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Rabbi Kolton finds a new home
teaching spirituality at Shir Tikvah.
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22 June 6 • 2013
A New Door
Barbara Lewis
Special to the Jewish News
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www.brickertunisfur.com
ooking back, Rabbi Kolton
says leaving the Birmingham
Temple in Farmington Hills
where she had served as senior rabbi for
eight years was something that "had to
happen:' It led her to where she is now,
the newly appointed scholar-in-resi-
dence for Temple Shir Tikvah in Troy.
She's about to lead Shir Tikvah mem-
bers, and others in the community who
are interested, in a year-long study on
how to find spiritual meaning in Jewish
life.
The project kicks off at 7:15 p.m.
Friday, June 7, with "Soulful Shabbat:
a Divine experience which she will
lead with Shir Tikvah's rabbi, Arnie
Sleutelberg.
The event will mark the end of
Kolton's year-long search for a new spiri-
tual home.
The rabbi, now 42, had been part of
the Birmingham Temple in Farmington
Hills, the country's first Humanistic
Jewish congregation, since she was 8.
She earned her undergraduate degree at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, then
came home and earned a Ph.D. in rab-
binic studies from the Union Institute &
University in Cincinnati.
At the same time, she studied for
rabbinic ordination with her mentor,
Birmingham Temple's founder, Rabbi
Sherwin Wine, at the new International
Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism
in Farmington Hills. She was the first
rabbi ordained in Humanistic Judaism.
She became Wine's assistant in 1999;
he chose her to succeed him as senior
rabbi when he retired in 2004. (Wine
died in an automobile accident in
Morocco in 2007.)
Last summer, Kolton acknowledged
to herself that she was growing away
from the humanist philosophy, which is,
according to the Birmingham Temple's
website, "that the ultimate power for our
fate is in ourselves, in our family, in our
friends and in our society:'
"I'm not an atheist and never have
been," Kolton said. "I always considered
myself an agnostic Jew. So it was not a
matter of 'finding God: But I needed
to go to a place in myself and in the
Jewish community where I would have
the freedom to explore my spirituality.
And sometimes the universe gives you
a push:'
Still, the abrupt break with the con-
gregation that had been such a huge part
of her life for so many years was painful.
Rabbis Tamara Kolton and Arnie
Sleutelberg
"It was the most difficult time of my
life she said. "Leaving the Birmingham
Temple was the greatest loss I had expe-
rienced:"
It was hard for the rabbi's children,
too. To son Lior, 13, and daughter Maya,
8, the temple was family. "They were
devastated and confused:' said Kolton,
"but they were also relieved because
they saw that I had been in a lot of pain
before the break. My daughter told me it
was time to kiss the temple goodbye:"
Leaving the Birmingham Temple
made the rabbi, her husband, Isaac, and
their children "a family of homeless Jews
in need of a bar mitzvah:'
The rabbi spent the year reinventing
herself, looking for new doors to open.
Her time with the temple had prepared
her for change.
At the Birmingham Temple, they
teach you to be brave and to live your life
the way you want it to be. It's a gift I'll
always have she said.
Spiritual Haven
The family moved from Farmington
Hills — too closely associated with
Birmingham Temple — to Bloomfield
Hills. The rabbi freelanced, officiating
at Jewish life-cycle ceremonies. She also
started working part-time as a therapist
at the Birmingham Maple Clinic, mak-
ing use of her master's degree in psy-
chology from the Center for Humanist
Studies in Detroit.
The Koltons found a spiritual haven
at Shir Tikvah, where Lior celebrated his
bar mitzvah on May 25.
Being a congregant, rather than clergy,
is a new experience, but Kolton says she's
happy to pay membership dues. "I need
to feel like a stakeholder; she said.
Shir Tikvah is the only congregation
in the country affiliated with both the
Reform movement and Jewish Renewal.
Sleutelberg describes Renewal as the
trans-denominational "research and