San Diego (special)--Two Moshes commanded the attention of a mixed group of Jews and Christians who packed Congregation Beth El on Monday evening, March 10: Moshe the Lawgiver, and Moshe Natan Levin, the rabbi.

Moshe Natan Levin, spiritual leader of the Conservative congregation, received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from his alma mater, the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York City. Prior to the presentation JTS Chancellor Ismar Schorsch set the tone with a thoughtful story about Moshe (Moses) the Lawgiver. "Moses brought down the tablets from Mount Sinai--two large pieces of stone," Schorsch related. "And the midrash tells us that he had no trouble carrying them: an 80-year-old man bearing two heavy stone tablets. And he approached the people dancing around the golden calf. The midrash , a rabbinic homily, tells us that the letters on the tablets flew off, ascending back to heaven from where they came. "  "At that moment, Moses dropped the tablets," the JTS chancellor continued. "He didn't break them out of anger. He broke them out of weakness. All of a sudden the tablets became heavy. He could no longer carry them. It is a beautiful rabbinic image: it was the letters on the tablets that made them weightless, that made them light and of no physical consequence. When the letters left, the tablets became inert stone. Neither Moses nor any man could lift them."

PAIR O'DOCS -- In his first moments  as Rabbi "Doctor" Moshe Levin, the  spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El (in tallit he wore for reading of haftorah scroll) walks in an academic recessional with Chancellor Ismar Schorsch of the jewish Theological Seminary.

"The power of that rabbinic image lies in its truth," Schorsch instructed. "As long as we have control of those letters, as long as we have access to the letters and the language of our people, Judaism is no burden, Judaism is light, Judaism is full of joy and uplift. It is only when we have lost control of the letters, when we are illiterate, that Judaism become a burden, a drag, an inert object that is far too heavy for us to bear."

The JTS chancellor said that the purpose of Jewish education is to "make Judaism a matter of lightness, a matter of joy, something that will uplift our lives and not weigh them down. Those letters on the tablets....if we teach them well, Judaism will be a source of joy, strength and consolation for our children and their children."

After being presented with the degree and hooded with the academic cape signifying his doctoral status, Levin spoke of the teachers who influenced him at the Jewish Theological Seminary, building up to Abraham Joshua Heschel, of revered memory. 

From Heschel, Levin said he learned that "Judaism is not a closed book. I learned that the last chapter has not been written and that as long as we are a people, the last chapter will never be written because every generation must write its own chapter, a never before written chapter because no other generation ever lived in our time."

"No generation of the past ever faced our issues or confronted our challenges, and no other generation was ever graced with our talents and our unique collective personality," Levin said. "Only we are the generation that followed the Six Million and saw that human beings can become more vicious than the most violent of animals. Only our generation saw the Phoenix rise from the ashes and infuse a 2,000-year-old dream with reality. We didn't experience the horrors or the challenges of historical Jews, but neither did they experience ours. And our children will be different from us, and achieve different triumphs."

Levin said that as a child he had displayed artistic talent, and used to tell people that he planned to be a commercial artist. But someone who told him that the commercial art field was anti-Semitic discouraged him, and when he entered seminary he thought that he had forsaken the world of art. 

But as a congregtional rabbi, he said, he learned he had embarked upon a different type of artistic career: "Creativity, artistry, comes not from copying the great masters nor from duplicating their styles, nor emulating their techniques. Ours is a chapter in the book of the People of the Book only if we write our own chapter, a new chapter, or else we are nothing more than a photocopy of the past that is already gone."

"By painting our pictures, by sculpting our images, by composing our music, by choreographing our dance, by climbing to heaven on our own Jacob's Ladder, we do not separate or distance ourselves from the great legacy of our ancestors; to the contrary, we walk in their paths: the paths of those who immersed themselves in learning, in the knowledge of our incredible God-inspired heritage, yet lived fully in their own day and their own time."

"As a child, particularly with the name of Moshe, I wished that I had been born in the time of Sinai," Levin said. "Or to have entered the land with Joshua. To have basked in the Golden Era of Spain."

"But as an adult," he added, "I find myself truly blessed to be a rabbi at this moment in history. I cherish the great eras of the past and I revere the classical personalities of those dates, but I tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am thrilled to be here now, in this generation, an incredibly exciting generation, to be in this country, in this city, and in this synagogue."

Levin was sponsored for his honorary doctorate by Dr. Jerome Katzin, who has been a lay member of the Jewish Theological Seminary's board of directors for four decades, and also was the man 11 years ago who chaired the Beth El search committee which chose Levin to be the congregation's spiritual leader.

Yohanan Weinstein led a chamber ensemble which accompanied vocalist Marin Cosman's performance of Weinstein's original melody Yekum Purkan, the traditional Hebrew prayer for rabbis and scholars. 

"May Divine blessings be conferred upon the scholars and teachers associated in the study of the Torah in the land of Israel and in all the lands of the Diaspora," the prayer says in translation. "We pray for those leaders who spread learning among the people, the leaders of our community, those who head schools of learning as well as those who exercise authority in the courts of sacred law..."

An inscription on black kippot, distributed to guests as they entered the sanctuary , seemed to echo the prayer's sentiment. Embossed in gold letters in both Hebrew and English, the inscription proclaimed: "All people are created to labor. Happy is the one whose labor is in the Torah."

Other participants in the evening's program included Yonina and Ari Weiss, who sang The Star Spangled Banner; Roberta Taylor who led Ha Tikvah; Bat'Sheva Feldman and children of Beth El, who performed as a choir; the congregation's president, Robert Lapidus, who emceed the program, and program chairwoman Karen Grossman Levinson who introduced Weinstein's musical composition.

Other participants on stage included Rabbi Carol Davidson, a JTS administrator who read Levin's doctoral citation; Gloria & Rodney Stone, lay leaders of the synagogue and the United Jewish Federation who offered a congregational blessing; Cantor Joel Fox, the cantor-elect of Beth El, who flew to San Diego from Jacksonville, Fla., to be present for the unique congregational moment, and members of Rabbi Levin's family who joined him on the stage and helped him to read a portion of haftorah.

An academic processional which included local faculty members who worship with the congregation as well as Levin's colleagues in the San Diego County Reform and Conservative rabbinates preceded the program. Several Christian clergy members also honored Levin with their presence in the audience. 

Following a recessional, hundreds of well-wishers surrounded Levin on the patio where refreshments and entertainer/ singer Shalom Sherman helped to extend the evening.