The induction of Rabbi Ephraim Guttentag, by Rabbi Mirvis, took place at St Annes Hebrew Congregation on 22 June 2015, presided over by the Chief Rabbi.
Provinces Rabbinic Conference
Chief Rabbi Mirvis especially timetabled the conference meeting of the Rabbinical Council of the Provinces so it could take place there also.
Rabbis from as far afield as Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester met Chief Rabbi Mirvis in the resort.Conference members gained mental health training from Jane Summers of Lancashire Training Solutions, listen to a sheir from Dyan yahoo the Steiner of mates the bed then and had a question and answer session with the Chief Rabbi.
Induction
The chief asked why, and fathers bless that sounds, they paid for them to be like Jacobs grand sons Ephraim and Manasseh and not any of his 12 sons.
The answer he gave was that Ephraim and Manasseh were brought up in the totally alien environment of Egypt yet were still able to maintain their Jewish values.
He told Rabbi Guttentag, “You have a dual responsibility to lead your congregation to be true to their faith and to do so in the spirit of togetherness.
“Your surname means good day. You should teach Yiddishkeit 24 seven, every single day”.
Rabbi Guttentag said, his wife Malki and the three children very proud to call St Annes home.
He recalled the Chief Rabbi, on his own his installation into office, for synagogues to be transformed from just “houses of prayer to powerhouses of Jewish religious, educational and cultural experiences” and said that was exactly what had happened in St Annes.
Rabbi Guttentag continued:
“We are in the 21st-century and people are thirsty for new ideas, innovation, fresh thoughts applicable to the times we live in.
“Bread and wine opposite characteristics. Bread is wonderful when it is hot out of the Aven, fresh and new.
“Wine, however improves with age.
“But never forget the old wine. The soul is for ever searching for that vintage, carefully aged teaching.
“This is the ethos of our rabbinate here. To bring the shawl into the 21st-century and to plan an exciting future, yet at the same time never losing sight of where we come from, the Torah and Halacha.”
The service also commemorated 50 years since the building of the St Annes synagogue.
Synagogue President Robert Pinkus, who presented the Chief Rabbi with a Tottenham Hotspur scarf, inscribed with the Magen David and his initials.
Also attending were the right reverend Bishop of Blackburn Reverend Julian Henderson, mayor of St Anne’s Vince Settle, Lancashire deputy Lord-Lieutenant John Barnett, and Rabbi Yissochor Lichtig of Gateshead Be’er Torah Yeshiva.
Ephraim Guttentag, Michoel Y. Rose, Dovid Lewis, Daniel Walker, Aaron Lipsey, Chanan Atlas, Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Amir-Tova Ellituv, Dan Lieberman, Arnold Saunders, Mordechai Wollenberg, Jason Kleiman and Rabbi Eliezer Wolfson.