Printer Friendly Version - Rabbi Danny Moss: ‘Not Your Grandparent’s Shul’

Danny Moss, the new rabbi at Temple Beth Tikvah, believes that what most people are looking for from a faith leader is someone who provides love and understanding no matter where someone is in their life. Photo by Jesse Williams/The Courier

The hallway leading to Rabbi Danny Moss’s office is a work in progress. Framed photographs lean against the walls. A padded chair holds an unplugged coffee machine. A bulky portable air condition unit partially blocks the way, fighting a losing battle against the humid, stuffy air. Bulldozers and other heavy movers are visible through the windows, settled in the gravel outside as men in hardhats move around the perimeter of the property.

Danny is a tall, well dressed and sharp-eyed man with his sleeves rolled up, sitting in a sparsely furnished room that is still haphazardly formulated, with cords strung along the floor and a printer balanced on a stool—though an extensive collection of books along one wall looks organized and immaculate.

Only in this third week as the new rabbi at Temple Beth Tikvah (TBT), the reform synagogue in Madison that serves the shoreline, Danny has a keen energy to go along with a youthful appearance. He casually mentions 1990s memes, and his official bio on TBT’s website talks about his enjoyment of Star Wars lightsaber battles and how Judaism can be “cool.”

But Danny is much more than a peppy youth pastor, and he plans to bring both a renewed focus on the deepest, most revered aspects of modern Judaism as well as a commitment to enacting positive change in the broader community.

TBT is currently going through a lot of changes itself, most visibly through a massive renovation that began in August 2020 and is planned to be finished this year, adding additional square footage and significantly upgrading community, educational, and worship spaces.

But the changes, and maybe more significantly, the work-in-progress attitude is not limited to the physical infrastructure.

“We’re all works in progress,” he says. “We look at ourselves, we look at our potential and we see the distance between how we were and who we want to be. And it’s no different from looking at this space, which reminds us we’re all in need of a little rehabilitation and repair.”

Danny, who mostly recently served as an associate rabbi in Westport, is stepping in to replace Rabbi Stacy Offner, who served TBT for just under a decade before retiring this year. Growing up in Chicago, Danny studied religion and spent time working as a chaplain, as well as a tour guide in Israel and Europe

Effusive in his praise of Offner, who is staying on in a limited role at TBT, Danny says that while a lot of his role involves spiritual direction, ritual, and theology, he understands that what most people are looking for from a faith leader, Jew or gentile, is someone who provides love and understanding no matter where someone is in their life.

TBT is an open and affirming community, open to members of any faith group and members of the LGBTQ community. Danny made it clear he hoped to invite those who were simply curious about Judaism, people who might have Jewish family members, or anyone looking for a partner in the community.

It was this style of ministry that Offner led at TBT during her tenure—welcoming refugees, joining donation drives, rallying against gun violence—and these are all things Danny says will remain the focus of his energy and a big part of TBT’s role under his leadership. He quotes the mishnah, an ancient Jewish legal text that defines three pillars to build the world on: teaching, ritual, and acts of love and kindness.

“The first foot in the door is the third one, for many people in this generation,” he says.

Danny tells the story of a rabbi in his hometown who didn’t ask congregants or members of his community to show up and study religious texts or pray. Instead, he asked them to come make sandwiches for the hungry, to put their hands simply to work for their neighbors.

But this isn’t the only part of what is required of a spiritual minister, however vital it is. And it was not Danny’s original impetus to join the Jewish clergy.

“I was a camp song leader, I taught religious school, I loved being in religious school,” he says. “It was clearly an academic interest as well as a personal piece of me. But I didn’t know I wanted to be a rabbi.”

There was never one single moment, he says, that served as a “spark” that sent him on the path of rabbinical service. But he describes an experience, one that included both the deeply traditional and ritualistic aspects of his faith, as well excruciating empathy and spiritual communion.

During a Yom Kippur service focused on memorializing loss and loved ones who had passed, Danny was in the congregation as a cantor was leading a hymn. Danny and the rest of the community present knew this cantor herself had recently lost a very close family member.

The woman broke down in tears as she tried to finish the song, and immediately the congregation was there for her, he says.

“You could just see everybody’s energy—they almost rose to sort of hold her spiritually in that moment,” he says. “They were with her, and they were in place of loss, she was in place of loss, and in that moment there was a connection, a spiritual moment...a connection where two people come together and God is in-between.”

Reaching people’s deepest needs, transcending physical or even psycho-social needs and offering people a connection drawn through the deeper machinations of the universe, is important, Danny says. He added that he understands that looks different for many people, and that morality and spirituality are not predicated on a religious affiliation.

“But I’m Jewish!” he exclaims. “And I have access to these thousands-of-years-old traditions that helps me speak in a deep way about ethics, that connects me to my family, my ancestors, my roots, and my spiritual identity. And that brings a purpose and unique focus.”

Ritual and religious reading are some of the most important aspects of his life personally, Danny says. When asked to name or select one or two books that are important to him, he quickly ended up with half a dozen.

“For me, ritual is everything,” he says. “It changes the world and our communities and us personally.”

Leveraging the elements of his faith holistically, Danny says, is the best way to accomplish all of his work, whether it is social justice focused on issues of national import, or individual spiritual direction for longtime members of TBT. While he personally revels in the deep traditions and texts of Judaism, he says he understands that many of the people he will be working with won’t, at least initially, have that same interest.

“The TBT congregation should be a congregation that’s of its people, not only of its walls,” Danny says.

Danny describes his hope that people—particularly young people, who are less likely to participate in organized religion generally—see TBT as a “community of purpose” going forward, that he and other leaders will meet them exactly where they are, and will have something to actively offer them at whatever point they are in their lives.

“I want them to know that we’re going to a place that is in alignment with their values,” he says. “We are a place...that wants to be a force for good leading to a more just Connecticut and shoreline area. And we’re going to put our money where our mouth is.”