Meet Rabbi Sol Goodman, the new head of education at Temple Sinai

Rabbi Sol Goodman, 69, the new education director at Temple Sinai, in Cranston, was born and raised in Chicago. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University, in Chicago, and a master’s from Hebrew Union College, in Los Angeles. In 1980, he was ordained by Hebrew Union College, in Cincinnati. 

Rabbi Goodman spent four years in Israel pursuing graduate studies in Bible and education, with an emphasis on curriculum development for language learning.

He has served universities, prisons, health-care facilities and other communities across the country as a spiritual leader, educator and chaplain.

In addition to preparing area B’nai Mitzvah students, Rabbi Goodman is the senior chaplain at the Yawgoog Boy Scout Reservation, in Rockville. For the past 17 years, he has tended to the spiritual needs of over 6,000 campers and adults of all faiths, from across America and around the world.

 Rabbi Goodman has four adult children and lives with his wife in East Providence.

He recently answered a few questions for The Voice.

Q: Favorite Jewish food?  

A: Chicken matzo ball soup.

Q: Favorite Jewish holiday?

A: Passover. All of the foods that we [his family] make are so special. I make a “fruited matzo,” which my family always asks for. You can have so much fun making and creating all the variations to the Passover seder. It’s always timely. Every year, there’s something different about it.

Q: Favorite Jewish song?

A: “Dugit,” a lullaby that I sang to my children.

Q: Favorite Jewish movie?

A: “Sallah,” an Israeli film, and “Hester Street.”

Q: Favorite Jewish celebrity?

A: Jon Stewart.

Q: Favorite Israeli city to visit?   

A: Eilat. The sun, the warmth, the heat, and all of those qualities are very special. And, it is right on the [Red] Sea.

Q: Favorite Israeli city to live?    

A: Jerusalem, hands down. There is just something about walking the stones of Jerusalem. There is no other place like it in the world. You get there and it gets under your skin and it stays with you forever.

Q: Favorite Hebrew word?

A: “Sababa,” [which means] great, wonderful, awesome, terrific. I teach it at Boy Scout camp and they all know when I ask “How are you?” to say “sababa,” sometimes hundreds of them at once.

Q: Favorite Yiddish word?

A: “Mensch,” a good person. I had a Yiddish-speaking Jewish grandmother and she taught me to be a mensch and to enjoy my life and the world, acknowledging where it all came from. 

Q: Best part of keeping Kosher, worst/most difficult part of keeping Kosher? 

A: Best part: The best part of keeping Kosher is learning to understand that what goes into your body should be acknowledged, and it influences what comes out: What goes into your mouth affects what comes out of your mouth. It is not only a physical experience because we need food, but it is also a spiritual experience. We learn to understand that even the act of eating can have lessons to teach us about who we are and how we need to live.

Worst/most difficult part: It takes an extra level of care, discipline and mindfulness.

Q: Favorite part of being a rabbi?

A: Being able to share my traditions in a way that serves as a model to others and allows me to connect with other people. 

Q: Favorite Jewish memory? 

A: I had a 90-year-old uncle who used to conduct our Passover seders, and he would come and stay with my family all of Passover. He would do the seder all in Hebrew, all the way through. We spent a lot of time together. He was a real character, and we loved him for it. I will always remember that.

Q: Best advice someone has given you, and who gave it to you?  

A: [From his] grandmother: “Be thankful and be a mensch.”

Q: If you could have three dinner guests, living or from history, who would they be?

A: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda – he was the father of the Jewish language. [Israeli writer/poet] Amos Oz – I love his poetry. Job from the Bible – I would like to have asked him how he managed [through tremendous adversity].

Q: You have just been named education director of Temple Sinai, in Cranston.  What excites you about this opportunity? What are your plans for the future of Jewish education at Temple Sinai?

A: I taught in the religious school at Temple Sinai for over 10 years, mostly with B’nai Mitzvah kids. Temple Sinai has encountered a period of transition, with their previous education director leaving. My wife and I have been at Temple Sinai for a very long time, and we’re very closely bonded to this particular congregation and community.

This is a great opportunity which enables me to do work that I love and to help while the congregation decides what their next direction is going to be. We are about to introduce some new teaching programs, and I think that will be exciting in the future. We’re going to see how those go, and how they develop, and have a new adventure in learning and education.

Q: How long have you been working in education and as the chaplain at the Yawgoog Boy Scout camp?  

A: I have been working in Jewish education since I was 17, making it over 50 years. I have been at the Yawgoog Boy Scout camp for the past 17 summers. I enjoy working with the Scouts because, in my view, scouting has a great potential to create “menschen,” and that’s what I talk about and teach there.

In the 17 years that I’ve been at the camp, there has never been a racial, religious or political argument. Not one. And, I think it’s because scouting makes a very strong point of values – to be respectful, loyal and kind.

Q: What are your thoughts about the incidents in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the vandalizing of the New England Holocaust Memorial, in Boston? 

A: It’s appalling, what can I say? I think, unfortunately, these events have occurred because there is a current climate which has allowed people to believe they have a license to behave in this fashion. I think that we are at a time that is reminiscent of times when public rhetoric has facilitated the unleashing of these forces of hatred and bigotry. Really, we have no one who has publicly disavowed any of this, and I think that is why it is so disturbing.

We [Jews] have a tradition that we do not stand idly by while our neighbor bleeds. We cannot remain silent. We’re at a time when too many in leadership in this country have stood silently when they should be condemning and distancing themselves from this behavior and anyone who, by language or by deed, would support this.

Unfortunately, people will say that this is how it started in Nazi Germany, and that is what is most frightening. I think people need to be even more vigilant and speak louder about the dangers that can arise. I don’t know where that leadership is right now. It is nonexistent. When the former head of the KKK [David Duke] says “we put you in office” and does not get a response, that is terrifying.

By his [the president’s] silence, he is complicit. If the representatives of this country cannot rise up as one and condemn this behavior, which is toxic for this country, it is beyond words.

 I think one of the greatest scenes of that march in Charlottesville was seeing all of these clergy people marching arm in arm while these militiamen were standing on the sidewalk. The clergy people faced their backs to the marchers in the street, and I think the entire country needs to stand up and turn their backs on these people as well.  

SAM SERBY is a freelance writer who lives in East Greenwich. He previously worked at the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv.