Spirituality

Staff photo by Krista Husa

Con ecti
ews
And

Ceremony marks
o dal naming of
rabbi to leadership position.

At his desk, Rabbi Daniel Nevins sits in an office filled with
books, photos and Judaica.

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Rabbi Daniel Nevins to be installed as

Adat Shalom Synagogue rabbinical leader.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
StaffWriter

A

long, narrow, dimly lit corridor leads to a
rabbinical niche at Adat Shalom
Synagogue. It is created in a style as neat,
busy, multifaceted and welcoming as the
man who occupies it.
He is Rabbi Daniel Nevins, who will be installed
as rabbinic leader of the Farmington Hills congrega-
tion on Sunday, April 30.
His office is marked with bits of his past and ele-
ments of the life he has chosen. A plain black kippa
is weighted down by a pastel, multicolored Slinky,
left over from last year's Simchat Torah giveaways.
Volumes of neatly organized books on Torah, travel
and Israel sit behind a tzedaka box and family pic-
tures, including one of the rabbi's son, that he dubs,
"Sam: Day Two."
The room "had to be dignified, but also welcom-
ing," explains Rabbi Nevins. Facing a poster of a

satellite map of Israel at the office entrance, he
demonstrates how a three-dimensional Israeli map
can be formed with the fist of a hand.
Guests may be invited to talk informally on a
corner couch or meet at a round table where, Rabbi
Nevins says, everyone "feels on a par" with everyone
else, and no one takes a seat of authority.
He describes his office as a "good place for reflec-
tion, but also busy."

Jewish Roots
Just six years ago the rabbi, now 34, was living the

life of a graduate student with his wife, Lynn, a pot-
ter in New York's Greenwich Village.
Ordained in May 1994,.and here in Detroit by
August, Rabbi Nevins' life took a sudden change, as
he and Lynn added a house and cars and children
— Talya, 5; Leora, 2 1/2; and Sam, born last
December. Besides the personal life shifts, he con-
cedes that it has "been a super busy six years in the
rabbinate."
Growing up in New Jersey, his family belonged to
a Reform synagogue until he was 12. His parents
were active in a Reform chavura.
Around bar mitzvah age, he started to search for a
more traditional form of Judaism, becoming first a
camper at the Conservative movement's Camp
Ramah, then a staffer and teacher. His family joined
a Conservative synagogue, and he enrolled at the

Frisch School, an Orthodox school in Paramus, N.J.
"A lot of my passion for high school education
comes from that time," he says.
Rabbi Nevins stresses the teenage time as the
prime identity formation years, when religious iden-
tity begins to form. He has taught an eighth-grade
Beit Midrash class at Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit each year since arriving here.
His solid connection with Adat Shalom teens
includes teaching the synagogue's Nosh 'n Drash
high school classes. He has been active in planning
and as a bus leader in the Jewish Federation of
.Metropolitan Detroit's Teen Mission to Israel in
1996, 1998 and 2000.
He sees teen trips to New York and Israel as
important exposure not only to other Jewish teens
but also additional facets of Judaism, like kosher
restaurants and group prayer.
Marc Kay, associate director of education and
youth for Adat Shalom, has observed Rabbi Nevins
interacting in the informal, discussion-type classes of
the religious high school.
As a teacher, Rabbi Nevins is "able to relate to the
average teen in a positive manner," Kay says. "Based
on his age, he is able to understand where they are
coming from."
Rabbi Nevins says the Teen Mission "bolsters self-
confidence among teens, to see that we are part of
something much larger, and it also humbles us all to

4/28
2000

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