Rabbi Paul F. Cohen, D.Min., D.D. is originally from Chicago. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College where he studied biology and comparative religion. Upon graduation, he moved to Minneapolis where he worked for two years in a short-term residential treatment program for delinquent adolescents.
Rabbi Cohen received his Masters of Arts and rabbinic ordination and the honorary degree, Doctor of Divinity, celebrating 25 years in the rabbinate in March 2015, from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, he served as the student rabbi for the United Hebrew Congregation in Ft. Smith, Arkansas and the auxiliary chaplain at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Rabbi Cohen's rabbinical thesis was titled "Modes of Divine Communication: Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Views" which focused on some of the less conventional ways rabbis expect to send and receive communication vis a vis heaven. Rabbi Cohen was awarded a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Bangor Theological Seminary in May 2001. His dissertation is entitled "Digging Our Parent's Wells" and deals with congregational renewal.
While in Cincinnati, Rabbi Cohen met his wife, Cathy, and together they moved to Norfolk, Virginia where he served as the assistant and then associate rabbi of Ohef Sholom Temple. Active on many community boards of directors, Rabbi Cohen was the founding president of the South Hampton Roads Campaign for the Homeless. Immediately prior to serving Temple Jeremiah, Rabbi Paul Cohen was the spiritual leader of Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland, Maine and served on the boards of the Jewish Federation, Cedars Nursing Home, the Equity Institute and the Cancer Community Center. He was the president of the Greater Portland Interfaith Council, a founding member of the Religious Coalition Against Discrimination and the Maine Interfaith Coalition for Reproductive Choices and sat on its executive board. Politically and communally active, Rabbi Cohen has been asked on several occasions to offer testimony before state legislative committees.
Rabbi Cohen served as chair of the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of Olin-Sang Ruby Union Institute, he is President of the Chicago Association of Reform Rabbis and is a past board member of the Interfaith Housing Center of the North Shore (now called Open Communities), was a founding board member of Family Promise of Chicago North Shore, served as President of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and is a member of the Winnetka Interfaith Council, served on the Ethics Committee of the North Shore Senior Center. He is a graduate of the Kellogg Management Education for Jewish Leaders program, sits on the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation Board of Directors and the Jewish Center for Addiction Advisory Board and serves on the Clergy Advisory Board for the Public Defender of Cook County. He is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
Beloved Friends, Today we will enter the first Shabbat of Elul. The High Holy Days are fast approaching, and we are planning for beautiful, meaningful, and enriching worship experiences. Worship will be offered in person in the Schreibman Sanctuary as well as in a large tent in our south
Beloved Friends, The year is 1990 and I am preparing for our Shabbat Worship at my first pulpit in Norfolk, VA. The phone rings in the office as I happen to be gathering a few papers for the service. I answer the phone and the woman on the line
Beloved Friends, This week we begin reading from the fifth and final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy. The opening words are “אלה דברים” “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel…” We would expect that Moses’ words would immediately follow. Instead, we get a detailed account of
Beloved Friends, This week’s Torah portion is called Chukat from the Book of Numbers. Within its chapters, we read of Miriam’s death in the wilderness. Though Moses, Aaron, and the children of Israel are bereft and mourn her passing, they quickly revert to their rebellious, stiff-necked, and selfish selves.
Beloved Friends, This week we conclude our reading of the book of Leviticus for 5783 with the two portions, Behar and Bechukotai. The double portion seems right to me as Cathy and I just found out that we are going to be grandparents of twins! Jacob, our eldest son,
Beloved Friends, The news from Israel is terrifying and heartbreaking. From the protests and violence in Jerusalem to the hundreds of rockets unleashed against the entire country, the citizens of Israel are being terrorized, lives have been lost and many more have been injured. The escalation is frightening. I
Beloved Friends, I write to you as the jury in Minneapolis voted to find Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts for the killing of George Floyd. I bring this forward as an affirmation of the essential teaching of the book of Leviticus from which we are reading now: “That
Beloved Friends, I cannot help but reach out to all of you in the midst of the horrific violence, physical and verbal, that has been unleashed and the attack on the core of our democracy. Even still, I am heartened by the story of Moses as it unfolds in
Beloved Friends, More than anything, we yearn to be physically present as a community. The health and the safety of all remains our utmost concern. I have been meeting regularly with our professional and volunteer leadership assessing the status of the ever changing and evolving guidelines from local, state and
Beloved Friends, I, like you, am horrified by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis. We have all been watching with horror as this killing sparked protests across the country that have turned violent warranting the call up of National Guard troops