For the last year, Bangor’s Congregation Beth El has been operating without a rabbi.
During an 18-month search for a new spiritual leader following the departure of Rabbi Sam Weiss last June, more than 70 congregants stepped up to give sermons and lead services, music and Torah study.
The community’s new leader, Rabbi Daniel Alter, started last week and will hold his first Shabbat service on Friday. But he said he doesn’t want to erase that evolution.
“My question is, how do I maintain that? How do I continue to cultivate and empower that, now that I’m here?” Alter said.
He’s taking the helm of the only Reform synagogue in eastern Maine, which serves a multi-hour radius stretching as far as New Brunswick, at a time when membership in Reform Judaism — and religiosity in the U.S. more broadly — is on the decline.
Despite those trends, Beth El added six new member households in its year of lay leadership, including two with children, raising the number to 155. Alter, 41, said he’s excited to experiment with fresh ways of teaching Judaism in his new role.
Born in southeast Texas, Alter has been a rabbi for ten years, including nine as a rabbi educator, he said, most recently serving congregations in the Atlanta metro area and Ann Arbor, Michigan. He studied archaeology and anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and was ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.
His approach to education for people of all ages emphasizes discovery and open-mindedness, he said.
“I want to communicate and share a Judaism that is broader and deeper than anyone can imagine,” he said, noting that even after ten years as a rabbi, “I am still discovering how much I don’t know.”
Becky Tapley, the congregation’s president, noted Alter’s desire for collaboration with the whole congregation, his sense of humor and his background in Jewish education as qualities that will make him a good fit for the congregation.
“He’s just a genuinely thoughtful and kind individual, and I’m excited about having that kind of person as our spiritual leader,” she said.
Alter took the job at Beth El after deciding he wanted more of an outward-facing role that allowed him to engage with a broader swath of the community. His work thus far has been in large metro areas, in synagogues four or five times as big as Beth El with multiple rabbis each, a far cry from the smaller Jewish community in Bangor.
Alter considered rabbi positions across the country and had never stepped foot in Maine before his job interview at Beth El. Coming here reminded him of his hometown in Texas, which had just one synagogue and one rabbi.
“There’s a resonance to it that feels like home in many ways,” Alter said of the French Street synagogue.
He was accepted this week to the Makom fellowship, a two-year program through the Waterville-based Center for Small Town Jewish Life that united a cohort of Jewish religious leaders in small and rural communities across the country.
Part of the experimentation Alter is looking forward to involves considering how to maintain some of the spirit of community leadership that came together out of necessity while the congregation was searching for a new rabbi.
“I don’t want them to step back now” if they don’t want to, Alter said of the members who took on leadership responsibilities in the last year. He suggested that the congregation might still conduct lay-led services one Friday per month, which he would participate in just as any member of the congregation would. Tapley described the past year as an “eclectic” experience.
“It’s very natural for us to do that,” she said, pointing to the congregation’s history.
Beth El was founded by 25 Maine families in 1981, but its first rabbi, David Sandmel, didn’t start until 1987. Until then, services were also led completely by volunteers. Anya Lewis, the congregation’s first full-time staff member, was brought on last year and played a significant role in managing the synagogue in the absence of a rabbi, Tapley said. Lewis is now the executive director.
In addition to weekly services, Torah study and other activities, Beth El also has a religious school in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel, Bangor’s Conservative synagogue just a few blocks away on York Street.
As rabbi, Alter will also serve as principal of the religious school, which provides classes on Thursday mornings for about 35 children from pre-K to high school, he said.
His educational philosophy emphasizes learning through play, Alter explained. For example, one year during the Passover holiday, he created a Harry Potter-themed escape room. In another class session, he assigned students biblical stories based on their favorite contemporary genres like zombie fiction or romance.
“There is something for everyone,” he said. “I don’t want to rehash the same stories and same ideas.
Alter, a big reader and self-described “geek,” is writing a chapter for a book with a group of rabbis who are using Star Wars to teach Judaism, he said. For nearly a decade, he’s dressed as Darth Vader every year for Purim, the Jewish holiday that typically involves a celebration with masks and costumes.
“Religion doesn’t have the same rule in culture that it did 70 years ago, and that’s OK,” Alter said. “It just means that we cannot rely on that same infrastructure to accomplish what we did. Which is why we need change, which is why we need that flexibility.”