Marsye Kaplan was on the phone one night with her niece in Florida, who asked her, “You always say you’re busy, what are you doing?”
“I rattled off the boards, and the committees, and the bullpen, and ushering, and all these things I do within [Beth El Congregation], plus managing the Judaica Shop — which is a full-time job — and then I do stuff elsewhere,” Kaplan, a Baltimore resident and native, said. “So, she finally said to me, ‘But you don’t get paid for any of that.’ The truth of the matter … is that my soul gets paid. When I go to sleep at night, I can sleep easy because of what I do, because … it makes me feel good.”
Kaplan was this year’s Beth El Congregation’s Simchat Torah honoree. To her, Beth El is home. “I can’t even imagine being anywhere else,” she said.
Beth El Rabbi Dana Saroken said that when selecting its honorees, the synagogue looks “for people who care deeply about Torah and Jewish values. We also look for people who put Judaism at the center of their lives and inspire others to do the same. … This year, we chose Marsye Kaplan, because of all of these things. Marsye is a true mensch. She treats others with kindness and care. She is deeply devoted to her Judaism and to our congregation. She can be found in our building every day of the week and with graciousness and kindness she greets our members and makes sure that our services are running smoothly.”
In her early childhood, Kaplan lived in Baltimore City and attended a small institution called the Isaac Davidson Hebrew School on Shirley Avenue until moving to Baltimore County at 10 years old and becoming a member of Beth El. There, she had her bat mitzvah — but her living situation changed when her father passed away and her family began attending services at other synagogues.
Then, roughly 20 years ago, Kaplan says she “came home to Beth El.”
Kaplan explained that she had visited the synagogue one night to watch a friend’s performance.
“You know when you walk back into a friend’s home or your own parent’s home, and you get that feeling of that warmth of being home?” Kaplan said. “When I went in that night, I realized that I had not been home for a very long time.”
On Oct. 15, Kaplan was honored for her seemingly boundless activities within the Beth El community. Honorees during Simchat Torah services are called upon each year to complete the reading of the Torah and begin the new Torah reading cycle.
“It was the most amazing day,” said Kaplan. “It was an amazing day to have the whole community recognize I do what I do because it’s just who I am.”
In the 1970s, Kaplan graduated from Towson University with a bachelor’s degree in speech therapy and went on to earn a master’s degree in speech pathology from Loyola University. She spent the beginning of her career working with children with learning and language disabilities. She then got another master’s in special education and worked for Baltimore County for 25 years creating and developing its assistive technology program.
Since retiring, in addition to her work within the Jewish community, Kaplan has done contract work at a federally-funded early childhood technical assistance center and has taught courses at McDaniel College and Towson.
She is currently an instructor at Johns Hopkins University — but her real job seems to be supporting Beth El Congregation. Along with being co-manager of the synagogue’s Judaica shop, she serves on the executive committee of the Sisterhood. She also sits on the board for seniors, the board of Beth El trustees and she recently joined the religious services committee.
In addition, she is a member of the Beth El ushers and greeters and helps facilitate a support group for men and women in their 60s and 70s who have lost their significant others.
It’s a lot of work, but Kaplan insists she doesn’t seek out all these roles.
“I don’t go in search of; it just seems to find me,” she said.
