If anyone was destined to become an Orthodox rabbi, it was Jacob Staub.
His parents named him after the late Jacob Joseph, chief rabbi of New York City’s Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations.
He was raised in a Modern Orthodox community in New York City and attended yeshiva at a young age, with the expectation of continuing his Jewish education through high school and college.
He took everything seriously. He was a “good boy.”
There was just one problem: “I dreaded turning 13,” Staub, now 58, recalls. “I knew there were all these things I was doing wrong.
“And when you become a bar mitzvah, you’re responsible for all of your sins. Oh, and you’ll burn in hell for them.”
Fear and depression became virtual speed bumps on Staub’s journey to find a God unlike the one he prayed to as a child. The Orthodox movement no longer worked for him. But another stream did.
And only somewhat recently, about 14 years ago, did he make that discovery.
“I’m a Reconstructionist,” Staub says. “I personally believe in a non-personal God, a God that doesn’t hear my prayer, literally.”
Staub will recount his personal journey from panicky preteen to Recon-structionist rabbi during the Shabbat morning service June 27 at Congregation Beth Israel–Judea in San Francisco. An open forum and extended Kiddush will follow.
“He’s got a remarkable way of getting to the core of spirituality without insisting people look at God in the traditional form,” says Rosalind Glazer, a rabbi at the Reform-Conservative Beth Israel–Judea and Staub’s former student. “Jacob reminds us that you can be true to your spirit, and Jewish and intellectual curiosity.”
Staub is a professor of Jewish philosophy and spirituality at the Reconstruc-tionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa. He also chairs the college’s Department of Medieval Jewish Civilization and directs its Jewish Spiritual Direction program.
His upcoming talk, “Prayer and the Non-believer,” will be loosely based on his field of expertise — Medieval Jewish philosophy — touching on questions such as, “Why pray if it’s not to ask for something?” and, subsequently, “Why cultivate any spiritual practice at all?”
“We’re not the first people to be praying when we think God doesn’t hear what we’re praying for,” Staub says. “Maimonides, for example, thought that God was above the details of the world.”
Staub’s visit to the Bay Area will coincide with Pride 2009, San Francisco’s weekend parade and celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
And while he won’t be marching with Glazer and a contingent of congregants, Staub, who is gay, says his sexuality was a factor — albeit subliminally — in his turning to Reconstructionist Judaism.
He didn’t come out until he was 49.
“Part of my spiritual growth allowed it to happen,” Staub says. “It was a moment. I was sitting at a weeklong retreat, noticing what thoughts were arising and letting them go. I noticed that, boy, I was spending a lot of time thinking about men … and working harder to make sure I was attracted to women.”
Following that revelation, Staub came out to his wife and three children. He remembers feeling “free” at first, before the complications of a four-year divorce set in.
“The colors were brighter,” Staub says. “It was an immediate blessing. But I still have the shards of life.
“My partner and I are getting married in November. Nine years later, I’m still putting things back together. My kids are walking me down the aisle, but it’s not so easy.”
But it’s all part of Staub’s personal and spiritual journey, one he hopes will inspire listeners at Beth Israel–Judea.
“People would like to come [to synagogue] for spiritual reasons, but they often don’t know how,” he says. “I hope they understand that a feeling of spiritual closeness can occur even if you don’t believe in the God you were taught about in Hebrew school.”
Rabbi Jacob Staub will speak 10 a.m. June 27 at Congregation Beth Israel–Judea, 625 Brotherhood Way, S.F. The event is free and open to the public. To RSVP for the Kiddush, email [email protected].