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May 19, 2000/14 Iyar 5760, Vol. 52, No.37
AJC honors 'Rabbi Rick' as he prepares for new chapter
TAMI BICKLEY
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 Rabbi Rick Sherwin accepts the Arizona Chapter Community Service Award for Jewish Education from the American Jewish Committee May 14. |
On June 10, Sherwin will step down from the pulpit at Beth El Congregation, where he has been spiritual leader for eight years.
He will continue his career as senior rabbi at Temple Israel, a Progressive-Conservative synagogue in Orlando, Fla.
Meanwhile, a number of his congregants and students say Sherwin, known to many as "Rabbi Rick," will be equally missed. In a display of gratitude, the American Jewish Committee honored Sherwin May 14 with the Arizona Chapter Community Service Award for Jewish Education at its 2000 annual meeting and Mother's Day brunch at the Phoenician Resort.
For the past two years, Sherwin has taught "Understanding Jewish History," an AJC-sponsored class for adults that, he says, "really pulls together people from the affiliated to the nonaffiliated communities under the umbrella of all the work done by the American Jewish Committee."
Class sessions addressing Jewish history and the dynamics of living in society, Sherwin explains, have been for him a highlight of the past two years.
"Rabbi Rick is a marvelous teacher," comments Rabbi Robert L. Kravitz, executive director of the AJC in Phoenix. "He expresses history in a way that is exciting and dynamic. ... Everybody loved the class. People came back month after month."
Sherwin came to Phoenix and Beth El 13 years ago from Chattanooga, Tenn., where he was rabbi of B'nai Zion Synagogue. At Beth El, he served initially as assistant rabbi, then in 1993 became senior rabbi, succeeding Rabbi Herbert Silberman.
Throughout his tenure, Sherwin has done "an awful lot of teaching," he says, which has been "a lot of fun." He considers his Tuesday-night "Affirming Judaism" class at Beth El, based on Talmudic texts, his favorite.
Though he says it will be difficult for him and his family to "leave behind people we care about so deeply," he adds that they are "anxious to open a new chapter in our lives."
Sherwin and his wife, Elissa, have three sons, Josh, Davi and Joel, and a daughter, Nomi.
Sherwin's legacy includes Beth El's 5-year-old wheelchair-accessible sanctuary; the congregation's new prayer books; the newly restored Rakovnik Holocaust Torah; and various programs. He says he will try to take these with him, ideologically, to his new congregation.
But "what makes me most proud of this congregation are the people," he says. "They've touched my soul, and I think that's what I will take with me more than any of the programs, more than the sanctuary, more than the books, more than the (Rakovnik) Torah and more than the classes.
"I have all of these indelible fingerprints that I will carry with me for the rest of my life."