Rabbi Daniel Costin Burg, the new leader of Hamakom in West Hills succeeded retiring co-senior Rabbis Richard Camras and Stewart Vogel just one month ago. But talking to The Journal on the Conservative congregation\u2019s hilltop campus, he sounded and looked as if he had come home.<\/p>\n
In a way he had. Rabbi Burg was ordained here a couple decades ago when American Jewish University still was known as the University of Judaism (UJ). Los Angeles was where the Chicago native met his wife, Miriam, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He chuckles at the memory \u201cTwo Midwesterners who met here in Los Angeles. She was at Hebrew Union College. We were one of the earlier intra-religious couples. She\u2019s Reform and I\u2019m Conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after his 16-year tenure at Beth Am Synagogue in Baltimore, Maryland, what would come next?\u00a0 He had told shul leaders that the three-year contract he signed in 2023 would be his last. \u201cWe were really open to different possibilities,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife Miriam and I \u2013 she also is a rabbi \u2013 we sat down and laid out various strengths and weaknesses. We were open to different possibilities. Bigger shul, smaller shul, nonsynagogue work, big city, more suburban. Or maybe more places where there was nature and a lot of beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did they happen to circle back to the West Coast? \u201cBecause of Hamakom,\u201d Rabbi Burg said. \u201cI had heard about the community, and we have known Rabbi Camras and Rabbi Vogel for many years. Rabbi Camras had been my teacher at the UJ once upon a time for a Practical Rabbinics class when he was relatively new to California. Rabbi Vogel I knew through his leadership with the Rabbinical Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is another link. \u201cRabbi Camras and my wife have been working collaboratively,\u201d he said, \u201con support of the Jewish community in Uganda. They have co-created, along with others, the American Friends of the Abayudaya.<\/p>\n
And the personalities and shuls of Los Angeles \u201chave been in our orbit for a long time,\u201d Rabbi Burg said. \u201cHaving been a rabbinical student here, we knew of Temple Aliyah and Shomrei Torah. I was familiar with this place.\u201d He had looked at other possibilities, but \u201cthis certainly seemed like an interesting one. We knew fairly early on [that both rabbis were planning to step back].\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Rabbi Burg had grown up Reform, how did he land at a Conservative seminary? He recalled growing increasingly observant through his teen years. Once he settled on the rabbinate as a career, he hungered to dive deeper and longer into the Mishnah and the Talmud. At the time, Hebrew Union College offered neither. \u201cTheir focus at the time was much more on profits and practical rabbinics,\u201d Rabbi Burg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am 50. I was applying to rabbinic school in the late \u201890s. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1998, and I spent a year at the University of Chicago working as a Jewish Campus Corps fellow, Hyde Park. That was really fun. I applied to a Masters of Jewish Education program.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was not certain he wanted to be a rabbi, but had a sense that he did. \u201cI knew that rabbis are meant to be educators, and I also knew that rabbinical schools did not necessarily train teachers. They train scholars, learners. I wanted a Masters in Jewish Ed. At the time, the UJ had a strong Education School, the Jewish Theological Seminary did not. HUC had a strong program. But if I were going to pursue rabbinic ordination, I wanted to be in a place focused more on Rabbinics, a Beit Midrash approach to study.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rabbi Burg also was becoming more observant. What was the reason? \u201cI am not sure exactly,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it was an interest in a serious engagement with halacha in making the totality of Jewish living more a part of my own personal practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about the road to Baltimore? \u201cIt was a bit circuitous,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n
After college while working for the University of Chicago, the future rabbi encountered the University of Judaism\u2019s Fingerhut School of Education. Soon he became \u201cinspired\u201d by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson. He decided I was going to apply to the Rabbinical School here, spent six years at the UJ, including a year in Jerusalem. Then I got my first job on the north side of Chicago at (1300-family) Anshe Emet Synagogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The setting was sprawling for his five-year term. Rabbi Burg was one of three rabbis and two cantors. When it came time to lead his own synagogue, he would spend 16 years (2010-26) at Beth Am Synagogue, based in a majority Black neighborhood that is historically Jewish.<\/p>\n
Jewish Journal: Favorite family vacation destination?<\/p>\n
Rabbi Burg: Cura\u00e7ao, home of the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n
J.J.: Best book you ever read?<\/p>\n
R.B: So many books I love. I am a big fan of Jill Lepore\u2019s \u201cThese Truths.\u201d<\/p>\n
J.J.: Your favorite Shabbat moment?<\/p>\n
R.B: It\u2019s an aggregate of a number of Friday nights during Covid when our children, my wife and I are at the table \u2013 since we couldn\u2019t have guests, we developed a practice of singing z\u2019mirot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rabbi Daniel Costin Burg, the new leader of Hamakom in West Hills succeeded retiring co-senior Rabbis Richard Camras…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-427320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}