Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

January 28^th, 2012

As Rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom of Chula Vista, California, a Conservative/egalitarian United Synagogue congregation, Rabbi Michael has concentrated on developing the youth and adult religious education, social action initiatives, and Israel programming. TBS draws from the entire San Diego area enjoys getting together as a “family” celebrating not only Shabbat services, religious holidays and life cycle events, but also summer Bar-B-Q’s, and Oneg Shabbat vegetarian potluck dinners. We teach our members how to cook for kosher; it’s really not that hard.

TBS’s services are unique; we continue drawing new people every week to our ever expanding congregation. Our congregation offers about seven classes a week on a variety of different topics ranging from the Talmud, to male and female spirituality.  It’s really unlike anything you have ever experienced in a Shul before. We are also in the midst of putting together a new teen youth group and we have many new plans for this coming summer. Everyone is welcome to attend our weekly Cafe Shabbat that goes from 9:00 – 11:00 PM; come enjoy Jewish singing with a twang of Rock and Roll. If you find Modern Judaism is much too stiff, come and experience a Shabbat service. Our philosophy is simple: We need to preserve the embers of our wonderful tradition–not perpetuate its ashes!

Rabbimichaelsamuel.com continues to grow by leaps and bounds; the website averages somewhere between 300-400 hits a day–not bad!! Rabbi Michael also writes a weekly columnist at the San Diego Jewish World and for Jewish Values Online. Feel free to read some of the other articles he has written.

TBS proudly promotes interfaith dialogue and sponsors forums and symposiums that deal with issues affecting our communities today. All are welcome to come to our services; or any of our programs—We would love to have you join us.

A Brief Autobiographical Sketch

Rabbi Michael was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. He is the child of a Holocaust survivor; my father, Leo Samuel (z”l ) descended from a long line of rabbis who lived in a part of Europe that used to be part of Czechoslovakia.  He is also a descendant from some highly regarded rabbis of the 19^th century, R. Yisrael Salanter, and R. Yitzchak Elchanan.

His rabbinical education benefited from studying at several Orthodox seminaries, graduating from the Lubavitcher Seminary with advanced rabbinical degrees in Yoreh Deah and in Yadin Yadin, finally becoming a rabbinical judge. In the early years of his career he taught Talmud and Bible at various Torah u’Messorah Day schools in New York and New England. Teaching at any and all levels and ages is one of his great passions. He became a pulpit rabbi in 1988, first serving an Orthodox congregation for several years, but later established his rabbinate within the Conservative tradition, where he has served for more than two decades. In 1995, he completed his doctoral degree in pastoral counseling at the San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Rabbi Michael’s approach to learning is informed by a similarly wide range of world-views. He is illuminated by Maimonides, Levinas, Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, psychologist Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, and a legion of postmodern thinkers.

Judaism honors the great questions humankind has asked since the dawn of civilization. All traditions deserve to be questioned, if they are to be properly understood. His philosophy is simple:

As Jews, we need to become authentic and take personal ownership of our faith so that we might instill this enthusiasm to our children and those around us. Before we can become a light unto the nations, we first have to rekindle that light of faith within ourselves. Today’s Judaism must reclaim its sense of heart and soul. We possess a wonderful tradition that reflects diversity and creativity. God did not place us in this world simply to be pious automatons. The human mind is a wonderful gift. To properly worship God, we must engage in critical thought and self-reflective thinking. “My experience has taught me that a strong faith can be integrated with modernity, without having to give in to blind faith, dogma and narrow-mindedness.”

Since his time spent as a rabbinical student in Israel, Rabbi Michael has been involved with Zionist organizations and is active in Israel Advocacy.  A strong Israel is essential for Jewish identity in the Diaspora; all of us must do our part to maintain Israel’s strength and security. He is also a strong supporter of religious pluralism and women’s rights in Israel. The humanistic element of Judaism that celebrates the gifts of the human spirit abounds everywhere. I am convinced that such an approach will do much to heal the wounds we have suffered as a community since the time of the Holocaust.

Since his days as a yeshiva student in Israel, Rabbi Michael has been a prolific writer. In 1996 he published, “The Lord is My Shepherd: The Theology of a Caring God,” (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1996) based on his doctoral thesis of Psalm 23. Over the last decade, Rabbi Michael is re-editing a new multi-volume commentary of the Pentateuch. Volume 1 entitled: “Birth and Rebirth through Genesis: A Timeless Theological Conversation” (Aeon Publishing, 2010).

Volume 2 of the “Birth and Rebirth through Genesis” is slated for 2012.  It looks quite promising, so far . . . Unlike most commentaries that have appeared in the last two hundred years, this new work promises to engage the reader on a myriad of different levels and will stretch the mind, heart, and imagination of the reader. Other new books exploring the personal God of Judaism are also coming out probably by early 2013, b’ezrat HaShem!

B’shalom u’vracha,

Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel