Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl has been the senior rabbi of Toronto’s Beth Tzedec Congregation since 1993. In addition to his congregational duties, he has mentored a generation of Israeli and Canadian rabbis. A stalwart of Toronto’s Jewish leadership, he’s been known for extensive work in interfaith relations and served on the Rabbinical Assembly’s committee on Jewish law and standards for 20 years.

Rabbi Frydman-Kohl announced his retirement in 2016 and will make the transition to rabbi emeritus at the end of July.

While he has “reluctantly relinquished” his fantasy about playing second base for the Chicago Cubs in a World Series, he does note that he came to Toronto when the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1993, and is finishing as the Raptors became the NBA champs.

You started as rabbi at Beth Tzedec in 1993. What was it like for a young rabbi to come to the largest shul in Canada? Was it daunting?

I used to joke that I was the opposite image of what people thought a rabbi here should be – tall, with a kind of stentorian voice – and my strengths were intellectual and interpersonal.

I think I grew into the pulpit. My initial concerns were how to keep the community stable, and I remember we had a bit of a conflict around the time I was selected about the future direction of the congregation. I said, “My goal is to try to have as calm a succession as possible when I leave,” and I think that’s occurring. But when I came, it was pretty bumpy, and there were many times in the first few years that I considered leaving.

Over what issues?

It had to do with the idea of whether the congregation was accepting of new directions. And there were a number of people who kept encouraging me to stay with it and to help them to build the future of the congregation.

By new directions, do you mean the role of women?

At that time, it was the role of women. It was also finding ways to soften the formalism of the sanctuary service. It was also trying to find a way to introduce kids into various places in the synagogue. It was all kinds of quiet, new initiatives. They weren’t so big, but they were perceived as big.

What were the reasons you stayed?

Because the congregation is a wonderful community and has really worked over time with me, and has been supportive of me and my family. Also, because Toronto is a wonderful community, and Canada’s a wonderful country. So for all those reasons, as time went on, and we went through some of those adjustments, I began to feel that there really was a future, and that the congregation was dynamic enough and exciting enough to take on new areas.

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What are some of the initiatives you implemented, or that were implemented during your tenure?

I placed a lot of emphasis on relationships, in terms of really spending time with families that are going through crises, families that are going through simchas, young couples, families that are approaching bar and bat mitzvah, singles, people in the process of becoming Jews, people who have been, in different ways, marginalized. I think that they felt there was somebody here who would listen to them and care about them. So that was a big orientation that I had – that I didn’t want them to feel that it’s a big congregation and people are lost. I wanted them to feel that it’s a big congregation, but it has a heart. So I would say that was a big direction of mine.

Another was to gradually look for ways to be more inclusive of women in public worship and in the leadership of the congregation; to be welcoming to Jews by Choice and Jews who have different kinds of physical, mental or emotional limitations; to find ways to open up to the LGBTQ community; and to make people feel that it may be a big building and appear to be forbidding from the outside, but that, inside, people can find their spiritual niche.

The third big piece was that I saw early on that the sanctuary service served a certain group of people, but it was really important to find a way to open up the Shabbat morning experience.

We created something called “synaplex.” The idea was that we would have a little minyan, which was much less formal. There was the back minyan – a little Orthodox group – that still goes on. We have a family service on a regular basis. We have a meditation group that comes once a month.

We have looked for ways to open up areas around the sanctuary, and that has enabled us to create places of intimacy. Because it’s a big congregation, it doesn’t appear to be intimate. So there’s a need for spiritual intimacy, and there’s also a need to have different kinds of models of leaders.

Another initiative was going beyond the Jewish community to look for interfaith partnerships. For many years, we have run the Neighbourhood Interfaith Group, which continues, and out of that grew the opportunity to do Path of Abraham missions to Israel. We’ve just done our third trip, and we’ll be doing another in February 2020. It enabled us to develop relationships so that we could reach out to each other.

Why are you leaving now? Did the time feel right?

I have grandchildren in Israel. We want to spend more time with them. I’ve just finished a master’s of law in dispute resolution. I want to make a transition into working with faith communities, with small not-for-profits and with closely held family corporations that experience conflict, and to bring some of the skills and experience that I have here, as well as that legal training, perhaps to find ways to lower their level of tension and to work better together. The congregation has asked me to continue as rabbi emeritus, and recently, we announced that my role will be part-time over the next three years, so that I’ll continue to have a connection with many of the people who mean so much to me.

How has the larger Jewish community changed during your tenure?

I came as the Oslo Accords were signed. Despite the fact that we now see the flaws in the Oslo Accords, we also recognize that as a time of great hope, and we have moved from a period of hope to a period of fear. Partially, that was because of the events of the world. For Israel, it was the two intifadas. For the United States and for Western society, it was the 9/11 attacks, then it was the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently, it’s the fear of being overrun by refugees. And we see this turn to the right, to the white, ethnic, nationalist and, in some cases, neo-Nazi expression.

The period from 1993 to 2008 was when the economy was really doing well. And then, with the 2008 crash, there was the realization that there are a lot of people who weren’t being brought along. Public health is a big issue. Young people don’t remember some of the issues about SARS, AIDS and about sexually transmitted diseases. People don’t remember about measles, and as a result, you think you don’t need these public health protections. We forget how important clean water and clean air are. So you take some of those things for granted, and we forget how essential it is to work together on a lot of issues.

Have you sensed over the years a rift between Orthodoxy and non-Orthodoxy in Canada, and Toronto specifically? If so, has it widened?

There’s a growing gap between the more right-wing elements of the Orthodox community – I’ll call them the more pietistic elements of the Orthodox community – and the rest of the Jewish community. The modern Orthodox community is engaged with the totality of the Jewish community, in a whole variety of ways, and in our congregation, we’ve been able to really create bridges with the modern Orthodox, as well as with the open Orthodox communities. We’ve also created bridges with the Reform movement. We do programming together from time to time. And that’s been very successful – to see rabbis from different approaches to Judaism working together.

At the same time, that rift between part of the Orthodox community and the rest of the Jewish community continues. Maybe it’s exacerbated. I’ve certainly – at times privately, and at times publicly – confronted people from the chief rabbinate and elsewhere. At the same time, it’s really important to remember that we are all part of this Jewish community.

And we have young people who’ve left our community – some are less overtly engaged in Jewish life, some are more overtly engaged in Jewish life. What’s important is that they find their niche, hopefully in some deeper Jewish connection. I’m interested in maintaining the totality and the integrity of the Jewish community. I think that’s really important.

I try to strengthen Conservative Judaism internally. It’s really important that people see supporting large congregations – ours, Holy Blossom Temple, Shaarei Shomayim Congregation and others – as vital, because we’re able to do things that can actually make a big difference. At the same time, we absolutely have to take care of people. We have to constantly go back to people.

This interview has been edited and condensed for style and clarity.