Burbank Rabbi heads to YouTube to spread message

Earlier this week, local Jewish residents celebrated the start of the year 5,776 — the beginning of a series of ceremonies and remembrances known as the High Holidays.

“Which means you got to stop writing 5,775 on your checks,” Rabbi John Carrier, the spiritual leader at Burbank Temple Emanu El, said in a video posted earlier this month to YouTube.

Titled “So Many Holidays! Your Guide to the Jewish Holy Days This Fall,” it’s the first in a series of video blogs Carrier has uploaded to the video sharing site and goes through a six-minute rundown of the month of Jewish holy days that began Sunday evening with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and ends Oct. 6 with a celebration of the Torah, the Jews’ holy scripture.

While Carrier has turned to social media to engage a broader audience than he sees on a typical Sabbath, the goal is to make a connection and to bring people into an actual service. It’s a goal that aligns with the physical and communal activities of the holy month, even though Carrier said starting the video series now was “almost inconvenient.”

Tuesday evening marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days of the year for Jews, and the end of a 10-day period of atonement, including spiritual practices and physical restrictions. It’s a roughly 25-hour period of fasting, rest and repentance that Rabbi Mark Sobel of Temple Beth Emet in Burbank likened to a hockey player’s two-minute stint in the penalty box.

Yom Kippur, Carrier said, is the “Sabbath of Sabbaths,” involving not only fasting for adults who are healthy enough, but restrictions against wearing leather shoes, bathing or washing, wearing cologne and “marital relations.”

“Those are the things considered creature comforts,” he said. “We’re dispensing with creature comforts to focus on making amends.”

Sobel said not only do individuals make amends with God and each other, he said the evening service, known as Kol Nidre, also includes prayers of forgiveness for the whole community.

It’s also like Christmas or Easter is for Christians in terms of attendance at services, according to both rabbis. Sobel’s congregation will hold services in St. Jude’s Anglican Church, located at 111 S. 6th St., to accommodate a larger crowd of roughly 400 people.

Carrier, whose synagogue is at 1302 N. Glenoaks Blvd., said he typically sees 300 people at High Holy Day services, compared to 15 to 20 on the average Saturday. Chabad of Burbank, 2415 W. Magnolia Blvd., will also conduct services on Tuesday evening and throughout the day Wednesday.

To accommodate the faithful, Burbank City Council rescheduled its normal Tuesday night meeting to Thursday evening, with the public session slated to begin at 6 p.m.

“Yom Kippur is the day that Sandy Koufax declined to pitch during in the World Series,” City Manager Mark Scott said in an email this week. “I suggested we move it because of several requests by the public, and I knew one council member would not attend. Seemed like a respectful thing to do.”

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimated 3% of the nearly 13 million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area are Jewish, according to a 2014 study based on telephone interviews with more than 35,000 people in 50 states.

Carrier said his goal on YouTube isn’t to create a single viral video, though his comedic, somewhat irreverent methods were informed by research into successful YouTubers who reach millions. Rather he hopes a steady stream of videos will engage young and perhaps lapsed members of the faith and get them to keep watching.

It’s also a way to teach Torah daily, he said, because “it’s always on,” even when he’s sleeping. His congregation, which was on the brink of closure a few years ago, has given him creative license, he said, so he’s not just posting dry sermons, but injecting his personality and sense of humor.

“If we do religion in a boring way, we teach people that religion is boring ... that God is boring,” he said. “I don’t think God is.”

Just as bands sell albums with the goal of getting fans to attend concerts, Carrier said “the real goal is to get them to the live show ... to experience the rest of our community.”