Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi Elias J. Lieberman was born in Baltimore, MD, in 1953. He attended Vassar College, where he earned his A.B. degree in Drama, cum laude, in 1975.
Rabbi Lieberman was ordained in 1984 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. From 1984 to 1990 he served as Assistant, and then Associate, Rabbi of Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, Maryland. In July, 1990 he accepted the call to serve the Falmouth Jewish Congregation.
Rabbi Lieberman has been actively involved in many social justice concerns during his rabbinate including freedom for Soviet Jewry, equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people, and furthering understanding between the Jewish and African-American communities. He is active in the effort to combat HIV/AIDS and is an eager participant in a variety of interfaith efforts. In December, 2005 he was appointed as an inaugural member of the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission.
Rabbi Lieberman has written:
“Judaism cannot be lived in isolation … to be a Jew is to be part of a community. Those Jews who actively affiliate with a synagogue are already making a significant statement about the importance, in their hearts and minds, of Jewish survival. Mine is the privilege, as rabbi, to encourage and counsel, to inspire, and be inspired by those whose lives intersect my own.”
“It is my fervent desire to see the Falmouth Jewish Congregation become a place where Judaism is enshrined as a vibrant force in our collective lives–a congregation eager to mine the riches of our tradition for inspiration; to fashion innovative interpretations of time-honored rituals to carry us into the future; to build bridges across chasms of alienation and despair; to create a legacy for our children which will nourish their aspirations; to try to find meaning in a world long on material comforts but short on the stuff of the spirit.”
To reach Rabbi Lieberman by e-mail: rebelias@comcast.net
RABBI'S THOUGHTS
10 REASONS TO CELEBRATE PURIM BY ATTENDING OUR PURIMSPIEL!
1) You’ll be sharing an experience that Jews all around the globe are experiencing. 2) You’ll have a chance to see your Board of Directors cut loose. 3) It will be an excellent cure for “The (Snowy) Winter of our Discontent” Blues. 4) You’ll have an opportunity to enjoy the timeless music of the Beatles in a Purim context. [...]
Without judgment
Each February the Jewish world raises awareness about disability-related issues by marking Jewish Disability Awareness Month. To prepare myself for that annual encounter, and my need to deepen my understanding of disability-related issues, I spend time on the Internet, visiting different informative web-sites. Landing on the Facebook page for Jewish Disability Awareness Month, I began to read back-postings and [...]
Letting go…
Are you a maker of new year resolutions? Even if you are not, I hope that you will resolve to do the following: read the essay by Atul Gawande that appeared in the August 2, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine titled “Letting Go: What Should Medicine Do When It Can’t Save Your Life?” Gawande is a staff [...]
In the darkness, hope.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this [...]
The world is a narrow bridge…
These are fearsome times. From the moment we awaken until the time we close our eyes for the night, there is no shortage of alarming facts, reports and images that come our way from a multitude of venues: Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, the Internet, cable television....all bringing us grim news about Ebola, ISIS, global-warming, terrorism, pollution, economic meltdowns, gun-violence, substance-abuse [...]
Ushpizin (a.k.a. “Imaginary Friends”)
Did you have one? A childhood imaginary friend? “Many young children (about 65 percent) develop imaginary friends between the ages of 3 and 5, at a time when they are beginning to form their own identities and test the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Although it was generally believed that children outgrow imaginary friends by the time they enter [...]
Praying & Playing For Change
Were I asked to sum up, in one word, the High Holy Days experience, I would choose the word “change” and I think it fair to say that “praying for change” is what this sacred time is really about. In keeping with High Holy Day themes which urge us to look inside ourselves to effect change in our lives, [...]
Deja-Jew
Early July brought us the grim news of the murder of three Jewish Israeli teens followed by the even more gruesome revenge murder of a Palestinian teen. What followed was tragically predictable: crackdowns, rioting, Hamas-launched rocket attacks, Israel’s response in Gaza with “Operation Protective Edge.” Cue the talking-heads and pontificators of every stripe. Call it “deja Jew”.....that feeling that [...]
The Last Things We’ll Remember
The Last Things I’ll Remember (Joyce Sutphen) The partly open hay barn door, white frame around the darkness, the broken board, small enough for a child to slip through. Walking in the cornfields in late July, green tassels overhead, the slap of flat leaves as we pass, silent and invisible from any road. Hollyhocks leaning against the stucco house, [...]
Pride!
May, 2014 marked a wonderful and important milestone in the life of our nation, the tenth anniversary of Massachusetts becoming the first state in the nation to establish equal marriage as a civil right. Seventeen states now allow equal marriage, joining such nations as Canada, Iceland, Norway, Argentina, Portugal, New Zealand, Brazil, France, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Mexico, [...]