BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL HOBBS AND KAREN BOSSICK

Rockin’ Rabbi Robbi is leading her flock in a retelling of Purim. But, it’s unlikely they’ve ever heard it quite this way.

The new rabbi-cantor of the Wood River Jewish Community has set the story about a Jewish queen who saves her people to Beatles’ tunes.

Rabbi Robbi leads the children of the Wood River Jewish Community in a vigorous singalong. PHOTO: Karen Bossick

When King Ahsuerus drives off his first wife, he advertises for a new wife via “Help! I need somebody!” His trustworthy man Mordecai dreams of a day without villains like Haman who are bent on wiping out the Jews to John Lennon’s “Imagine there’s no Haman….”

And Queen Esther tries to summon up the courage to speak out for her people: “What would you do if I said the wrong thing? Would you tell me to vacate the throne?” in a reworded “A Little Help from My Friends.”

Sherwin, who goes by the nickname R3, promises the community will see more of these groovy spiels drawing on everything from “Star Wars” to “Hamilton” for inspiration. And, chances are, she’ll even play her guitar behind her back if it’ll have an impact.

“I like to try to get people to hear things through different ears, to look at things through different eyes,” said Sherwin, who even broke out a Beatles wig for the occasion. “As they say about the Torah: ‘Turn it and turn it again for everything that is in it.’ My way of honoring the Torah is to think outside the box and find a new way of interpreting Jewish prayer, liturgy and text.”

Rabbi Robbi Sherwin has studied with both the Renewal and Conservative movements, serving a student pulpit at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. PHOTO: Michael Hobbs

Rockin’ Rabbi Robbi Sherwin comes to the Wood River Valley from congregations in Austin, Texas, and Crested Butte, Colo., where she skis to meet skiers for worship, using a laminated prayer book in case it starts snowing.

In summer she takes the Torah—the law of God as revealed to Moses—on her back to services in mountain meadows.

“We’ll blow the shofar (a ram’s horn) and the elk and cows answer us,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to be in God’s sanctuary. I like to meet people where they’re at—and sometimes people don’t want to walk into a building. We get people from all over the world, and I’m still in touch with people from places like New Zealand.”

Sherwin’s depth of knowledge and love of music are among the qualities that attracted her to members of the Wood River Jewish Community, said the congregation’s president Marshall Meyer.

Rabbi Robbi Sherwin, who has a hobby of visiting college campuses, has three adult children and one granddaughter in Texas.

“She came to this later than most but she has acquired an extraordinary knowledge of Judaism,” he said. And she has an interesting combination of cultivating Jewish scholarship with Jewish culture, given the way she shapes Jewish culture with her Jewish folk rock band Sabala.”

Sherwin’s immersion into the Judaic religion and culture did not come easy. Though her parents came from Orthodox families in Cleveland and New York, her father was an Air Force navigator during the Vietnam War who went on to teach astronauts about what happens to their bodies in space.

As a result, her family moved around a lot. And, often, she and her three siblings were the only Jewish kids in their schools in small towns like Waco, Texas, where she was born.

Her classmates ran their fingers through her hair looking for horns and studied her skirt for a tail, telling her she was going to hell because the Jews had killed Jesus. She sang Christmas songs along with her classmates but she hummed every time they sang the name Jesus.

Rabbi Robbi has a unique gift of giving her entire attention to the person she’s talking with, whether adult or child. PHOTO: Karen Bossick

Sherwin found her sense of belonging when her parents sent her to Camp Young Judaea summer camp in California.

There she was infused with the Jewish drive to excel.

“No matter what people have tried to do to us through the ages, they couldn’t take our education away. That’s why, after family, getting a good education is so important to us,” she said. “We understand we’re a minority culture in a majority culture. And it’s our responsibility to be role models. Everything I do reflects on my heritage. I don’t cheat on test. I don’t use my middle finger when I’m driving. I make sure I give to charity.”

At camp Sherwin gained a deep abiding love for music. She ended up majoring in musical theater and playwriting, starring in musicals like “West Side Story” and “Carousel.” And then she took her love of music and her Judaic heritage one step further, becoming a cantor—an ordained Jewish clergy, like a rabbi but with a focus on Jewish music and liturgy.

“I once entered a radio talent contest in which I said that my superpower is that I can sing harmonies to anything. They had me sing harmony to ‘In a Gadda da Vida,’ which barely has a melody,” she recounted

At 40, Sherwin teamed up with 20- and 18-year-old musicians she met at summer camp to form a Jewish folk-rock band named Sababa. It has come to be regarded as the Jewish Crosby, Stills and Nash. (See www.sababamusic.com)/

Sherwin writes much of the music they play and record. And they’ve sang all over the world at camps,  festivals, weddings, bar mitzvahs and even interfaith conferences.

“Churches book us because they learn about their roots through our music,” she said. “We’re all clergy so we teach wherever we go.”

Remembering the misunderstandings she endured as a child, Sherwin welcomes interfaith dialogues today. And she champions the underdog—she was a proponent of LBGT 25 years ago when it was much more controversial.

“I believe you have to listen and learn from one another,” she said. “And I believe in Big Tent Judaism.  Flaps open on all sides Everyone is welcome to come into the corner, the middle—or even stay outside. No matter where they are, I’m going to meet them.”

Sherwin hopes to move here full time when her husband Mark Jordan, who is an environmental lawyer specializing in water conservation, as well as a fly-fisherman and Hemingway aficionado, retires.

“I’m not retiring, though. But I do want to be in the mountains. And this community—it feels right. It’s bigger than Crested Butte, more affordable than Colorado. And the people here, the community is so welcoming,” she said.

One thing she will miss is her Monday noon games of Mahjong in Austin. Sherwin wrote a thesis on the tile-based game, depicting it as a cultural icon of Judaism and even finding references to it in Jewish scripture. She’s served as a scholar-in-residence during a Women’s Mahjong Weekend, conducting Shabbat services between games.

“I figure we’ve got to fight Alzheimer’s any way we can. And Mahjong is a brilliant game. My grandmother used to play it, using it to raise money for Hadassah Medical Center, which is one of the top research hospitals in the world.

Sherwin was invited by the Jerusalem hospital to take part in a study examining the power of song with patients. Wearing boots and jeans, her guitar in hand, she sang to victims of terrorist attacks, marveling at how soldiers who had suffered brain injuries responded. She even sang in Arabic and Hebrew to a Palestinian women who had been injured in altercation

“It was immensely powerful to be coupled with people saving lives every day,” she said.

Sherwin will become president of the 300-women strong Women’s Cantors’ Network in June. A professional baker, Robbi’s Cheesecake won first place in a county wide contest.

A college football fanatic, she has collected pictures of herself at 150 colleges around the world, starting with the University of Wyoming and adding, most recently, Boise State University.

Building community is among her chief goals. And she’ll start with the Passover Seder she leads tonight at the American Legion Hall in Ketchum. The seder is the most celebrated of Jewish holidays.

“We’re the chosen people and we were chosen to repair the world. Our commandment from God is to help create a better world—and that means for everyone, not just the Jewish,” she said. “We take that seriously and that’s why you’ll find Jewish in medicine and science, advocating for social justice.”