American Jewish history and has taught
such classes at Princeton University, so
he compares KI’s political philosophy
to that of the United States.

“It’s a congregation of, by and for the
congregants,” he explained.

David will need members to be faith-
ful Jews who fi ll the pews, hard workers
who keep the building running and
philanthropists who pay for it all. To
get that kind of commitment, he will
have to continue to give congregants
the say they have come to expect.

KI has a board of directors that
decides on policy and a board of trust-
ees that votes on budget items. Th e lat-
ter includes almost 100 people and acts
as a sort of House of Representatives
to the board of directors’ Senate.

Th e Elkins Park synagogue also has
a senior staff of three leaders in the
senior rabbi, Cantor Amy Levy and
Executive Director Brian Rissinger.

Early on, David must learn how those
branches “interface,” as Sussman put it.

“To know the people. Th at is really
core,” the older rabbi added. “And to
help them feel good on behalf of the
synagogue.” Before moving to Jenkintown to lead
KI, David served as senior rabbi for
10 years at Adath Emanu-El, so he is
familiar with this process. He also
grew up as the son of a rabbi, Jerome
P. David, who led Temple Emanuel in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for 47 years.

Th e younger David even ended up at KI
many times growing up; he was active
in NFTY, the youth organization for
Reform Jews.

If there was anyone who was prepared
for this position, it was probably David.

Yet he still found Sussman’s counsel to
be invaluable. He just described it as
two men having a quality conversation
“about what a remarkable community
this is and what a privilege it is to be the
rabbi there,” David said.

David, his wife Lisa and their three
children moved to Jenkintown in June.

He chuckled when he described the
transition as “brutal,” with “a lot of
boxes, time and schlepping.”
Now though, he “can’t wait to start,”
he said.

Th e new rabbi plans on spending his
Rabbi Lance Sussman
Courtesy of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
Rabbi Benjamin David
Photo by Colin Lenton
fi rst several months getting “slowly,
slowly acclimated to this wonderful
community and opportunity.” He
knows that he probably does not need
to change much. But he does still have
a couple of ideas based on his conversa-
tions with Sussman.

David wants KI’s 10th-grade pro-
gram to bring in speakers from dif-
ferent faiths. Th e rabbi also hopes to
start an 11th- and 12th-grade program
in which he takes students out to four
to six dinners a year so they can talk
about life.

“He acknowledged that coming off of
COVID, this is an area that’s going to
need attention,” David said of Sussman.

“Our kids got out of practice of being in
the synagogue and being amongst their
friends in the Jewish community.” JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com



d’var torah
Filling in the Blanks
BY RABBI SHAWN ZEVIT
T Parshat Hukkat
he word hukka, or decree, is
associated with the word haki-
kah, or engraving. Th e Torah
is to be in our hearts like an engraving,
etched into our very being — part of
our very nature. Parshat Hukkat con-
tains a rich array of rituals and key
events in the life of Moshe (Moses) and
our people in the wilderness years.

We have the mysterious ashes of
the red heifer, a not easily rationalized
ritual, from which our sages under-
stood hukkim as laws oft en beyond
our everyday understanding. We have
Moses hitting the rock, costing him
passage across the Jordan; Miriam and
Aaron die aft er a lifetime of service
to the birth of the people of Israel,
no longer only the tribes. Th ere are
more murmurings amidst the populace
just prior to an outbreak of poisonous
snakes, at which time Moshe fashions a
copper snake that helps as an antidote
for faith and healing.

Yet, in the ever-unfolding cycle or
spiral of a lifetime in which we engage
and re-engage our sacred texts, it is the
grand leap of 38 non-narrated years
that takes place in this parshah that
is oft en overlooked, given the power-
ful events in the parsha. It is into this
Jeck Continued from Page 22
students would run across the sand
shouting, “Dr. Jeck!”
Fift een years ago, Daniel Jeck was
interviewing a secretarial candidate for
his law offi ce. Th e woman told him she
knew his last name because of his father.

Th e OB/GYN had delivered both of her
babies. When Dara Jeck was giving birth to
the fi rst of her own two children, two
people walked into her hospital room.

silence of years that I invite you to join
me in a creative imagining of what
Moses might have privately thought
as he and the Israelites arrived and
encamped in the Jordan Valley.

I off er this in our tradition of midrash,
that our sages and people have done for
centuries, of seeking out interpretations
and imaginations to explore not only the
written black letters in the Torah, but
also the white space between them:
“I am opening my diary for the fi rst
time in decades, now that we are fi nally
closing in our lifelong dream, one which
most of my generation will not have lived
to see in our forty-two stops since leaving
Mitzrayim forty years ago. Where have the
years gone? Not a word written of the last
thirty-eight, except in my heart’s silence,
and in the knowing poignant look Joshua,
Caleb and I exchange on occasion.

In the blink of an eye, the wilderness
is no more. Fading memories of laying
Miriam to rest, her sustaining waters ebb-
ing away as our tears failed to fi ll in the
drought that followed. Ah, bitter waters
overcame me, Source of Life, and I struck
the rock — consigning me to my genera-
tion’s attitudes and a lapse of faith. Years of
pent-up feelings burst forth, shattering the
sustaining utterance You had been for me
these long desert years. Th en in sight of all
Israel, Aaron’s days ended as I took the
garments off his aged torso and placed
them on the shoulders of a new genera-
Th ey asked if Jeck was around. Th ey
had heard that a Jeck was in one of the
rooms. Later in his career, the doctor got
angry that he had to turn his back on
patients to enter data into a computer.

“He didn’t want to turn his back for
any second on anybody,” Dara Jeck
said. Jeck “got a kick out of being well-
known,” according to his son. Daniel
Jeck said his father “had an ego, but it
was a really healthy ego.”
Superman was also just a man. He
tion, which knew not Egypt.”
“And now I too hear You calling me
to sing a fi nal song — a song I will only
sing once with the breath still in me.

Yet, I feel strangely relieved. It is as if all
the losses, and my own shattering, has
brought peace to my heart. I have fi nally
become a free man. At fi rst, I only felt
remorse and grief — I would not taste
the milk and honey of which we had
dreamed. But now, with the future in
fi rmer hands, I can spend my remaining
days pouring out my soul to you without
concern for status or merit.

I now see how hard I made it for Your
people by agreeing to their demand that
only I talk to You on their behalf. For
in that moment, the intimacy you and
I shared, was no longer theirs as well.

I awoke today on the Plains of Moab,
Jericho before me. Th ough I will not see
the other side of the Jordan, I am no
longer a stranger in a strange land. I am
home, in You, once again.”
What might your words be if you gave
the gaps in your own life story, your
own Jewish spiritual journey, a voice?
What actions are important for you to
take, not only ponder in relation to our
world now that will help us all in our
collective human journey toward the
promise of a future that evades us now?
What are the moments and events along
the journey of your life that do not get
mentioned or have been lost to time
sometimes complained about being on
call all the time. But it also energized
him. Th e doctor chose medicine over
playing the violin and, as an adult, the
instrument became his only hobby.

When he was not working, he tried to
be with the family that he created with
his wife of 64 years. As Jeck grew older,
just as his career took on a second act
at PCOM, his family life did, too, as he
became a grandfather of four. Th e Jecks
hosted the family at their apartment
in Margate, New Jersey, and when the
grandkids would arrive, grandpa would
that may hold wisdom and meaning if
you refl ected on them or with curiosity
asked others about them?
May we all fi nd what is deeply
engraved in our hearts that connects
us to a meaningful, just, caring and
inspiring life. May we double down to
stay engaged and work for laws that
free people from oppression and con-
trol of their bodies or limiting their
lives due to fear of violent aggression
and murderous weapons, race, religion,
abilities or socioeconomic class. Th e
hukkim (the engraved laws) we estab-
lished aft er leaving Mitzrayim were to
do exactly this. May all our actions and
choices lessen the sadness for the life
unlived and increasing the fulfi llment
and gratitude for the love, justice, and
compassion we expressed and lived out
in this one precious life. JE
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit is rabbi at
Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia. Th e
Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia
is proud to provide diverse perspectives
on Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. Th e opinions expressed in
this column are the author’s own and
do not refl ect the view of the Board of
Rabbis. immediately say, “Let’s go to Lucy (the
Elephant)!” “I would say, ‘We just got here,’” Dara
Jeck recalled, laughing.

But they went anyway and came
home with Lucy sweatshirts and faces
stained with water ice.

One day in late June, Dara Jeck was
at her father-in-law’s house to clean it
out when she ran into his neighbor. Th e
woman told her he was “such a great
man.” JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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