It’s been 19 years since Rabbi Morey Schwartz stood on Congregation BIAV’s bimah as its spiritual leader.
He’ll be back for the High Holidays this year, leading services as the hazzan. The High Holidays isn’t the only time Rabbi Schwartz will be in Kansas City. The international director of the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning will be a special guest, along with Rabbi Amy Wallk Katz, at the Friends of MeltonKC Kosher BBQ & Beer event Sunday, Nov. 3, at Kehilath Israel Synagogue. He’ll remain here for the International Melton Kallah, “The Spirit of the Israel-America Relationship” Nov. 4 through Nov. 6. This event draws students, graduates and Melton staff from Melton Schools worldwide.
Rabbi Schwartz left BIAV in 2000 so he and his family could make Aliyah. Since then he has returned to the States frequently to serve as the High Holiday hazzan at congregations throughout the country. He makes the connections through Yeshiva University’s Placement Office. He calls it a “fine set of coincidences” that he’ll be at BIAV this year.
Since Rabbi Daniel Rockoff left the Orthodox congregation this summer, BIAV is searching for its next spiritual leader. Because “they were a little bit short on people who were leading davening,” Rabbi Schwartz said, BIAV also contacted Yeshiva’s Placement Office.
It’s an “interesting opportunity” to come to BIAV not as the rabbi but as someone living in Israel who is “still very much interested in the Jewish future of Kansas City and of Congregation BIAV,” he said.
As the main cantor, he’ll be doing parts of the service he didn’t do as rabbi. He’s looking forward to “creating some meaningful, prayerful moments together.”
He hopes to inspire the people at BIAV but also believes they’ll inspire him.
“I’m looking forward to being among people who inspire me because so many of the people that I know in the congregation have done so much to give this rebirth of Congregation BIAV and modern Orthodoxy to Kansas City, and it’s also done a lot in general to enrich Jewish life in Kansas City,” he said.
Rabbi Schwartz also will give the sermon on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
“That will be an opportunity to reflect on my life in Israel and what it means to me to have made this life (in Israel) … and reflecting on 20 years of that experience,” he said in a telephone interview from Israel last week.
A lot has changed at BIAV in the 20 years he’s been gone, but he still knows many congregants, he said. Many have visited his family in Israel over the years, and Facebook does a great job keeping people connected.
Teaching is his first love
Rabbi Schwartz was expected to arrive in the States earlier this week. Before both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he will focus on his job with Melton.
The rabbi, who is also a mohel in Israel, has been associated with Melton, now celebrating its 40th year, since 2002. He’s based at Hebrew University and since July 2018 has worked closely with Melton’s executive director based in New York.
“The two of us co-lead the organization,” he explained. “We divide up the responsibilities … everything from opening new schools, working with current schools, raising funds, exploring collaborative opportunities and in general growing the organization.”
He’s always loved teaching.
“The thing that I enjoyed most in my position, even as a congregational rabbi, was the opportunity to teach,” he said. “The Florence Melton School is committed to Jewish adult learning in a way that is highly accessible to people and engenders and encourages open-minded discussion.”
Rabbi Schwartz said he enjoys knowing his work gives people the opportunity to “learn authentic Jewish texts in an environment that encourages them to be reflective and critical in a context that really speaks to Jewish adults and helps them in their own way to find great relevance in the texts.”
While he doesn’t get to do a lot of teaching in his current role with Melton, he is proud that he’s “empowering hundreds of teachers around the world to be able” to teach.
What he enjoys the most about living in Israel is that “daily life and Jewish life are one in the same.”
“I feel like there’s an opportunity here to express one’s Judaism not only in religious observance or religious expression or ritual or holidays, but you get to express it every single day of your life because here what we’re doing is returning Jewish life to more than a religion,” he said. “We are returning it to a national existence. Whether you like them or not, when you hear politicians speaking and they are quoting biblical versus or they’re talking about historical religious moments, it’s all blended together; it feels very much like there’s this seamlessness (to it).”
He loves America, he added, because of its freedom of religion, but in Israel it’s not about religious observance but “it’s about a Jewish people that’s working very hard to try to create a Jewish nation.”
“Israel affords us the opportunity to do that and to convert some of the values and priorities of Jewish life into A to Z living,” he said. “It’s all very much a work in progress. We’re only 71 years into this and there’s a lot to be done. At the same time there are some amazing things that have already been accomplished. My preference is to look at the cup as half full rather than half empty. There’s a lot more we can do, but we’ve certainly accomplished a lot.”
To learn more about International Melton Kallah, email Jody Hyman at .