Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

Rabbi Samuel Gordon has made a difference and enriched our community through providing spiritual and personal guidance, provocation and inspiration, and serving as the still point in a turning world. For many years, Congregation Sukkat Shalom did not have its own building in which to conduct worship services or to gather. Instead, congregants were truly wandering Jews, coming together in various churches and community centers to observe our faith. And it was important to many members of the congregation that we exercised pure volition to meet and study and worship without a building as the congregational home. Rather, Rabbi Gordon was (and is) our home. His sermons are filled with topical references, using news of the day to relate to ancient teaching and explication of texts. He is deeply generous with his time, learned and funny. He makes Judaism a living faith, and the congregation is one of few that is demonstrably inclusive to people of other faith traditions and to non-traditional families and couples. Rabbi Gordon’s example of a man living out his faith — questioning, probing, expressing — is a model for us all.

— Michael Rothstein + 7 other nominations

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