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People travel from all over Northern New Jersey to spend Shabbat with us: It's because of the ruach (the spirit) that our rabbi, Shammai Engelmayer, facilitates. He is down-to-earth and accessible, and actually believes that other people know more about certain subjects than he does.

And he takes the time to make things understandable.

Take the Torah service on Shabbat mornings. For most people, and especially those not fluent in Hebrew, this part of the morning service has gone from being one of the most boring parts to arguably the most popular.

Not only does our rabbi prepare study questions to be discussed during the reading, he hands them out a week in advance to give us all a chance to think about them and come up with our own answers. Then he encourages us to share our thoughts with the rest of the congregation. For this week's questions, click here.

Most important, people relate to Rabbi Engelmayer because he relates to them. But do not take our word for it. Spend a Shabbat with us and judge for yourself.

Rabbi Engelmayer wears several hats. He is our rabbi; he writes an award-winning column for the local Jewish weekly newspaper The Jewish Standard, in which he discusses current issues through the prism of Jewish law (click on the red button next to his photograph above to read his latest column); he is a popular adult Jewish education teacher in northern New Jersey (he is the longest serving instructor in the UJA NNJ-sponsored Hebrew University's Florence Melton Adult Mini-School program); and he is the editor of Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought.

A product of the yeshivah world and ordained in 1967, Shammai Engelmayer pursued an award-winning career in journalism before assuming the pulpit. He is the author of eight books, most on secular topics, and is working on two more at the moment. He has three children and 10 grandchildren. Shammai's wife and our rabbanit, the journalist Marilyn Henry, passed away on March 1, 2011. Shammai and his two dogs, Scoop Henry and Nellie Bly, live in Teaneck, New Jersey.

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