“My father was a cantor at a Conservative synagogue—that’s how we grew up. Reform, conservative, wherever my father worked, that was our level of observance. My mother was a concert pianist. I was surrounded by music. I got a guitar for my bar mitzvah and ten free lessons, and I put them to good use.
At the University of Illinois, a friend of mine gave me a brochure for the ‘Live and Learn Center for Judaism.’ It was in Chabad of Milwaukee. So I took a train over there. I said to Rabbi Shmotkin, ‘The Conservatives say I can drive to synagogue on Shabbat, that I don’t need to keep kosher—I’m a little mixed up.’ And he said, ‘Just study Torah, you’ll be fine.’ It was Mrs. Shmotkin’s chocolate cake that did it for me, actually. I said to myself, if the chocolate cake is this good in Milwaukee—imagine it in Brooklyn.
I went to New York for a farbrengen in 1974, and the Rebbe said L’chaim to me, and that’s when I decided: I’m going to sign up for yeshiva. I ended up staying for six years. And was the chocolate cake better in Brooklyn? No. Hers was better. You can’t beat homemade.
Rabbi Langer from Berkeley asked, “Why don’t you come help out here?” When we got married, the Rebbe said, I think you should stay in a neighborhood like Crown Heights for the first year. After a year, we asked again and he said, ‘If you feel capable, you can consider it.’
That was 1981. Berkeley was pretty wild. I missed the really wild times—the bombs, the takeovers. But it was still pretty wild when my wife and I got there. For Jewish holiday parties, I wanted a band, so I got my kids to play with me. That’s how the ‘Ferris Wheels’ started. Eventually they got married, moved away, and so I got some other people. I surround myself with great instrumentalists and they make me sound good.
People ask—what’s your secret to connecting with people? It’s just being human. Just showing people kindness, that you care. They’re not going to respond to a theological argument. They’re going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, I sprayed deodorant into my eye by accident, and the rabbi got someone to read the whole Haggadah with me.’ That’s a true story.”
-Rabbi Yehuda Ferris, Berkeley, California
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