Page 23 - HaMizrachi #33 Sukkot 2021 USA

“The Torah comes alive

when you move to Israel”

Serving for 33 years as Rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Isaac Goldin. They fell in love, but
Torah in Englewood, New Jersey, Rabbi Shmuel Goldin my mother ended the relationship at
grew the congregation from 350 families to nearly 800 fam- summer’s end, as my father was not
ilies, making Ahavath Torah one of the largest Orthodox religiously observant at the time. My
father, however, persisted and sought
congregations in America. Throughout his rabbinic career, her out, promising to become fully
Rabbi Goldin served for decades as an instructor of Bible and observant, which he did. Rabbi Yaakov
Philosophy at Yeshiva University and occupied numerous Kamenetsky married them a year later,
national leadership positions, including two terms as pres- under a tree in the Adirondacks.
ident of the Rabbinical Council of America. After retiring We grew up in a home that success-
in 2017, Rabbi Goldin and his wife Barbara moved to Israel fully merged the different views of my
to continue to teach, write, and volunteer. While visiting grandfathers; our home was very open-
his family in the United States, we asked Rabbi Goldin to minded but also very frum. I, and all
reflect upon his time in the rabbinate, the future of Religious of my siblings, are orthodox; though I
Zionism in America and his new life in Israel. consider myself a centrist, compared to
my siblings, I’m a left-winger!
The dual influences of my grandfathers
hank you for trial after centuries of persecution (for shaped my approach to life and also
taking the time which he studied the Gospels in-depth, to the rabbinate. I wanted to remain
to talk together revealing major inconsistencies), and within the traditional world of halachah,
today! Let’s the Dictionary of American Underworld but at the same time be open-minded
start by telling Lingo (co-authored with three convicts). and bring in as many people as I could.
us about your My kids have followed suit, taking dif-
Tchildhood and Rabbi Avraham “Alter” Poplack, my ferent paths within orthodoxy.
how you ultimately came to be one other grandfather, was much more But the truth is, I never made a con-
of the leading pulpit rabbis in the rigidly Orthodox. Immigrating to Seat- scious decision to become a pulpit
United States. tle in the 1920s, he became a signifi-
cant figure in the Jewish community, rabbi; I was also interested in pursu-
My two grandfathers were significant serving as an educator for countless ing clinical psychology. I was studying
influences in my life. My zaide Rabbi young men and women. He had been at Yeshiva University and wanted to
Hyman E. Goldin was an open-minded, a roommate and close friend of Rabbi continue learning Torah, so I studied
renaissance Rabbi. Immigrating to Yaakov Kamenetsky in the Slobodka for semicha. After getting engaged to
America in 1900, he taught himself Yeshiva and was instrumental in Barbara, I explored two jobs: teaching
English, earned a law degree, bringing Rabbi Yaakov and his family at Flatbush High School or moving to
opened a Jewish camp and a to America in 1937. When my zaide California to become Rabbi Maurice
hotel in the Adirondack moun- made Aliyah to Bnai Brak, I remember Lamm’s youth director at Congre-
tains, served as the principal Rabbi Yaakov and his rebbetzin coming gation Beth Jacob. Rabbi Lamm was
of several Jewish schools, to see him off at the boat. When zaide interviewing people for the job at the
was a prison chaplain, and Poplack visited us, he always tested me Waldorf Astoria Hotel. I said to Barbara:
authored roughly fifty on Gemara, which I didn’t particularly “We’re not moving to California, but I’ve
books, including his transla- like, though I liked it when he said he never seen the inside of the Waldorf
tion of the Kitzur Shulchan was proud of me. Astoria!” On the day of the interview, I
Aruch and the first Rab- was shopping for the engagement ring
bi’s Handbook (Madrich). My parents came from very different with my sister. In the middle of Man-
He also wrote The Case backgrounds and met at Blue Sky Lodge hattan, my yarmulke blew away, and we
of the Nazarene Reopened, Hotel, my zaide Goldin’s hotel in the couldn’t find it. I told my sister: “I’ll get
a treatise in trial form, Adirondack Mountains. My mother, a new yarmulke before the interview,
putting the Jews on Pearl Poplack, was working as a nanny but do me a favor and buy me a hat so
at the hotel when she met my father, I can cover my head until then.” So she

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