Becky Hoffman has been senior rabbi at Temple Ahavat Shalom for only three years, but the seed for her career was planted much earlier: At her bat mitzvah. At Temple Beth Hillel in Valley Village, Rabbi Jim Kaufman had a custom of escorting each b’nei mitzvah to the front of the Ark for a private conversation. When it was Becky Hoffman’s turn, he told her, “I should think of becoming a rabbi. He might have said this to everyone. But I took him seriously.” (Turned out Rabbi Kaufman had the same message for her brother, now a lawyer, and her sister, now an educator.)
But it wasn’t until she was in college at UC San Diego that she decided she would become Rabbi Becky Hoffman. Education classes strongly appealed to her, but the other factor was becoming involved with a synagogue in Encinitas. “The senior rabbi there had been an assistant at Temple Beth Hillel when I was growing up,” she explained.. “At Confirmation, he said if any of you go to school in San Diego, give us a call. I did. I ended up being the youth advisor there and taught religious school. I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
When Rabbi Hoffman returned home, she earned her Master’s degree at American Jewish University. “I always have wanted to be a rabbi. Now I have the Education degree and believe that they are one and the same.” Being a rabbi, she explained, “is being an educator in a different format. I can educate from the pulpit, I can educate in relationships, I can educate in conversations, and having the education degree gives me the background and the experience of knowing how to guide conversations, how to relate to people, how to grow.” But “more than anything,” she told the Journal, her professional life is about making memories. “If we can cultivate positive memories and experiences,” she is convinced, “we are fostering a love of Judaism.”
There was a family aspect as well. The oldest of three, her maternal grandmother died the year she was born, a difficult blow for her mother. Her grandmother’s memory never was invoked, until “On the day of my ordination, my mother said to me that my grandmother would have been so proud of that moment.”
Rabbi Becky initially served as associate rabbi at Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills. After a decade there, she decided she wanted to lead her own congregation and applied to Temple Ahavat Shalom (TAS), Northridge, where she never had lived or worked. “When I walked into my interview,” she said, “I looked around and thought, I know these people. It was a very similar demographic. “The openness, the welcoming, the desire to do good in the world, love of community. Immediately, I knew that about the community.”
Growing up in the Valley,” she said,” really helped me … It’s been a shortcut for understanding. Because I grew up in the Valley and have worked in the Valley, I have a common understanding and experience of the people in my community. Not to mention I grew up with some of them.”
Life threw a kink into her start at TAS. The COVID quarantine went into effect the week after she signed her contract. “When I came in for my interview,” she said, “I talked about dinners and the plans I had.” She laughed again. “I wish I had a time machine and could go back! It’s laughable. I didn’t have a meal at my synagogue for over a year. We didn’t eat with anybody. I didn’t go out for coffee with anybody … I felt hampered with the tools that I have available to be able to relate to people.”
Even three years later, Rabbi Becky isn’t sure how the pandemic affected her congregation. “We are not out of it yet,” she said. “We are in a trauma, emerging from a trauma, and we are not quite understanding the short- or long-term ramifications of it … We are definitely more in-person, but we have a very active livestream,” Rabbi Becky said. “We were one of the last adapters, from Zoom to a livestream service, a significant change.”
Looking back, Rabbi Becky chooses her words carefully. “I think about little things … like when we do a Hakafa with the Torah, I tell people touching and feeling the Torah might not be comfortable for you. It’s perfectly fine to wave at the Torah.” That is one of the constant reminders, she said, “that we are in a different place. I don’t know where we are going.”
Her personal life is more settled. Married to a Conservative rabbi, Joshua Hoffman, they have three teenagers. While Rabbi Becky is Reform, there have been few problems. “We are both progressive, and over the years, the Reform movement and Conservative movement have moved closer to each other,” she said.
Fast Takes with Rabbi Becky Hoffman
Jewish Journal: The best book you’ve ever read?
Rabbi Hoffman: The book I returned to most when I was young was “Little Women.” It inspired me.
J.J. What is your favorite Jewish food?
Rabbi Hoffman: My mother’s kreplach.
J.J. What is your favorite hobby?
Rabbi Hoffman: I just took my first class – we will see if it takes – on how to become a soferit. I love the look of holy lettering. So beautiful.
