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The Reality
Of The World

As Rabbi Everett Ackerman, of the
Orthodox Montefiore-Woodmoor He-
brew Congregation in Baltimore
County, Md., explains, the prepon-
derance of Talmudic opinion is that
it is "better to work, and not have to
rely solely on God's will for suste-
nance. But a person should work the
minimum possible, and try to incor-
porate Torah into their working
lives."
Rabbi Ackerman, 45, admits that
working "the minimum possible" is
not really in his own plans. In addi-
tion to tending to the needs of his
congregation, the one-time clinical
psychology major also practices fam-
ily counseling several hours a week
with private clients. He said he gets
"the same sorts of satisfaction" from
his dual roles: "When I teach my con-
gregants something and they start
to feel that, yes, Torah really is with-
in their reach, it's sort of parallel to
the moment in counseling when peo-
ple begin to feel they have a mastery
over the issues in their lives.
"The goal of a counselor is to help
people learn to handle their issues
without your help," he said. "Like-
wise, the goal of a rabbi is to teach
people to become educated Jews who
can in turn learn on their own, and
teach others."
Rabbi Ackerman remembers his
own first job fondly. As a 15-year-old
summer camp counselor in Monsey,
N.Y., "I was being paid to do some-
thing, plus we got to go swimming.
It was great." His worst job experi-
ence was selling burglar alarms to
gas stations. "I'd walk from one gas
station to another, and people didn't
really have the time — this was dur-
ing their workday, after all. And they
really weren't interested in buying
burglar alarms from an 18-year-old."
Still, the rabbis of Talmudic times
probably would have approved of Rab-
bi Ackerman's early entrepreneurial