Rabbi David Wolpe, senior rabbi of Sinai Temple, will step down and assume the position of Emeritus Rabbi starting June 30, 2023, Wolpe announced in a written statement.
Wolpe has held the position since 1997. Rabbis Nicole Guzik and Erez Sherman, currently rabbis at the Temple, will jointly assume the position of senior rabbis after confirmation by the congregation’s board.
For the 2023-2024 year, Wolpe will serve as visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, Mass., according to the statement. His plans call for him to fly back at times to Los Angeles and then return to the city as his permanent home.
“It is impossible to put into words how much Sinai Temple means to me,” Wolpe said in the statement. “This shul has been a home, a community, a source of warmth, enlightenment and growth for my entire adult life. I am grateful to each and every one of you who have given me the enormous zechut, privilege, of being your rabbi and given me the even greater gift of being my friend.”
“This shul has been a home, a community, a source of warmth, enlightenment and growth for my entire adult life.”
In a phone interview with the Journal, Wolpe said that although his contract runs through the end of 2024, he told the Sinai board that with the next generation of leadership in place, there is no need for him to remain for another two years while his successors are ready to take over.
“They are incredibly capable, and I believe it will be good for them and good for the synagogue for me to leave (one year) sooner,” he said. “As Rabbi Emeritus, I plan to remain involved with Sinai for years to come. But at this point, I really do feel like I have done what I could do in the pulpit and I’d like to try some other challenges. It just feels like it’s the right time.”
When Wolpe came to Sinai, it had a membership of approximately 1,000 families. Over the course of his leadership, synagogue membership almost doubled to its peak four or five years ago. Then, Covid-19 struck, which cost the synagogue a few hundred members.
Looking back at how the Los Angeles Jewish community has evolved and changed over his quarter century at Sinai, Wolpe said it “has grown both larger and more diverse and the same strains that are visible in America in general are visible in the Jewish community. But that’s just something we have to learn to live with and deal with and overcome. There certainly is a lot more political polarization than there was 10 years ago.”
As the rabbinic leader of one of the largest synagogues on the West Coast, Wolpe was generous with his advice for anyone considering entering the rabbinate.
“The best advice, which I got from an older rabbi before I started, is if you’re going to take a pulpit in a congregation, the single most important quality is to love Jews. And I do. And that’s why it’s been such a wonderful ride over these past 25 years.”
He continued, “It’s not about loving people in general. You have to love them (Jews) in all their individual particularities, gifts and problems – everything. I don’t know that everybody is built that way. But if you are, it’s a really wonderful life. I don’t regret a single minute of having been a rabbi at Sinai. It enriched me far beyond anything I gave to the synagogue.
“I feel very lucky and very blessed. Even from the challenges over the years, I’ve learned and grown. I can’t imagine that I could have done something with my life that would prove to be more rewarding.”
