Photo: Courtesy of Rabbi Elliot Kaplowitz
Rabbi Elliot Kaplowitz says that no one from his high school class in Livingston, New Jersey, was surprised to find out that he was becoming a rabbi.
After graduating high school, Kaplowitz attended Brandeis University and earned a master’s degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies before going to Israel for rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.
Kaplowitz eventually gained interest in what the Baltimore area had to offer and moved with his wife Toby to become a rabbi in residence at Beth Tfiloh in 2013.
Two years later, he took a role as the part-time rabbi for Netivot Shalom, where he remains today, along with working as an underwriter for mortgages to nursing homes.
Kaplowitz lives in Pikesville with his wife and their three children.
When did you know you wanted to become a rabbi?
I’ve sort of always known that’s what I wanted to do. I’ve always enjoyed being in synagogue, enjoyed being part of the Jewish community and being active. … One thing that struck me fairly early was a respect and a recognition of the diversity within the Jewish community, and a desire to continue to be able to learn and interact from a broader swath of the community.
I think that was very foundational. Through high school, as I became more involved and more engaged Jewishly, I developed a real passion for Jewish learning, along with the Jewish commitment to the community.
What is something you’ve enjoyed about being a rabbi at Netivot Shalom?
It’s a very unique synagogue in that it has a very active congregation. I like the fact that I’m not expected to give the sermon every week, as we encourage and celebrate our congregants to teach and share their insights with the congregation. We have a very unique structure as far as how decisions get made in the synagogue, and so that involves much more input from the congregation than other Orthodox synagogues may have. It’s a great group of people.
I really just love praying in our shul. Everyone there is very serious, very committed. I’ve never once had to interrupt services to ask people to be quiet, to stop talking. Everyone’s very engaged. It’s a shul that really celebrates everyone’s involvement, including children. My kids regularly participate in leading the services, as do other children in the community. We have high schoolers with leadership positions in the synagogue, which is quite unique and quite special.
Can you talk about your commitment to spreading Jewish knowledge?
Jewish life is all about learning and growing Jewishly. I definitely love the opportunity to share my knowledge and wisdom with the congregation, but just as much to be able to learn from them. My Jewish knowledge and my perspective have been greatly influenced by the insights that others have shared with me. I like that our shul is a shul that’s committed to learning and to growing and being open to exploring new ideas.
What do you do as an insurance underwriter and how did you get into the field?
An underwriter is someone who approves the mortgage, and there’s a very niche market within that. The government has a program where they provide mortgage insurance for loans made to nursing homes and senior living facilities. And the job kind of fell into my lap as I was completing business school [at the University of Baltimore].
How have you grown as a rabbi over your 10 years at Netivot Shalom?
I started out my career really focused on the college campus, and that’s a very different setting in a very different communal dynamic than a synagogue, where you’re able to be with members and with families, not just for the four years that they’re on campus, but really for an entire life cycle, and to be able to share that and celebrate that has been amazing.
A big growth and change in perspective for me has been finding the way to balance working in a shul while also holding a second job. I work as an underwriter for mortgages to nursing homes.
I think having a foot in the business world has actually been quite enriching to my rabbinate, because I can certainly relate to what it’s like to be someone holding down a job and still having to push yourself to be active and involved in shul life, and bringing the perspective of the working world into my teaching and into the rabbinate has been a definite change over the years.
How have you felt integrated to the Baltimore community over the years?
With the synagogue, it’s a very warm, welcoming, tight-knit community. The biggest blessing, I’d say, is all the professional and personal satisfaction of being a rabbi and being a presence in people’s lives. I think one of the greatest things that I cherish about my shul is that they allow me and my family to be a family, and that the rabbi is not put on a pedestal in some way or held to some crazy high standards. We’re able to be friends with many of our congregants.
As far as the broader Baltimore community, we’re a very small shul, and we’re not really on the radar screen of the broader community, in some sense, which is frustrating. I wish that we were.
Some often wish that we were better networked and connected. And part of that is because I’m the only professional at the shul, and I’m part-time, and I’m not able to be involved in some of the broader communal efforts; but I think that while we’re small, we definitely pack a powerful punch and we offer a really unique opportunity for families that are looking for what our shul has to offer.
