Greenstein joins Neveh Shalom clergy
By Deborah Moon Seldner
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Congregation Neveh Shalom's 1,000 plus member families now have a new resource to help meet their needs. Rabbi Bradley Greenstein became the Conservative congregation's assistant rabbi Aug. 1.
"We are certainly very excited about his arrival," said Neveh Shalom Rabbi Daniel Isaak. "He is going to bring a lot of enthusiasm that comes with a recent graduate of rabbinical school. He is going to enhance everything we do here at the synagogue."
A lifelong California resident, Greenstein said he and his wife Sarah were delighted to find a congregation on the West Coast, close to both of their families. Greenstein graduated from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in May.
"I feel my Judaism is a gift," said Greenstein discussing his decision to become a
rabbi. "I felt then and still feel now that the best way to give thanks for that gift is to teach others and to find my own place in Jewish history."
During his rabbinic studies, Greenstein gained expertise in a wide array of areas. He was the rabbi-in-residence for the Bureau of Jewish Education in Orange County, a rabbinic intern, pastorial education intern and a special needs teacher. He served on the UCLA Medical Ethics Committee.
As part of a mentorship experience with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Greenstein participated in a priest-rabbi dialogue for two years. Greenstein said he grew up in a culturally Jewish home. The family belonged to a Conservative synagogue, which they attended on High Holidays and some Shabbats.
"We were not observant, but I had a strong sense of Jewish pride and heaviness—an intensity instilled in my sister Elana that was transmitted through our grandfather, a Holocaust survivor," said Greenstein.
His cultural Jewish life was interspersed with moments of depth, he said. For instance, his earliest Jewish memory is of his father calling him in from playing on Yom Kippur to bless "me with words I didn't recognize." Greenstein said his father was crying as he said the blessing and told his son that his father had just called him from Cleveland and blessed him over the phone.
So after graduating from the University of California, Davis, with a bachelor's degree in literature, Greenstein headed to Israel to spend the summer backpacking and exploring the roots of his religion.
"I had been reading a lot and wanted to find out what was behind my cultural pride," he said. "I wanted to know the philosophies that were the foundation of that pride."
That search drove him to apply to rabbinic school.
Now he is pleased to be in Oregon were he can easily combine his loves of Judaism, hiking, writing and playing guitar.