San Diego (special) -- Rabbi Baruch Lederman, a math whiz who is quick with numbers and nearly as fast with a joke, is the founder and spiritual leader of Congregation Kehillas Torah, a start-up Orthodox congregation in the Carmel Mountain Ranch area of San Diego. He also is a compassionate man who has drawn lessons from his family's deepest sorrow.

Growing up in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, Lederman relished competing in mathematics meets for South Shore High School. "I loved math; I was really into it," he said. "They had a New York City math fair and we had to do math research projects. I won a gold medal for that. I was captain of the team and really into it. ...There is an MAA test -- Mathematics Association of America -- and they gave it to high school kids and I was in the top 25 in the country. I was really into it."

His parents, Irving and Selma, an attorney and homemaker, were not religiously observant. "They sent me to an afternoon Talmud Torah, and I kind of liked the message. We didn't do it in the house, but I liked the message. When I got older, more independent, I started doing it myself." Neither his two older sisters, Robin and Ellen, nor his two younger sisters, Marlene and Annie, were particularly attracted to the religious life. When Lederman graduated from public high school, he went to Princeton University as a mathematics major. He was given a choice of dining halls, and although he didn't keep kosher at the time, he checked off the kosher dining hall as his preference.

AT THE ARK-Rabbi Baruch  Lederman stands in front of  a portable ark set up in his living room pending the  congregation's relocation to rented facilities.

"I figured if they were offering it as an option, why not take it?" Lederman said. "Once you are there, you meet a lot of Jewish kids and you find all the stuff that is going on." He started attending functions, going to minyan, and by the time he had been at Princeton for two years "I started wearing a yarmulke" and studied Jewish texts as often as possible.

That summer he attended a Jewish learning program in the Catskills, coming under the influence of a rabbi who taught Talmud. "He used to say 'I don't care if you don't do more than three pages the whole year; as long as you can do the fourth page on your own as well as I taught you the three pages.'" Lederman recalled.

After that summer, "I figured that now that I know how to learn, I should learn" so he took a year's leave of absence from Princeton University to study at Beit Medrash L'Torah in Jerusalem. 

"I called it the BMT" like the subway in New York, Lederman quipped. It was there that he realized that his calling was to become a rabbi. The decision was a surprise to his parents, "but they adjusted to it, and they have told me many times that they are proud of me," the rabbi said.

Lederman talked to a dean at Princeton to see if he somehow could pursue two majors -- mathematics and Jewish theological studies -- but it wasn't feasible. So he left the Ivy League College where Albert Einstein once had conducted his research to enroll at the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva in New York. 

One year he transferred to the yeshiva's branch in Milwaukee, where he was able to make arrangements with Marquette University to be accepted as a part-time graduate student and teaching assistant in mathematics. He took classes every summer for a few years until he received his graduate degree. 

"Then I became a master, but try telling that to my wife," he said.

Ta-bump-bump.

 Loving Torah and mathematics so, Lederman's enjoyment of gematria -- the kabbalistic study of the numeric relationships between words found in the Torah -- should be a surprise to no one. 

During earlier days of the Jewish people, the Hebrew alphabet was also used for counting, with the letter alef a 1, bet or vet 2, gimmel 3 and so forth.

 Interviewed shortly after Rosh Hashanah, when it is customary to dip apples into honey to symbolize a sweet new year, Lederman noted that the Hebrew word for honey -- dvash -- has a numeric value of 306. Dalet is 4, vet is 2 and shin is 300.

 The gematria of the Hebrew word for wife, isha., also is 306. The alef is 1, the shin 300, and the hey is 5. 

That's why we husbands call our wives "honey," Lederman said.

Ta-bump-bump again.

Students at the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva typically study for 14 years between their graduation from high school and their ordination as rabbis. A typical Chofetz Chaim graduate is about 32 years old. 

During his yeshiva studies, Lederman was introduced through a mutual acquaintance to Debbie Ambrose, who had been raised in an Orthodox home. "She went to TAG -- Torah Academy for Girls -- and she was there from kindergarten to 12th grade, and then after she graduated she worked there as a secretary. All told she was there for 25 years as a student and in the office.

"After I was engaged, people said, 'Oh, Debbie Ambrose! She is unbelievable! She runs the place!' I asked her if it is true she runs the place and she said, 'well I try to give the rabbi a little say in things.'

"She still does that!"

Recently, Rebbitzin Lederman was hired to work in the office of the new Torah High Schools started this year by two recent graduates from the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva. She now works out of offices at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, where the girl's high school is housed. The boys high school is located at Young Israel Synagogue.

After their marriage in New York, the Ledermans began raising a family. Their first child, Dovid, was born in 1987; their second child, Rivka, in 1988. In 1990, a third child was born. His name was Shlomo Moshe.

 * * *

Shlomo Moshe Lederman "died in 1991 when he was three months old of SIDS -- sudden infant death syndrome," Lederman recalled softly. "It was a Shabbos afternoon. I remember it was a really cold day in February and I came home from shul and everyone had lunch and he was right there, in fact right in the room, because we lived in such a small apartment and we had three kids. His crib was in the living room. My wife looked in on him and he was fine, and she went to take a nap after lunch to be ready for him when he woke up.

"I walked off and ten minutes later -- and just in that ten minutes--his top half was white and his bottom half was blue," he recalled. "When somebody's circulation stops, the blood settles. So instead of being the general pink color, depending on what position you are in, the top part is white and the bottom part blue. I called the ambulance right away ... and they rushed him to the hospital and they worked on him for a long time, 45 minutes. Usually after 20 minutes they will 'call it,' but they worked on him more and more, and then they called it."

When Lederman came back from the hospital to tell his wife what she already had feared, "she said to me, 'I know that this sometimes breaks apart a marriage, and for others, it brings people together. Let this bring us closer together!' That was very powerful and it definitely brought us closer together," the rabbi reflected.

Lederman recalled that two policemen came to his door about an hour before the funeral, one sympathetic, the other hard-nosed, to investigate the boy's death -- as they do any time that a death occurs outside a hospital 

The latter policeman "asked all these really rough questions" but after the mandatory interview, "the hard-nose guy turns around and says to me 'Mr. Lederman, I want you to know when I was a kid, my brother died of SIDS; I know that this just rips your heart apart. Let me give you my card and if you have any problems, give me a call. ' A tough, hard-nosed New York cop and then he sort of melted."

The seven-day mourning period known as the shiva was an important learning experience for him, Lederman said.

"People would come and you could tell if someone was really sad," he said. "And I found out it didn't make a difference what people said, but if you saw or felt that people really were sad about it, that was comforting to you. I realized that there is no one right thing to say; it is just the emotion."

He admitted that prior to experiencing his child's death, "when I heard someone was sitting shiva, I used to always go when I knew it would be really crowded. I would get there a minute before the minyan started and then leave after the minyan because I didn't know what to say. Now having gone through this myself, my attitude is different: it is not what you say, it is the feeling. At the same time we felt tragedy and sadness, we felt a lot of love also. A lot of people came."

Sometimes people experiencing such a loss become angry at God, he noted. Other people find it drawing them closer to the Divine. "I never felt angry at God. I don't know if it was because of my religious training but whatever it was, I never felt that way. But I meet people who do feel that anger, and I could never, ever say anything. It is so personal, so traumatic: I could never fault anyone who reacts that way."

Something told to him during the shiva by Rabbi Leibowitz, the head of the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva, was of great comfort, Lederman recalled."One time, he started telling me that when you come down to this earth, everyone has a job, a mission in life, that they have got to do -- every soul. And if you don't finish the job, you have to come back until you get it right. I guess this is called 'reincarnation,' only the Torah view of reincarnation is that it is not a good thing; it is a non-desirable thing because you would rather get it right the first time.

"He said if you have someone who came so close, almost got it, then they only have to come down for a very short amount of time. " Shlomo Moshe was only a baby when he died; what more could he have done to complete his task? "The kedushah, the holiness, the devotion to Torah that he absorbed just being in our house; that was all his soul needed," Leibowitz told the Ledermans. "Just a little bit more of that." The rosh yeshiva told the Ledermans that "we did the job to perfection. He (Shlomo Moshe) was finished. It was time to go back to a good life."

Lederman told of hearing about a venerated rabbi who would get up from his chair and stand in honor of any child with Down's Syndrome who came into the room. "He said that child had to have been the reincarnation of a tzaddik , someone who had reached most of his perfection but just needed a lit bit more. So he would stand up in respect."

In many ways, the death of Shlomo Moshe was formative for him, Lederman said. "I know if I go to people who are going through a tragedy, I feel much more able to relate to them and help them. " The rabbi said he welcomes serving as a resource for any parent, Jewish or non-Jewish, whose infant has suddenly perished. "To lose a kid, there is almost a brotherhood of parents who lose a child," Lederman said. "There is a connection that goes beyond anything."

Having studied both mathematics and religion, Lederman had no qualms about bringing three more children into the world. "I knew from speaking to doctors and researchers that statistically having a SIDS child does not make you more prone to having another one. My chance of having another SIDS child is the same as anyone having a SIDS child for the first time, which is tiny. It was not like we had a genetic disposition to it or anything."

In 1992, a year after the Ledermans moved to San Diego, their son Yaakov Shlomo was born. "The second name is Shlomo, which was the name of the baby who died," the father said. "There is a tradition of that when this kind of thing happens: It is supposed to be a merit for a long life for this new baby. He was born 9/2/92, an easy date to remember."

Next came Yechiel Michal. "He was born 5/6/96, the day before Lag B'Omer, and I always figured he was born between two big holidays --Lag B'Omer and Cinco de Mayo. And then we had a girl a year ago-- my daughter Rivka was really happy: she finally got a sister. Her name is Sarah Baila. " 

Sarah was born shortly after midnight on June 14, 1998. Had she been born a day before it would have been 6/13 -- the number of commandments given in the Torah. But 6/14 also was good as far as Lederman was concerned. As the birth came after midnight, "it was better for my wife. She got to stay an extra day in the hospital. Under the rules the cutoff is midnight, and believe me when you have five kids, you need the rest!"

 * * *

After ordination in 1991 at the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva, Lederman was encouraged to help spread Torah knowledge somewhere outside of New York. He applied for teaching jobs in a variety of cities, but said he was particularly attracted to San Diego because although there was much work to be done, this city already had a good Orthodox infrastructure. 

He taught Torah and Talmud full-time for two years at San Diego Hebrew Day School (now called Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School), and then in 1993 with the encouragement of the headmaster, Rabbi Simcha Weiser, and the former rabbi at Beth Jacob Congregation, Rabbi Eliezer Langer, Lederman started the San Diego Torah Center. He was employed part-time as a teacher and part-time as head of the Torah Center, which he described as "an outreach program." "It wasn't a synagogue," he said. "It was adult education. We had classes. We had Shabbatons. It was just an opportunity for people to learn. A lot of people want to learn but feel they don't have the opportunity. I remember one woman who described Judaism as an 'inaccessible religion.' It was so sad she felt that way. She came to the class and she loved it: finally she was able to get what she wanted. Our thing was to provide more opportunities for people." One path of outreach was to Jewish singles. Lederman began

COMING HOME--Rabbi Baruch Lederman kisses the mezuzah as he enters his home in the Carmel Mountain Ranch area. His living  room has served as the temporary sanctuary of Congregation Kehillas Torah.

a Sunday morning program of Torah study, focusing on theTorah portion of the week. "We read the entire portion in English andthen I explain it," Lederman said. "There is a lot of material so there is no time for me to be a windbag. Sometimes I share the philosophy of it, or the beauty, but the clock is ticking. We only go for 90 minutes. What is nice about it, if you come every week for a year you end up doing the entire Torah. That is a real cool thing!"

He does not object to married people attending the course; in fact, he said mixing singles and married together takes pressure off the occasion, easing the way for singles to become acquainted.

San Diego Torah Center maintains offices on University Avenue in the San Diego State College area, but this may change in the future, depending on whether Lederman merges the center with Kehillas Torah or if they become independent entities. This has not yet been decided.

Kehillas Torah was formed less than two years ago. Ever mindful of numbers, Lederman had noted that the Jewish population was concentrating in the northern parts of the City of San Diego. 

He asked the United Jewish Federation to print out the totals of its members by Zip Codes. One of the Zip Codes areas with the largest number of Jews was 92128--the Carmel Mountain Ranch area. With a real estate agent, Lederman patrolled the neighborhood until he found the right house -- a four bedroom home on a corner with a long curb for parking. He knew if synagogue members drove their cars to meetings at his house, neighbors would not be inconvenienced. 

After purchasing the home, he began walking to places in the neighborhood. His kippah often attracted the attention of other Jews, whom he told about his new shul. He met future members of his congregation "at the library, at the store, a fellow in the park."

This year, Kehillas Torah held its second High Holy Day services, attracting 90 people as it did the year before. Attendance at Shabbat services is on the increase. Once a month the congregation rents a place for Shabbat services; on other Shabbats, members daven with the rabbi in front of a portable Ark set up in his living room. 

With 20-30 people regularly attending Shabbat services, Lederman figures it is time to take the plunge: to sign a lease for a storefront and to build the congregation in earnest.

"Our prayer service is an outreach thing," he said. "It is designed to teach the people the prayers. The average experience in a synagogue is 'turn to page 12, turn to page 97, stand up, sit down,' and there is some cantor, cantoring away, and it may as well be Greek. We chant everything in Hebrew but we explain everything in English. What the prayer means. What is its connection. Why is it in this sequence. We even allow persons to ask questions. So it is an educational experience."

"A lot of people who come have never been to a service. Plus there are people who had been going who say, 'rabbi, I have been saying this prayer but I never knew what it meant. I never knew until you explained it to me.' It becomes much more meaningful to them. 

"I always say to people: 'I don't inspire anybody. I just let you understand what is there, and once you do, you get inspired yourself.'" A smile tugs at the corner of Lederman's mouth. "I always tell people 'My job is just to teach. That is all. I just teach Torah. 'If you get inspired, it's your fault!'"