By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
When Olivier BenHaim first met Rabbi Ted Falcon, founder and rabbi of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue, 11 years ago at an interfaith dialogue, he had little interest in becoming a rabbi himself. In fact, BenHaim was not even a practicing Jew. The event that brought the two men together was a discussion that centered around the film The Jew in the Lotus, a documentary based on Rodger Kamenetz’s book about the large number of Jews that practice aspects of Buddhism. BenHaim had come out of his own interest in Buddhism.
“At the time, I wasn’t looking to reconnect with Judaism,” BenHaim recalled. “I went to the event and was really blown away by what [Rabbi Falcon] had to say. So I decided to go and check out the synagogue. Again, I was really blown away.”
After that, BenHaim became a regular at Bet Alef. Over the course of a decade, he has increasingly taken on a leadership role within the Seattle-area’s only meditative congregation, and now, on June 6, BenHaim will be ordained as the new rabbi for Bet Alef.
BenHaim grew up in a Jewish household in France and was a practicing member of a modern Orthodox community from the time of his Bar Mitzvah through his mid-20s. But after moving to Israel and serving in the IDF, his enthusiasm for his faith began to dwindle. By the time he and his wife moved to the U.S., BenHaim was looking elsewhere for spirituality. At Bet Alef, he found an appealing combination of the traditions of his youth and the meditative practices that had captured his attention as an adult. Soon, BenHaim began pitching in at the new congregation to lead services when Falcon was out of town.
“It became clear to me, watching him, that here was somebody with a far more traditional background than I and knew a lot about the Jewish tradition,” Falcon said.
For the past four years, BenHaim has served Bet Alef as its rabbinic intern, assisting Falcon with services, workshops and holidays and leading Torah classes and Bet Alef’s youth programs.
Falcon acknowledges that the ordination ceremony, which will take place at the Unity of Bellevue church, is a little out of the ordinary. The reason: New rabbis are typically ordained through seminaries, not by individual rabbis.
“The community and I are ordaining him as a rabbi of Bet Alef,” Falcon explained. “So this is really unique. To my knowledge this is the first time an ordination like this is happening. It certainly hasn’t happened in this city before.”
BenHaim has not attended rabbinical school. Rather, his training has come through his internship with Falcon in addition to a distance learning Master’s program in Jewish Studies at Hebrew University in Newton, Mass., which he plans to complete next year.
“I have a family and I couldn’t uproot them from Seattle to go to seminary,” BenHaim said. “So this seemed like a better way to go about it.”
BenHaim likes to think of his ordination as harkening back to a time before it was commonplace for religious leaders to receive institutional instruction.
“It’s like back in the good old days of Eastern European communities where the next rabbi was always coming from within, before there were institutions to train new rabbis,” he said.
Falcon said he sees a practicality in this alternative ordination beyond BenHaim’s inability to leave Seattle for his rabbinical training.
“There is no rabbinical school that prepares a rabbi to do what we do at Bet Alef. So we’re kind of in an awkward place,” Falcon said. “When somebody comes who has the spiritual qualifications and a background in Judaism, that’s mighty appealing.”
Still, Falcon acknowledged how the situation is unusual today.
“The congregation, in a way, has been preparing him, working with him, giving him feedback as he goes,” he said. “As far as I can tell, from a historical prospective, this is a legitimate way to make a rabbi.”
Following BenHaim’s ordination, the synagogue will begin a transition process whereby the younger rabbi will take on more and more of a leadership role. It is Falcon’s hope that, by the beginning of 2010, he will be able to take over as the congregation’s senior rabbi so Falcon can step aside.
BenHaim will be Bet Alef’s first full-time rabbi. Falcon, who also works as a spiritual therapist, has always been with the congregation on a part-time basis. Falcon said that although Bet Alef is a relatively small congregation, with 115 member families, he feels it is time for the organization to have someone who can do the job full-time. He readily admits that handing over control of the synagogue he started more than a decade ago, even to someone he is as close to as BenHaim, will be difficult.
“I definitely have founder’s syndrome,” he joked.
BenHaim has his share of concerns as well.
“Rabbi Ted is a very charismatic presence,” he said. “He is the identity of Bet Alef. That’s a big role to step into. Any change is a challenging time, but it’s also a time of opportunity.”
BenHaim, 38, said he hopes to expand family-oriented programming at Bet Alef. Falcon noted that BenHaim has already been a driving force in cultivating younger membership for the congregation and creating a more family-oriented atmosphere.
Falcon said the Bet Alef community has been overwhelmingly supportive of the decision to have BenHaim succeed him, as well as BenHaim’s unorthodox ordination.
“To be honest, the congregation really doesn’t know how unusual this is,” Falcon said of the upcoming ordination ceremony. “But I do think they know how unusual Bet Alef is in the first place, so it won’t come as a surprise. These are people who aren’t served by other congregations. So if they were looking for something more traditional, they likely wouldn’t be here to begin with.”
Whether or not the larger Jewish community will regard BenHaim as a rabbi, Falcon is unsure.
“If the congregation flourishes and he steps into that role, I believe he will be acknowledged as a rabbi,” Falcon said. “Could he be hired by a regular Reform or Conservative congregation? I don’t have a clue. Chances are the answer people would give is absolutely not.”
BenHaim knows what he’s up against. The path of a rabbi ordained outside of a seminary will not be an easy one. But he said he hopes to increase Bet Alef’s level of involvement with the larger community and be a partner with other rabbis and synagogues.
“I am very clear that at first there will be some resistance,” BenHaim said. “There will be some people who won’t recognize any of this. But I think I’ll prove that I have something to offer.”