Rabbi Ariel Pollak, of Kehilat Sinai, Tel Aviv

An interview by Martin Sinkoff

Kehilat Sinai is a small synagogue in the center of Tel Aviv located at 88 Bograshov Street. It was a home built in old Tel Aviv in the 1920s for a family of immigrants from Lithuania, the Shleifers. The home and the synagogue have a large room (the main house), a kitchen in a separate small building and a storage space which was a cabin built to be used while the house was being built. The Shleifers sold their home following the bombing of Tel Aviv by the Italian Air force in 1940-1941 when the building was damaged. In the late 1950s the renovated building was bought by the Shoah survivors from Zichlin, Poland, and served as an orthodox synagogue until the 1980s. The synagogue and community went through many changes with several different rabbis until the arrival of Rabbi Ariel Pollak around 2019. He has remade Kehilat Sinai into a compassionate, open, international (multi-lingual) center of Jewish song, Jewish prayer, Jewish learning and built a close community of all ages and backgrounds. 

Kehilat Sinai is a special place in Tel Aviv, a special synagogue and Rabbi Pollak is a special man and rabbi as you will read here. 

Where were you born and where did you grow? 

In Budapest, Hungary. However, I spent long periods in Israel as a teenager in high school, studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and living on kibbutz Naan. 

What and where did you study in university? 

After high school, I studied Jewish Studies, Theology and Comparative Literature in various programs in Budapest, Berlin and Tel Aviv. In addition, I am very interested inmental health and psychoanalysis, especially Jungian psychoanalysis. I am currently finishing my PhD about the intersection of the fields mentioned above. 

When did you move to Israel? 

This is a tricky question, because I've done that a few times in my life. But my last move (which is the most relevant since I am still here!) was in 2018 from Berlin. 

For how long did you live in Berlin? And what did you do there? 

I spent most of my 20s in Berlin. What did I do there? I guess what people in their 20s do in Berlin: dancing endlessly at techno parties. But — fortunately — I also studied in my spare time and lo and behold, was ordained there to the rabbinate. So, Berlin is an important city for me and I have many good friends there. 

Did you have a Jewish education growing up? 

Fortunately, yes. I studied in a liberal private school (Lauder Yavne, a branch of the Ron Lauder Foundation) with fantastic teachers to whom I'm really grateful. They gave us everything we needed to develop our knowledge and understanding in our chosen fields and also as a human being. My teachers had a good eye for the unique talents of their students. Thanks to them I won the National Bible Contest several times and when I moved to Israel, I already spoke fluent Hebrew. 

When did you become interested in becoming a rabbi? 

That's a bit of a complicated story. When I was young, I thought about becoming a rabbi and then put it aside. However, at school, Judaism and Hebrew were among my interests. I was also interested in the arts, especially industrial and interior design. And so, Ibegan preparing my portfolio to be an architect / designer. But on the date of my university interview in architecture, I woke up with this acceptance and sense of surrender that I have no choice but to be a rabbi! I didn't go to the interview. It was actually a painful moment. It speaks to my fluctuating ambivalence towards the rabbinate throughout my life. I see now that my thinking and work have been informed by this ambivalence. Jews wrestle with God. It is the definition of ambivalence. Among the outcomes of my wrestling: my doctorate and my work as a psychotherapist. 

Tell us how you use Judaism in your practice and how you use your practice to inform your Judaism. 

That's really a dangerous question to ask because my PhD is about the ways Jewish mystical thought influences or might influence therapy. But let's talk about the other direction, how therapy and psychoanalysis can influence Judaism.

The most profound Jewish teaching that influences my clinical practice comes from the Baal Shem Tov, who taught that all psychological phenomena are part of the Divine and therefore one must not repress anything. This maybe his most revolutionary teaching, long before Freud, taking the idea of the all-penetrating Divine Presence to the psychological domain. If taken seriously, this teaching puts sorrow, anxiety and anger (among other emotions) in a totally different light. They become objects of contemplation, not resistance. 

When did you come to Kehilat Sinai? 

In 2019, I think. Originally as an interim rabbi. Then from 2020 as the rabbi of the community.

 What was your vision for the kehila?

Just as in therapy, before having a vision it is crucial to see and feel the unique characteristics of the "patient", in this case the congregation, and to understand the patient's potential for change. Kehilat Sinai is a community of spiritual misfits in the best sense. We are not a classical Conservative congregation. So, my vision was —just as in therapy — to remove the obstacles and allow the community, the congregation, to express its natural potential with elevating musical davening and prayer, a 'dreaming Yiddishkeit further' attitude to Torah and a strong sense of social justice and egalitarianism. 

Kehilat Sinai is part of the Masorti (Conservative Judaism) movement and you have upheld the commitment to Masorti movement and teaching which seems to be a deep rudder to keep from veering too far away from Torah itself. Can you comment please? 

Right, but let's face it, all this denominational business is over. In the US it's clearly over and in Israel even more so. Go out and see: in our community most people did not grow up in the Conservative Movement, neither identify as Conservative Jews. We have members from Orthodox to orthodox-y secular backgrounds. So, we should be much more open about all this and welcome this new Zeitgeist that leaves labels behind. It is a more natural way of living our Jewish lives, than the old denominational way. I grew up in the Conservative movement and I appreciate both its history and its approach to text study and liturgy — which is both traditionally rigorous and academically and ethically critical. However, today, I believe, we need more than that. It is not enough to update halakha and liturgy. I believe that our reading of the sources needs to be a contemplative, internal reading, not a legalistic one. Also, our ways of davening need to be more alive and devotional, less formal. Those of us of Neo-Hasidic spirit see these as crucial for any 21st century way of avodat Hashem. 

What does the future hold for Rabbi Pollak and for Kehilat Sinai, for Israel and our families in the diaspora? 

I am not a prophet, so I actually do not know the answer. We are all broken in some way and I think we should be, given the circumstances. Kehilat Sinai as a community is a small island and a refuge. So, I don't know what the future holds for us as a collective but we are part of a prophetic tradition of thousands of years which cultivates asking difficult questions in times of crisis and brokenness as a way of being. I have many of those. I believe that without dealing with difficult and painful reality, the future might be very dark for all of us, no matter where the border runs. Pain spills over borders and fences. But if we dare asking all this and more, with all the difficulty that it entails, we might be given the hesed of healing and creating something totally new.