EFRAT, Israel — Two years ago, Rabbi Gideon Osher Shmueli donated a kidney to a stranger, saving that individual’s life. These days, he works at Magen David Yeshivah in Brooklyn, N.Y., teaching Hebrew and bringing with that teaching the culture and values of Judaism and eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel.
To him, teaching about Judaism is akin to donating a vital organ. “Connecting Jews to Torah and mitzvot is no different from helping someone to live,” says Rabbi Shmueli, 32, who, with his wife, Leore Sachs Shmueli, was matched with the school by Ohr Torah Stone’s Straus-Amiel Practical Training Program for Educational Emissaries, which trains educators who are sent to teach Judaic studies in both Orthodox and non-Orthodox schools throughout the Diaspora, including in San Diego. A similar initiative, the Straus-Amiel Program for Rabbinical Emissaries, trains rabbis for synagogue postings in the Diaspora.
Based in Israel, OTS is a modern Orthodox network of 24 institutions on 12 campuses, founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin with a mission in part to demonstrate that Judaism’s “laws and traditions remain profoundly relevant to the contemporary world,” Riskin has said.
As part of that mission, OTS has some 200 emissary families serving in more than 50 countries, says Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum, who directs the emissary programs. Shlichim (emissaries) serve on average five to six years, with some who have been at their posts as long as 18 years. “Ohr Torah Stone emissaries celebrate the responsibility that we have as a preeminent educational institution,” says Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander, OTS president-elect and rosh ha’yeshiva. “We provide educated young couples, men and women who are leaders and are willing to engage Jewish communities all over the world and to do so through the prism of Torah values and an understanding of contemporary reality.”
They serve not only in large Diaspora communities but also in places that are far afield and have few Jews such as Quito, Ecuador; Guangzhou, China; Cochin, India; and Harare, Zimbabwe. “We believe that people need to work with people, and the only way to influence other people and strengthen their Jewish identity, as well as the community itself is by having emissaries and creating personal connections,” Rabbi Birnbaum says.
Rabbi Shmueli has been at Magen David since the summer of 2016. “I’m trying to help everyone get more connected to Torah and mitzvoth,” he says. “I’m there to help every Jew to do his best of what he actually is, to help every Jew reveal his neshama,” his soul.
OTS annually receives at least 150 applications for the program, and chooses but 25. “We accept only applicants who have advanced Torah knowledge and yeshiva background, high academic level and most important — very good people and leadership skills,” says Rabbi Birnbaum.
The training program consists of weekly classes with educators, rabbis, experts in Halachah and advisers. Shlichim assignments range from teaching positions, to youth directors to pulpit positions.
Rabbi Baruch Rock says the emissary program has empowered him to close the divides between Judaism and American Jewry, in his role as the leader of the Orot HaCarmel congregation in the Carmel Valley section of San Diego. Rock, 40, who along with wife Carina, 40, and their four children, has lived in San Diego since 2014, attended the Straus-Amiel Practical Training Program from 2009 to 2011, while he earned his rabbinical ordination at an OTS seminary.
“Building a bridge between the way Jewish life is observed and celebrated here and celebrated there in Israel, it’s so important that we are a resource for that,” said Rabbi Rock. He credits the emissaries program with helping him and Carina serve their congregants. “They’ve been incredibly supportive ever since we’ve been wherever we’ve been,” said Rabbi Rock, who previously worked in Fairfax, Virginia. “They helped give us perspective on how to make the move and advocate for our needs.” That support has included providing Rabbi Rock and Carina Rock with access to a rabbinical mentor, who has provided them virtual and in-person advice throughout the years.
In addition to serving as rabbi at Orot HaCarmel, a synagogue whose membership is composed mostly of San Diego Jews from South Africa, Rabbi Rock teaches in the upper school at San Diego Jewish Academy. Meanwhile, his wife, who earned a master’s degree in Jewish education in Israel, teaches part time at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School. One of her passions is trying to bring together diverse groups of local Jews in a community that sometimes can feel fragmented along lines of denomination and affiliation. To that end, she’s starting a program called Jewish Women’s Mosaic, which teaches to women of all backgrounds through the arts.
Having immigrated to Israel over a decade ago only to move back to North America in 2011, the couple is pleased to be able to draw on what they learned at OTS and in Israel. “Being exposed to the incredible diversity and richness of Jewish practice was like nothing else,” said Carina Rock. “For him being at OTS, and for us as a couple in Israel, I was so enthralled with what Israel was able to provide for us Jewishly. We wanted to provide that to others here in North America.”
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Preceding provided by Ohr Torah Stone