Local News
November 5, 2002
The Strength
Phil Jacobs
Editor
Even with a debilitating illness, Suburban Orthodox’s longtime spiritual leader looks ahead. Baltimore
There were at least three b’nai mitzvah on his schedule. Besides that, he called a Suburban Orthodox-Toras Chaim member family to wish them mazel tov on the engagement of a daughter.
And there is a banquet in honor of him and his wife scheduled weeks from now, on Feb. 9.
The life of the synagogue goes on. On a freezing cold Tuesday night when media weather “experts” ratchet up an artificial panic with calls of ice falling from the sky, the family room on Seven Mile Lane is warm, insulated from the outside and exuding a feeling of what is real.
This is the place where perhaps the sky really should be falling. But almost 40 years of genuine love, marriage, friendship and family can withstand, well, can withstand even this.
Rabbi Ervin Preis, for 26 years the spiritual leader and voice of Suburban Orthodox Congregation, sits in a chair wearing a warm gray sweater. Behind him on the wall is a map with the words “The sea of Halachah,” or Jewish law. Opposite on a countertop are dozens of photos of him and his wife, Anita, their three children and 19 grandchildren. The faces on the photographs all seem to be “watching” and “listening” to the rabbi’s voice. They wait for an assuring word, a familiar line of Torah.
There are whispers in the community suggesting the voice is weaker, wearier. Yet on this night, it carries the familiarity of Rabbi Preis’ strength of conviction, his unshaken belief in God, the Torah and the Jewish people.
It is Mrs. Preis who says, “I’d say that I was the love of his life, but the truth is the shul is the love of his life.”
Two Shabbosim ago, Rabbi Preis told that object of his love — his congregation — about the severity of his illness. He doesn’t want the specifics of his illness detailed in a newspaper article. But even in his strong voice, he admits that the “news isn’t good.”
He talks of an overriding desire to sleep and how his room now resembles a hospital room. And there’s the hope that whatever his illness might be called, it doesn’t get any worse.
It was just a few months ago that Rabbi Preis sent a letter to the shul membership explaining his intention to retire in three years. He felt that this would give Suburban Orthodox ample time to find a new rav.
“I had no idea I might not be functioning in one year, let alone three years,” he says. He describes his condition as a “serious illness” and he is “doing as much as possible to function in the shul.”
He does get there now when he can, usually by wheelchair. In his easy chair, though, on a dark winter’s night, he spoke a little about his life and how he arrived in Baltimore.
Rabbi and Mrs. Preis came to Suburban Orthodox in the summer of 1976 from a pulpit in New London, Conn. The rabbi was born in 1935 in Budapest. His late father, a chazzan, moved the family in 1939 to Manchester, England, where it lived until 1951.
That’s when his father brought the family to the Bronx in the next step of his life as a synagogue chazzan. His family actually shared a two-family house with the shul’s rabbi, Rabbi Hershel Schachter.
“I lived under the eyes of Rabbi Schachter,” says Rabbi Preis, “and I guess I thought being a rabbi might not be a bad job.”
Following graduation from Yeshiva University yeshiva, where in 1960 he would receive his ordination, Rabbi Preis joined the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He says he knew that he would learn firsthand in the service whether he was suited to be a rabbi. He served from 1961-64 at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia.
“I learned one thing,” he says, “you’ve got to get along with everybody.”
There, he ran a Hebrew school for about 60 children, and there he serviced the needs of many career military officers.
“It was basic training to be a rabbi,” he says with a smile.
He left the Army as a captain and after marrying his wife, Anita, whose father was a rabbi on Capitol Hill. Rabbi and Mrs. Preis moved to the Bronx following his discharge from the Army. Their oldest son, now Rabbi Yitzchoch Preis, was born there. He is now the director of outreach for the Cincinnati Community Kollel. The Preises’ other children are Esther Ribakow of Baltimore and Rabbi Yosef Preis of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rabbi Preis’ first pulpit was in New London for a shul with some 200 families. “The shul was Orthodox,” he says, “but it didn’t mean the people were. There was a lot of explanation of customs of everything.”
It was in 1976 that Rabbi and Mrs. Preis moved to Suburban Orthodox in Baltimore after the retirement of Rabbi Chaim Gevantman. When he came to the shul, he says again with a bright smile, he was able to order all of six lulavim and etrogim from Central Hebrew Bookstore for the shul’s membership. He even went to the store and picked them up personally. Now, he’d have to back up a truck to the store to pick up the high volume he would need.
“At that time, a lot of homes became available near the shul,” says the rabbi. “A lot of young day school-educated people moved into the neighborhood. Their kids would go to day school.. I remember one of the first was Sheldon Berman and then the Kozlovskys. The synagogue and the community grew with a different generation who accepted the idea that a shul is for davening, but it is also for learning. Now the idea of having a chevrusah [study partner] and learning on a regular basis is an important part of our synagogue’s daily life.”
Rabbi Preis, who is also president of the Rabbinical Council, says that “Baltimore has achieved a kind of name for itself. When a person is thinking of leaving Israel, they should consider Baltimore for its quality of Orthodox life.”
He points to Orthodox service organizations such as Ahavas Yisroel (a food program for those in need), Bikur Cholim (a program sending volunteers to visit the sick), Hachnoses Orchim (providing a place for out-of-town visitors to stay), and Gevuras Yarden (the Jewish Caring Network).
“But it’s really the learning,” he says. “That’s what defines an Orthodox community.”
The rabbi also said that Baltimore has a high quality of Jewish educational institutions as well as a world-class yeshiva at Ner Israel.
Tears came to his eyes and his voice shook for a moment when he talked about the outreach his own shul has made to him and his family during this time. “They are truly remarkable,” he says of his shul members.
“Our shul leaders ...,” his voice drops off. “You can’t imagine how wonderful they have been to me this whole time. The concern and the care. I’m going to start crying. Their only question to me was, ‘How can we help you?’ Nobody was suggesting I retire.”
His future? His health? “What will be will be,” he says.
“I am not afraid. I accept what is going on. I am not the emotional kind of person who would talk to God about this. All of us pray. We’re into prayer. I know that all over the world, people have me in their prayers. I’m sure it has been helping. I hope Hakodesh Baruchu [blessed God] keeps delaying it ... but some days can be difficult.” (His Hebrew name is Shlomo Aryeh ben Raizel.)
In the meantime ... there are b’nai mitzvah. There’s an engagement.
And ... a banquet.
Rabbi Preis hopes to be there for them all.