On Sept. 25, 2023, last Yom Kippur, Rabbi Sarah Shulman strode to the pulpit at HEA, ready to deliver her High Holiday sermon, like she had many times before.

Rabbi Sarah Shulman
Rabbi Sarah Shulman

This sermon was different. It focused on second chances. It also unveiled a stunning admission to her congregants.

“I almost took my own life by jumping off a bridge at the age of 23,” Rabbi Shulman revealed.

Rabbi Shulman had been an elite triathlete and marathoner, winning the 2004 Hawaiian Ironman, regarded as one of the toughest and most prestigious of triathlons.

As the defending champion, Shulman returned to the Hawaiian Ironman in 2005.

“I was winning,” the rabbi told the IJN, “but I had a stress fracture.

“At that point I started to have a lot of pain, so I tried to race through it. Halfway through I was still in the lead, and the pain became excruciating. I made the difficult decision to drop out of the race.”

Osteoporosis, and the multiple stress fractures it caused, derailed Shulman’s competitive career. A deep depression followed. The high she was used to from competing could not be replaced, and somehow, in the midst of a self-proclaimed mental health crisis, thoughts of suicide crept in.

During her Yom Kippur sermon, Shulman recounted a moment in Marin County, Calif., that changed her life.

“As I stood on that bridge,” the rabbi said, “staring down to a dark fate, a woman happened to pass by with her dog on a walk. She said hello and shared a compassionate, simple smile.

“Something about her kind presence provided the outstretched hand I needed right then to look up and get off that narrow bridge and begin again.

“Thank G-d, and thanks to this angelic stranger, I got a second chance at life, at healing, at living through faith, family and wonder.”

Rabbi Shulman has certainly made the most of her second chance. She immersed herself into Judaic endeavors. She was ordained from American Jewish University. She founded Camp Ramah in Northern California, and got her first taste of Denver when she became the assistant director of Ramah of the Rockies.

The rabbi also became a hospital chaplain. Who better to help someone else pick up the pieces?

A few years ago, Shulman found herself wanting more of a leadership role in her career. She loved what the camp environment could do for young minds and bodies, but that wasn’t enough for her.

“I loved being a camp director and being a Ramah director for many people at the pinnacle of the movement,” Rabbi Shulman said.

“I think COVID was clarifying for me, like it was for so many people, and I realized I really hungered to be back in a leading atmosphere, serving a face-to-face community year round.

“While the summers at camp are magical and transformative, I was ready to support a community and continue to really build those in-person relationships.”

As it turned out, in July, 2022, HEA was in need of a rabbi to join Rabbi Salomon Gruenwald after the retirement of Rabbi Bruce Dollin. The congregation called, and it didn’t take long for Shulman, husband Nate and daughters Lielle, 8, and Meital, 3, to integrate into the HEA fabric.

The family lives only a few houses away from the HEA campus, and Meital is often seen hoisted on her mom’s shoulders on the walk to pre-school. Rabbi Shulman is a frequent presence at tot shabbat, wearing her familiar chef’s hat. The family golden retriever, Betty, is an honorary congregant.

“Whether I live three doors down or three miles away,” Rabbi Shulman said, “the work of the pulpit is a mediation on finding boundaries, but also having flexible boundaries in order to serve a community.

“People do stop by. They’ll bring green beans from their garden. They’ll notice Betty sitting near the window. It’s nice. Everyone knows where I live.”

As for Lielle and Meital, the rabbi said of HEA, “this a home away from home for them.”

That said, the events of Oct. 7, 2023, might cause any parent to worry about their surroundings — especially if one’s place of work is a synagogue.

“I remember when my husband came home and asked me if, because we are so close to the synagogue, we should put protective film on our windows,” said Rabbi Shulman.

“That’s when I really knew that things changed a little bit. The volume has really turned up on the anti-Semitism that was already existing in the community. So, it’s been  an incredibly challenging time for the Jewish community.

“At the same time, I think it has brought deep connection, deep prayer, deep learning, you know, deep everything. There is a realization of why we need institutions like synagogues and others to come together.

“It’s also important not to be insular. One of the first programs I did after October 7 was reaching out to one of our Muslim allies who actually sent me a text on October 8 that included a lot of empathy. In early December we did a program with the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, joining the Muslim community and our HEA community, just because it’s easy to view others as others at this time.”

Rabbi Shulman still runs frequently, though not competitively. She draws parallels between running and her calling.

“Sometimes I feel like the work as a pulpit rabbi is a little bit of an Ironman,” she said, “because you have to have endurance, as we do a lot of funerals and hospital visits.

“You need spiritual endurance, emotional endurance, and it does take some physical endurance. There’s no winning, but it’s like pacing yourself and being in touch with your own sense of what you need to be able to support others and to do all that juggling.

“On one day I had two baby namings with a funeral in between, and that is kind of a triathlon of its own kind in spiritual work.”

As the world turns, with the July 31 departure of Rabbi Gruenwald from HEA, Shulman is now the lone rabbi there. The venerable synagogue has followed the trend of other shuls around the country, relying on fewer rabbis on staff.

“This is true in a lot of places,” said the rabbi. “As expenses have gone up and membership has gone down in a lot of communities, either the number of clergy or staff has decreased. That is definitely a trend.

“At the same time, I would say every congregation is different. I hope that we will continue to grow in our membership and that we will continue to grow our staff. If that means in a couple years we bring on an assistant rabbi or a rabbi educator, the congregation would really be open to that.

“We’re still a 700-family congregation, so we’re not a small shul. It’s a big job but for the moment, this is where we’re going right now.”

Needless to say, Rabbi Shulman now has a lot more on her plate, and while she rattles all of her congregational functions at warp speed, she is not daunted by volume of work.

“I’m thrilled to continue to serve HEA, a community I’ve really come to love over the last couple years,” she said.

“And yes, on the one hand my job has gotten bigger with more Bar Mitzvah students, more baby namings and more funerals and more opportunities to teach and to grow the congregation.

“On the other hand, my leadership style is one of inviting also other people to step up in leadership and share their Torah, and for volunteers to step up and help shape our congregation.

“For example, this last Shabbat, I asked Cantor Saul Rosenthal, one of our members and the Cantor emeritus at Rodef Shalom, to give a guest sermon at our traditional service while I was officiating a Bar Mitzvah. It was such a wonderful opportunity for Saul to share some Torah and the community loved it.

“So, I’m not afraid to ask for help. This is a big job and it’s an honor to be the rabbi of HEA. I’m kind of doing a needs assessment in terms of what are the areas in which we’re going to continue to do things the way we’ve been doing them, and where there is an opportunity for change.

“Transition and change are never easy, and obviously there’s a lot of sense of loss and there’s this sense of hope and there’s everything in between. I’m really here to hold the community moving forward.”

Says the rabbi: “Our careers are journeys, just like all our lives are journeys.”

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