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Rabbis of LA | Rabbi David Vorspan: The Rabbi Who Never Will Quit

The 76-year-old Vorspan is still leading services at Congregation Shir Ami, the Conservative shul he founded in 2007.
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June 8, 2023
Rabbi David Vorspan with his wife, Bonnie

Unlike most Americans his age, Rabbi David Vorspan has no intention of  retiring. The 76-year-old Vorspan is still leading services at Congregation Shir Ami, the Conservative shul he founded in 2007.  After a half-century of congregational life  leading a synagogue and breathing both come naturally.

“It’s important to make sure we keep a sense of community. We are discovering today that when people retire, divorce themselves from community, their life has come to an end.”

But how many more years will he be able to keep this up? “As long as I can move,” Rabbi Vorspan told the Journal, seated at his dining room table with Bonnie, his wife of 52 years and mother of their three children. “I tried to imagine what life would be like if I woke up in the morning with nothing to do, nothing to look forward to,” he said. “It’s important to make sure we keep a sense of community. We are discovering today that when people retire, divorce themselves from community, their life has come to an end.”

Having spent 47 years of his near half-century as a rabbi in the San Fernando Valley, many congregants have known Rabbi Vorspan their entire lives. He led Temple Beth Ami in Reseda for 18 years. But in the early ‘90s, the demographics of the Valley were changing. Beth Ami merged with another temple to form the community that became Shomrei Torah. But some loyal Beth Ami members wanted some continuity and asked Vorspan to lead them.

“It was and is the same congregation,” said Rabbi Vorspan. “I am dealing with the same people, generations later. Now I am dealing with their children and grandchildren after dealing with them when they were children. The fellowship, the camaraderie, the relationships have stayed very strong over all of these years. Except now, I am officiating at a lot of their funerals. I look at those in their 90s – one just turned 101. He was the founding president of my congregation, Shir Ami.”

He plays guitar at Shir Ami’s contemporary service every other Shabbat. The 90-minute service is almost all singing. “We have one aliyah,” the rabbi said. “The entire congregation stands up, points to the Torah, we all have an aliyah and discuss the Torah portion.” The twice-monthly ritual intentionally involves each one of the dozens who come to synagogue. “I didn’t want anyone to sit back and get bored,” Vorspan said. “If it happened, I would try to suck it out of the service.”  The rebbetzin, a former nursery school director at Kol Tikvah, reads the Torah at each service.

While he will continue at Shir Ami for as long as he can (“I told the congregation I will go as long as they continue and they want me.”), after 20 years, he is leaving his position as the rabbi-in-residence and founding rabbi of de Toledo High School. He looks at his tenure there with pride.  When Vorspan joined de Toledo High School in its opening year, 2002, as Jewish Studies director and rabbi-in-residence, it had 40 students. Soon it was one of the fastest growing Jewish community high schools in the country, and now has 400 students. “I initiated a project almost 20 years ago that is continuing,” the rabbi said: Kodesh Moments. 

“There was something about some students’ lives where little things were not important,” he said. By way of example, he told the story of a student who had just bought themselves french fries. As he walked back to where he was going to eat them, other kids approached. Each took a french fry. None remained by the time he reached his seat. This reminded Vorspan of the grape-seller in the Torah. He harvested grapes for a year, and planned to sell them in one day, which would support his family for the next year. But people came along, took a grape, and didn’t pay. Soon, none was left. “People do this all the time in markets,” Vorspan said.

Drawing on a Torah sentence, “you shall be kodesh” (holy), the rabbi concluded that people can’t be like this all the time. “We can do it in spurts. I would tell my students, when you pick up a piece of paper from the ground you don’t want to pick up, or hold the door for someone, that is elevating your behavior to the highest level. You have done kodesh.”

Rabbi Vorspan began calling them Kodesh Moments. His idea soon spread across the campus. He began putting up signs around school, “Did you do a Kodesh Moment today?” Casually, students talked up the idea. It became so popular, parents took up the idea

Fast Takes with Rabbi Vorspan

Jewish Journal: Your favorite place to go in Los Angeles?

Rabbi Vorspan: To my children’s and grandchildren’s homes.

J.J.: Your favorite music?

Rabbi Vorspan: Classical. I consider (Conductor) John Williams’ music to be classical.

J.J.: Your favorite hobby?

Rabbi Vorspan: Playing musical instruments, especially the guitar.

J.J.: The most enjoyable book you have read?

Rabbi Vorspan: The most provocative is the Torah.

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