In her time at Beth Jacob Congregation, Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm has worked her way up from assistant rabbi to an interim senior rabbi – three times over. Now with the interim tag gone, the Beth Jacob community is celebrating Magill-Grimm with a weekend of installation festivities from Nov. 7-9.
“It’s going to be a joyous lovefest,” said Rabbi David Thomas, a Beth Jacob congregant who is part of the group helping with the event.
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Ansifeld, the president of Hebrew College, will be taking part in the festivities. Ansifeld was the dean of Hebrew College’s rabbinic program when Magill-Grimm was a student, and was the staff member who gave Magill-Grimm smicha, the official ordination after Rabbinic school.
“It’s not a ritual with deep Jewish roots; I think it is one of those things that we’ve sort of borrowed and taken on and but it’s become very important in the American Jewish community over…at least 50 years,” Ansifeld said. “I think most communities experience it and shape it; it’s really a way of saying, this is not just about an employment contract. This relationship is about something more than that.”
Magill-Grimm started at Beth Jacob after graduating from Hebrew College and has spent almost all of her rabbinic career at the Mendota Heights synagogue; she left to take the executive director position at Hineni at Talmud Torah of St. Paul in late 2022, and went back to the shul after Rabbi Adam Rubin left the senior rabbi role in 2023.
Magill-Grimm said this may be the first installation weekend at the shul. She said she couldn’t speak if Rabbi Emeritus Morris Allen had one, but none of the other rabbis who have served the synagogue have had an installation weekend until Rubin arrived in 2020.
“It has been years of transition, and the congregation’s really seeking stability, and I think there was a feeling this time that we didn’t want to feel like we just slipped into something,” Magill-Grimm said. “We wanted to ritualize a moment and make it really feel official, especially because I’ve had so many different positions in the congregation.”
Magill-Grimm was the assistant rabbi, then associate rabbi, and finally rabbi-educator, before being the interim or acting senior rabbi first after Allen retired, then after interim Rabbi Sammy Barth, and after Rubin. In the transitional years, Magill-Grimm said the congregation, which already leaned heavily on lay leadership, was strengthened.
“We don’t have a cantor, and everyone does the davening and the Torah reading, and leads the service,” she said. “There was flux for sure, and challenges, but also growth.”
The weekend festivities will include a Kabbalat Shabbat potluck on Friday night, Saturday morning services and kiddush, and Sunday’s installation ceremony and brunch. The events are open to the community, but guests must RSVP in advance.
“We don’t want to take her for granted,” said Beth Pearlman, who, along with Barbie Levine, is co-chairing the weekend. “She’s been so great for all these years; she deserves the recognition.”
Said Rabbi Thomas: “The fact that Rabbi Tamar has been around for so long is all the more cause for celebration, because she knows and loves the congregation deeply, and the congregation knows her. It’s a unique situation in which they’re both entering into this sacred relationship with eyes wide open and a deep knowledge of each other.”
Ansifeld said that being able to participate in the weekend is a serendipitous, full-circle moment: the blessing she gave Magill-Grimm at her ordination was about the journey of Abraham, and the parsha for the weekend of the installation, Vayera, which opens with Abraham welcoming the visitors to his tent and ends with the binding of Isaac.
“I think that there are qualities that Tamar really exemplified [as a student] that I hear her congregants talking about now, and it’s just amazing to see sort of those threads of continuity, like her blend of kindness and intelligence,” Ansifeld said. “There’s something about somebody who is able to bring those things together in such a deep way. And I think that’s special and really distinctive.”
Magill-Grimm said that, after a tumultuous couple of years of war in Israel and rising antisemitism around the world, she’s looking forward to having something to celebrate with the congregation.
“I’m looking forward to us being focused on who we are as a community, and what we do for each other and how we show up for each other,” she said. “We’ve had so many external stressors, so I think just being able to say: We are here, we are proud of who we are, of what we do, of being Jewish, of living full, meaningful Jewish lives, and committed to doing that together year round. It’s beautiful.”
Mazal Tov to a good person and great Rabbi. Many that have passed would be very proud of you!