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Rabbi Morris, rebel with a cause

Rabbi Mo, left, surveys the field after Temple Micah’s run-walk April 21 in honor of his 10-year anniversary.TEMPLE Micah, the progressive Jewish congregation that challenges the norm, is moving into a larger rented space at Park Hill United Methodist Church (PHUMC) in the Park Hill neighborhood on Jan. 1, 2014.

Rabbi Adam Morris, affectionately referred to as Rabbi Mo, will be leading the troops — about 200 family units and rising.

On this dry-hot Denver afternoon, Morris deflects the heat by drawing the blinds in his office at Park Hill Congregational Church (PHCC), Micah’s home for 35 years.

Although relocating to a new neighborhood church was a tough call due the excellent relationship between Micah and PHCC, Morris says the Methodist church offers increased programming capacity in the short-term and expansion possibilities in the long run.

“And like Park Hill Congregational, PHUMC is very progressive — like us,” smiles Morris, who is celebrating his 10-year anniversary as Micah’s rabbi.

“Actually, this is the longest I’ve been at one congregation,” he concedes proudly.

Ordained from HUC-JIR in 1994, he served congregations in Nashville, Charlotte and Australia before being hired as principal of an Atlanta day school in 2001.

Morris arrived at Micah with his wife Renee in July, 2003, following Rabbi Sandra Cohen’s resignation as spiritual leader due to illness. Daughter Addison and son Dakota are almost 10 and eight, respectively.

“When I started we had 110 household members,” he says. “Now we have 200, and this has resulted in a different scale of need. We recently hired our first administrator. Our members want me to be their rabbi, and I love that.”

Ten years on the pulpit has intensified his awareness of this intimate community’s needs — “and congregants are more apt to ask for things they hesitated to ask for earlier.

“Because of the small size and culture of Micah, I know everyone. We have the same percentage of people who come a lot or a little, like any synagogue. But they are all on my radar screen.”

Micah’s demographics are divided between young families eager to expose their children to Judaism and Baby Boomers who have found the time to turn inward. “They have reached a point in their lives where they want to be involved in a synagogue,” he says of the latter.

Now 45, Morris possesses a wise, warm maturity. His humor sneaks up on you. Whether he’s racing with children at a synagogue event or privately counseling adults, he transcends chronological barriers.

Micah’s progressive ambience is representative of “how we synagogue — and I use the word as a verb — in the 21st century,” he says. “We want another 35-year run, so we must be viable, flexible and agile in this day and age.

“At the core of it, synagogues offer what they have always offered. We get caught up in the things the world demands of us, but there’s a safer aspect to life. Our need for this is the same as it was in the first or the 10th century.

“We have to be who we are, and try to treat everyone equally.”

BACK in the 1950s, a small group left Temple Emanuel and formed a radical splinter group that was essentially anti-Zionist and threw out the “G-d is in His holy temple” paradigm.

Temple Micah’s birth symbolized a rejection of traditional overtures springing up in the Reform movement, in addition to honest inner reflection.

Micah has changed. Yet even today its reputation as a renegade congregation sticks.

“The founders of the congregation weren’t ready to embrace anything other than classical Reform Judaism,” Morris says. “They weren’t ready to jump on the Israel bandwagon or accept more Hebrew in services. Unable to jump as fast as other synagogues, they preferred going at their own pace.

“That spirit — call it renegade, rebellious, subversive, a counter-culture awareness oppositional to the rest of the community — was part of Micah’s DNA.”

It’s also belongs to Adam Morris’ theological construct.

He believes in G-d, but his interpretation is a far cry from his Reform colleagues.

“Let me do a Maimonides thing and tell you what I don’t believe,” he says. “That’s an easier way to begin. I don’t believe in the G-d of Torah and the Bible. That G-d is a petulant teenager.

“I don’t believe in the G-d who needs praise and glory — the G-d of the prayer book. And I don’t believe in the Santa Claus G-d that’s going to punish you if you’re bad and reward you if you’re nice.”

So what’s left?

He smiles.

“I’m not an expert in mysticism, but the language of the mystics is helpful: that which has no end; ineffable; the essence, the force, the fabric of being,” Morris says.

This G-d is not involved in a special relationship with the Jews. “It relates to all human beings equally. It is a G-d that I calibrate my spiritual frequency to when I’m in a prayerful time.

“And when I do this, I’m at my best — and can do my best for others.”

When people say G-d does not exist — and Morris hears this frequently — he says they are referring to the venerable old man in the sky image perpetuated in childhood or films.

Awe is key to Morris’ conception of the Divine.

“People will say, ‘I don’t believe in G-d’ and then go to the mountains, where they experience a moment of awe.

“If you can feel awe and wonder, you believe in G-d — that sense of ‘Wow, there’s something beyond me that’s going on here.’”

JUDAISM has always been instrumental in the Cleveland native’s life. The way he expresses it might not be in synch with the majority, but he will not conform to appease others. Neither will Temple Micah.

Just prior to this interview, Morris met with someone to finalize plans for Micah’s first congregational trip to Israel during his tenure. He’s obviously enthused.

But he stresses that there is more room for disagreement about Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians in the Park Hill synagogue than anywhere else in Jewish Denver.

“I love Israel,” he says. “Micah is supportive of Israel. But we certainly have the freedom to talk and speak freely about it.”

A visit to Israel five years ago as a chaperone with the Students Interfaith Peace Project, which brings together Jewish, Christian and Muslim students, left a huge impact on the rabbi.

“It was very compelling,” Morris says. “I loved the place, but it was an Israel I’d never seen before — and it was quite powerful for me.”

The group traveled with Palestinians. Upon hearing their side of the story and witnessing the squalid conditions they inhabit, Morris questioned the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians.

“There are millions of people living under Israeli sovereignty that we treat badly,” he says. “It’s true. I’m not saying that the Palestinians don’t have to be accountable for their violent actions and bad choices. But it doesn’t excuse us.”

Morris feels the homogenous defense of Israel voiced by the majority of American Jews, and their criticism of Jews who object to Israeli policies, “is dangerous. It makes us narrow. But this does not take away from my love of Israel.

“It’s family,” he says of the divide separating Jew from Jew over Israel.

“Family relations are tense and complex and hard. There are some family members you love but you don’t like. Family members can say things to each other that no one else can.

“As Jews, we don’t always communicate those opinions in healthy, constructive ways. But we need to listen to each other.”

Morris performs interfaith marriages. “Often,” he inserts. “I think I’m the only congregational rabbi who conducts interfaith weddings up and down the Front Range, with a few exceptions.

“At least I’m on the short list.”

Cognizant that the topic is highly sensitive among US Jewry, Morris neither prevaricates nor apologizes. Rather, he offers an apologia — a defense.

In 2004, he told the IJN that he would only perform interfaith unions if couples adhered to certain criteria, such as raising children in a singular environment that stressed Judaism.

“That’s evolving,” Morris says. “It’s really case by case. I used to have a litmus test. I could have one telephone conversation with a couple and tell them ‘OK, you fit’ or ‘you don’t fit.’ Now I feel I need to sit with them in person — get a sense of their neshama, what they’re about.”

He maintains that it’s healthier for children to observe one religion whenever possible to avoid confusion and solidify identity.

“Kids are not developmentally equipped to receive two theological systems and then have their parents say, ‘Now mitigate, navigate, decide.’

“I still believe that. But there are people who still wrestle with this issue and are genuine and sincere. They just don’t have an answer yet.

“If a couple is honestly dedicated to the ritual,  I will marry them. I’ll test it. And if I feel a marriage went too far against the line, I won’t do it again. I’ll learn from it.”

When Morris first arrived at Micah, he met with Reform Rabbis Steven Foster and Ray Zwerin to discuss his staunch support for interfaith marriages.

“I said, ‘Here’s what I do and why I do it.’ And they both said, ‘Do what you feel is right. We may not agree with you but we’ll be respectful and supportive.’

“I think Denver is a unique city in this respect. There is a sense of collaboration — Klal rabbanim, if you will.”

MORRIS says that choosing the rabbinate was  “definitely an evolutionary process. I had no epiphanies. I have no ‘great rabbi’ stories to tell.” He based the decision on logic, personal affinities and a delight in Judaism — and he’s never regretted it.

But he has questioned himself along the way.

While an undergrad at Emory University, the rabbinate “seemed to fit,” Morris says. “I loved working with kids. I love to think about things, to the point of paralysis by analysis. It just made sense.

“I was accepted at HUC, spent a year in Jerusalem, returned, and interned. I also thought, ‘What have I done!’ I was kind of lost for a while. But I continued.”

Transitioning from the educational environment to assuming a vital role in congregants’ lives can be daunting.

“When you begin, you are not aware of the depth of commitment,” he says.

“That’s not unique to the rabbinate. Whether you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, until you are actually out there, it’s a mystery.

“Then you just have to go do it.”

At some point, Morris fell into a comfortable rhythm and has since experienced infinitely gratifying insights, particularly at Micah.

“If there are epiphanies, it’s realizing how privileged I am to be invited into the most significant times in a person’s life, and helping people struggling with emotional, physical or spiritual problems,” he says.

“Those are the awesome moments — and the heart of what I do.”

Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News



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IJN Senior Writer | [email protected]


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