By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Rabbi Scott Hoffman (Photo provided)
When Rabbi Scott Hoffman was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania four decades ago, he majored in the Biological Basis of Behavior — hardly the expected academic prelude to a rabbinical career.
Medical school, not the rabbinate, was his intended destination. He soon realized that medicine wasn’t a good match — he was all for rigor, just not that particular flavor of rigor. Yet that somewhat arcane major ended up preparing him well for a life that has blended spiritual curiosity with appreciating why people act the way they do.
It’s an intellectual amalgam he’ll carry to Congregation Adath Jeshurun, which has tapped him to be its next rabbi with an initial one-year contract beginning May 1. He joins AJ Cantor David Lipp who as been the spiritual leader of the congregation for more than a year following the departure of Rabbi Joshua Corber and the retirement of Rabbi Robert Slosberg. Rabbi Slosberg will continue to serve the congregation as Rabbi Emeritus. In the interim, AJ Cantor David Lipp has been assuming much of the burden of spiritual leadership.
“I don’t know him well yet — I did enjoy our Shabbat together when he visited and we had a good meeting prior on Zoom,” Lipp says. “He’s very bright and has a great deal of experience and ability to articulate difficult, complex concepts into clarified and clear conceptual frameworks.”
Moreover, Lipp adds: “The folks who interacted with him when he visited from the board and the congregation were suitably and I think appropriately impressed with his insightfulness, humor and personality.”
Like Slosberg and Lipp, Hoffman was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the bedrock institution of Conservative Judaism. Later he earned a Ph.D in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University, exchanging the Upper West Side of JTS for the West Village of NYU.
Along the way Hoffman has occupied pulpits at several congregations, with his longest tenure extending from July 2007 to June 2018 at Temple Israel of South Merrick in Merrick, N.Y. Despite his decades in the pulpit, however, he harbors no illusions about the arc of rabbinical lifespans.
“You reach a point where there’s a lot more years in the rearview mirror than there are in front of it,” he mused during a recent Zoom interview from his present home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where he’s been interim spiritual leader of Shaare Torah for the past nine months.
“Average rabbinic careers today are, maybe, a little over 40 years. This year makes 34 for me. So, I don’t want to step down and go off into my happy retirement.”
No danger of that, at least for the next 12 months. Beyond that, circumstances are less certain: AJ and Keneseth Israel are in talks about a possible merger, though as of this writing no decision has been reached.
A similar dynamic informed Hoffman’s time at Temple Israel, which combined with nearby Congregation Beth Ohr in 2018.
“I ended up in this sort of transitional space, entirely by accident,” he recalls. Hoffman found himself at a professional crossroads.
“At 54 it was very difficult to find appropriate employment,” he says. The solution — which depending on perspective was either serendipitous or inevitable –was to become a kind of itinerant rabbi, brought in to stabilize congregations grappling with changes in leadership or overall direction.
“I found this little niche in a sort of transitional space,” Hoffman explains, “and I came to embrace it.” First came a year (2018-2019) as Interim Rabbi at Congregation Beth El of Bucks County in Yardley, Penn.; followed by three years with the same title at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Olney, Maryland; two years as Interim Rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana; and since June 2024, his current position at Shaare Torah.
Hoffman acknowledges that in moving from post to post, “a lot of the practical aspects are difficult — it’s not for everybody.” Indeed, his wife of more than 30 years, opera singer Phyllis G. Hoffman — teaches at a public school in Coney Island, Brooklyn, meaning their long-distance marriage will continue indefinitely.
Still, there are intangible benefits to being something of rabbinic nomad.
“It does focus the mind,” Hoffman observes. “You come in as a consultant where you say, ‘This is what I have to do; this is what I need to accomplish.’ Long term is out — you don’t have enough time on your side. But if you’re focused on a project, I think you can really make a difference. And as I like to say, when I walk out the door, I want to feel pretty confident that I left the institution in much better shape than when I opened the door for the first time.”
The door to Adath Jeshurun opened in large part through the efforts of Sue Eichenberger, a member of the congregation’s board and its executive committee.
“Sue’s daughter and her cousin’s kid are members in Gaithersburg,” Hoffman says. “She was here on the High Holidays and heard I was only going to be here short-term. Immediately after services she came up and said, ‘We need you. We’re in a space where a lot is uncertain, a lot of futures are still being charted.”
Adath Jeshurun, Hoffman recalls Eichenberger telling him, needed somebody “who could bring stability and experience and credibility.”
Recognizing that AJ is in the midst of what he terms “a fluid situation,” Hoffman believes he has both the credentials and sensibilities to put his stakeholders at ease.
“What I’m bringing to the table is a certain flexibility that they can take advantage of,” he says. “Should it be decided that it’s best I stay for a single year, then I’ll accept that and move on. Should it be (for) a second year, that’ll be accepted. And should it be some number of years until they decide I need to retire and step down — that’s okay, too.”
Hoffman emphasizes that “the congregation – although I’m coming in on a short-term contract, didn’t label me as an ‘interim.’” The original plan was for Hoffman to begin his rabbinical duties on July 1. His starting date was moved up by two months – May 1 – to give Lipp some accelerated relief.
“That’s why I’m coming early,” Hoffman says, calling it an example of how “I try to help different people in different ways. If he needs me to cover something — okay, I can’t sing the way he can — but if he wanted me to read Torah, I read the full (weekly) portion for 20 years. You want me to teach Bar Mitzvah lessons a little bit and take that off you? That’s fine. If I have to for a little while, I’ll cover all the hospital visits.”
As in any similar partnership, there will be adjustments as congregants become familiar with him and he to them. Such an evolving dynamic raises an intriguing question: Does the rabbi lead the congregation, or does the congregation lead the rabbi? And by extension, must they always be in sync when it comes to issues that reach beyond customary synagogue boundaries?
A veteran like Hoffman, who has strong opinions about a broad range of secular issues, understands when it’s best to tread lightly.
“You can’t make your stand everywhere,” he says. “So the first thing I have to decide is, ‘Is it worth the stand at all?’ And then I have to decide, ‘If it’s worth taking a stand, is it in step or not in step with the congregation? Do I have enough invested to take a stand, even if I may disagree with the decision? Do I have enough clarity — and how strongly do I want to defend it?’”
Whatever his pathway and however long his tenure, Hoffman will know when that path has run its course. He quotes his father who, at age 85, still works part-time and has a definite perspective about professional longevity.
“My father has a joke where I asked, ‘Dad, how will I know when it’s time to retire?’ And he said: ‘When they put their arm around you and say, ‘What do you prefer at your retirement dinner, fish or chicken?’ You’re going to have to answer that question — and then you’ll be done.”