I never intended to be a rabbi: How Rabbis Shlomo Levin and Joseph Dweck found their pulpit

“Absolutely wrong,” his host responded.

“So we share that in common,” said Rabbi Dweck.

The scion of a Syrian Jewish family in LA, Rabbi Dweck had gone to Israel as a young man to study in a new yeshivah, opened by one of the greatest contemporary Sephardi rabbis, Rav Ovadia Yosef. Its head was Rav Ovadia’s son, Rav Yitzhak Yosef, who, like his father, became the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel – and who introduced Rabbi Dweck to his wife-to-be, Margalit, Rav Yitzhak’s niece.

“She came from a rabbinic family and did not want to marry a rabbi… That did not work out for her!” Rabbi Dweck wryly observed.

Rabbi Joseph Dweck (left) and Rabbi Shlomo Levin (Photo: Bobby Bray)[Missing Credit]

The couple subsequently moved to New York where Rabbi Dweck continued his Torah studies for seven years in a kollel (academy for married students), run by the large Syrian Jewish community there.

Early on, a cousin asked him if he would like to take on the role of chazan in a local synagogue. “They had been through four rabbis in four years,” Rabbi Dweck said.

“Like the Conservative government here” Rabbi Levin quipped.

A role which was upgraded when the rabbi left – “he refused to say the prayer for the state of Israel,” said Rabbi Dweck, who was asked to fill in – and stayed. Only recently had he finally “stopped fighting” the idea of being a rabbi, he confided.

The son of Lithuanian immigrants to South Africa, Rabbi Levin had a different upbringing – from a “warm, traditional Jewish home” but not shomer Shabbat, and without Jewish books. He had been planning a motorcyle trip round Europe when he heard a talk by a visiting Chabad rabbi – “it was a real turn-on” – and he and his wife Lynndy were persuaded instead to head off to Kfar Chabad in Israel.

“I could have been a biker, and it could have been a much easier life,” he remarked.

Counselled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to pursue rabbinic studies – his study partner at London’s Etz Chaim Yeshivah was one Jonathan Sacks – he was eventually offered his “dream job” to work for the Lubavitch Foundation here.

He sought the Rebbe’s blessing for the move. “He looks at me with his incredible, incredible piercing blue eyes that look right deep into you. It was very uncanny; it was an extraordinary experience not replicated with any other human being I have ever encountered. You are almost mesmerised by it; it’s like your soul is being opened. He says to me: ‘You will find the fulfilment of your Yiddishket in business.’”

Rabbi Shlomo Levin (Photo: Bobby Bray)[Missing Credit]

So Rabbi Levin went into business, only later to understand why the Rebbe had advised him as he did.

One Shabbat in London, he was walking to his local shul when he bumped into a friend who invited him instead to South Hampstead Synagogue. By chance, the congregation was saying farewell to its rabbi, and when the enthusiastic young Lubavitcher appeared, by kiddush, he was being asked if he would like to fill in, part-time.

The ageing community was beginning to be replenished by younger people moving into the area, who were taking advantage of the Thatcher government’s new financial freedoms. “I’m finding I have the language to speak to them because I am in their world, because I am in business,” Rabbi Levin recalled.

Both said they saw strength in the British-Jewish attachment to tradition. Saying he “adored” this community, Rabbi Dweck described it as “quirky and illustrious at the same time”, with “a deep and serious connection to masoret [tradition]”.

Rabbi Levin, who is currently teaching a course on Kabbalah that was designed in the USA, said there, the tutor might have to explain that candles were lit on Friday night for Shabbat. “When I’m talking to an audience here, you wouldn’t dream of having to explain those things,” he said.

But they also liked informality. “Nobody ever called me by my first name in New York,” Rabbi Dweck said. “I so appreciated people calling me by my first name because it didn’t diminish any of the mutual respect, but I didn’t feel objectified. I felt I was part of the people.”

Rabbi Joseph Dweck (Photo: Bobby Bray)[Missing Credit]

Discussing successes and failures, Rabbi Levin lamented a lack of literacy, which meant people couldn’t read Hebrew prayers fluently. “I am so jealous of the Sephardi community, where the children grow up reading the words word-by-word communally,” he said.

But as a success, he cited the atmosphere of warmth and acceptance of a community like South Hampstead, where “the most religious person can sit next to the least religious person, and they both feel comfortable with each other”.

“What an achievement that is,” remarked Rabbi Dweck.

For him, difficulty had arisen when he “misread the runes” of a situation, including over what Rabbi Levin called “that famous lecture” ( a lecture on same-sex love in 2017 that threatened to upend Rabbi Dweck’s career).

“Yes, including that,” Rabbi Dweck said. “I didn’t take into account what was happening on the ground with my rabbinic colleagues at the time. I didn’t take into account the relationships I had with people in various places that this particular lecture would affect.”

It was a result of “naivety and hubris,” he said.

The “most cherished” aspect of his time here were the relationships he had made with people, said Rabbi Dweck. “I leave this beautiful community bittersweet,” he said.

But he is not leaving it completely behind. He plans to visit regularly to teach – with his first trip due back next year as scholar-in-residence at South Hampstead.

Watch the rabbi’s full conversation here: