MASSACHUSETTS
The Jewish Daily Forward
By Paul Berger
Published May 28, 2014, issue of June 06, 2014.
SHARON, MASS. — Rabbi Miriam Spitzer did not have to mention him by name.
The class of sixth graders at Temple Israel, in Sharon, Massachusetts, knew exactly whom Spitzer was thinking of when she dedicated that day’s lesson to Elisha ben Abuyah, a revered rabbi who became a heretic.
“The lesson was that the Torah taught [by Abuyah] was still Torah,” Spitzer said. “What we learned from somebody who left the fold or was flawed is still good Torah.”
Spitzer taught the class days after the shock resignation of Rabbi Barry Starr, a hugely popular Conservative spiritual leader in this verdant suburb of pastel-colored clapboard houses.
Starr, a former president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, sent an email to congregants on May 6 explaining that he was stepping down immediately after 28 years, “with great remorse and deep regret,” after engaging in “marital infidelity and other serious personal conduct.”
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