Anyone hearing me talk for two minutes knows immediately where I’m from – New Yawk. I was born and raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, the son of immigrant parents. English was for me a second language, my first being Yiddish. I came up through the public school system, with stops in the Workmen’s Circle and B’nai B’rith youth programs along the way. As a "Depression baby," a college education was unthinkable were it not for the City College of New York – completely tuition free, textbooks included.

 

            I majored in engineering, practiced professionally for a while, then made my career in academe. I ended up as Dean of Engineering at Widener University in Chester, PA. En route, I earned a doctoral degree and had a book published: Advanced Mechanics, J.Wiley & Sons, NY, 1968.

 

            In 1980, having, as the saying goes “been there and done that,” I resigned the deanship and decided to strike for a career in the rabbinate. Given my age at the time, I was fortunate to find the Academy for Jewish Religion, an “age neutral” seminary in New York. Concurrent with my studies there I managed to earn a Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

 

            Ordained after completing the four-year program, I devoted my next 14 years serving several start-up congregations in the Dallas suburbs (where it’s too hot and too cold) and then one locally in the Bay Area (where the weather is idyllic). While in the Bay Area, I became acquainted with the Jewish Renewal movement,  and was attracted by its progressive ideology, its social activism, and its exhilarating creativity. Upon retiring from the active pulpit in 1997, I decided to establish a Jewish Renewal presence – Shir Neshamah -- in Central Contra Costa County. I’ve been serving Shir Neshamah ever since on a volunteer basis.

 

            But I find time for lots of other stuff. I’m writing a book dealing with the ideology and practice of the Jewish Renewal movement. I’ve organized and lead a band “The Shabbatones” that specializes in Jewish music. I’m founder of a non-profit corporation “The Endowment for Jewish Youth” whose mission is to help defray the cost of a child’s stay at a Jewish summer residential camp. Click on these two sites for further info.

 

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            So that’s my story. If you’d like to chat regarding any details that I’ve omitted, please feel free to call me at (925) 946-1812. I can always plead Fifth Amendment protection….

                        Shalom uv’rachah, 

                                    Rabbi Sholom Groesberg