CARL HOWARD SAYRES
agr kue hrjt gnatu jur hbta, u unuenn wv sucf lurc kusd
Then a spirit carried me away, and behind me I heard a great roaring sound:“ Blessed is the Presence of GOD, in its place.” ~ Ezekiel 3:12
I have followed many paths in my life— physics, davening, music composition, software architecture, Jewish community, piano, nusah. Each has an independent story. But when I look back at them together, the story that emerges is a spiritual journey.
I grew up in Brooklyn at the East Midwood Jewish Center. As a child, that Jewish community was the center of my world. I especially loved davening and singing Jewish music, and I was on the bima leading parts of the Shabbat service even before my bar mitzvah.
My father was a physicist and mother a pediatrician. As much as our home was filled with Judaism, it was also filled with science. Carl Sagan’ s Cosmos was formative, instilling in me a never-ending fascination with the universe. And there was always music in our home— piano, opera, orchestral, Broadway.
I was heading down parallel paths— a life filled with Judaism, a life filled with music, and a life of scientific curiosity. Through high school and college, I became ever involved with the Jewish community, taking leadership roles in USY and Brandeis Hillel, and also becoming very observant. I was building a professional career in the sciences, working throughout college and graduate school at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ, researching electric currents induced on trans-oceanic communications cables by the Earth’ s rotation under the Ionosphere. And soon after, I founded my first software company, building Java development tools.
These parallel paths would collide. I was writing music for the synagogue, studying piano and nusah, writing software and building companies, all while trying to lead a traditional observant Jewish life and find a theology that could bridge all of these endeavors. And my many roles in the Jewish community— board member, cantorial soloist, teacher, choir director— left me yearning to go to seminary. Living in Seattle made that seem impossible.
I was teaching at Limmud Toronto the weekend of the tragedy in Pittsburgh. They asked me to sing El Malei Rachamim at a memorial service. Standing on that bima about to sing, listening to eloquent rabbis, I had an overwhelming feeling that I needed to find a way to the seminary. And that prayer was answered fifteen minutes later when Rabbi Hubberman left a flyer about AJR offering distance programs.
The past six years have been a transformative experience, touching every aspect of my life— my career, relationships, home, and family. I’ m so grateful for the life I am building with my partner, Turia. And I am thrilled to be currently serving as the Spiritual leader of Congregation Agudas Israel in Newburgh, NY. AJR has taught me to draw on all of my interests and strengths, and channel those in service of the Jewish community.
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