Temple Aliyah rabbi meets the pope

SPIRITUAL LEADERS- Rabbi Stewart Vogel of Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills meets Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Shaking hands with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in January was very moving for Rabbi Stewart Vogel, spiritual leader of Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills.

Vogel was in Rome with an interfaith group of Catholic, Muslim, Protestant and Jewish religious leaders from Southern California. The 27 clergy members on the weeklong trip met with Vatican officials before continuing on to Israel.

Vogel was seated in the front row of a huge auditorium of about 10,000 people waiting for the pope's appearance. Upon meeting the pope, Vogel presented him with a book written by a Temple Aliyah congregant.

"The pope was very gracious and kind," Vogel said. "It was a powerful experience."

The meeting was a reflection of the trip's goal to build upon and improve interfaith relations among participating clergy, something Vogel considers essential.

"You need to have a relationship so that you can foster a better understanding of community needs and how to help each other," he said.

Vogel's temple is next to St. Bernardine of Siena Catholic Church and School on Valley Circle Drive. Vogel has spoken at the church, and St. Bernardine's Father Robert McNamara speaks at the temple. Children from Aliyah have toured the church to learn about Catholicism, and children from St. Bernardine's have attended the synagogue's Passover Seder.

Community is a word that Vogel lives by within his congregation of 900 families and beyond. His focus is to encourage people to care about one another. Having worked with a variety of local Jewish institutions, Vogel sees the greater Los Angeles Jewish community as one large group.

"Temple Aliyah's philosophy is one of partnership, and that means you share the journey," Vogel said.

That outlook earned him the "Rabbi of the Year" award in 2000 from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and the Mickey Weiss Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, now known as American Jewish University, in 2005.

Not bad for someone who didn't know he wanted to be a rabbi until he was almost done with college.

"If you were to ask my high school friends if I'd become a rabbi, they wouldn't believe it," Vogel said. In fact, upon hearing that Vogel wanted to become a rabbi, his grandmother said, "What kind of business is that for a Jewish boy?"

After his first visit to Israel as a student on a Los Angeles Hebrew High School program, Vogel became observant.

"There's a reason why so many people are influenced by visiting Israel. It translates the intellectual into the spiritual, incorporating everything you've learned," Vogel said. "It's one of those experiences where you wake up and go, 'I'm Jewish,' and it means something."

While majoring in business at Cal State Northridge, Vogel spent his junior year in Israel at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem then changed his major to Jewish studies. Soon after he began teaching at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.

Vogel earned teaching credentials from the University of Judaism and a master's degree in Jewish education and ordination in 1988 from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, then did a rabbinic internship at Temple Israel, a conservative temple in White Plains, N.Y. When his wife, Rodi, became pregnant with their first child, the couple decided to return to California to be near family. The Vogels have four children- Talya, 19; Elie, 18; Ari, 14; and Avi, 12.

Vogel spent five years as an assistant rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom before becoming the rabbi of Temple Aliyah in 1993.

Vogel serves as president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, on the Rabbinical Assembly's executive committee and on the West Hills Hospital board of trustees. He is a former commission chair of the Conservative Rabbis in North America, served as president of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Pacific Southwest region and helped create the West Valley Rabbinic Task Force.

He is also the co-author, with syndicated radio psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger, of the national best seller "The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life."

Vogel believes the biggest challenge confronting the Jewish people is how to make Judaism relevant to the unaffiliated. Today there is competition for people's hearts and minds, Vogel says, so synagogues must help people find a connection, be it spiritual, social or intellectual.

"You can't make people come to Judaism out of guilt or obligation," Vogel said. "We work hard to make a huge synagogue seem small and to make people feel part of it."