(Courtesy of Rabbi Michael Perice)
2007: Michael Perice gets rear-ended in a car accident that leads to neck, shoulder and back injuries. A doctor prescribes him Vicodin to deal with the pain. He becomes addicted. Opioids go on to dominate his life, as he later tells The Philadelphia Inquirer.
April 2011: Perice flushes a bag of heroin down the toilet, calls his parents, admits he needs help and begins outpatient addiction treatment.
2012: A sober Perice decides to become a rabbi after working for his family’s funeral home, Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks in Philadelphia, and listening to a woman whose brother had just died tell stories about him.
2013: The aspiring rabbi spends a year in Israel.
2014: The rabbinical student enrolls in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote.
June 2020: Perice is ordained by the RRC.
July 1, 2020: The new rabbi becomes the spiritual leader at Temple Sinai in Cinnaminson, New Jersey.
August 2020: Perice marries his wife, Rachael.
June 2021: The rabbi tells his story to “more than 80 members” on a Zoom call, according to an Inquirer article.
September 2023: Perice is leading High Holiday services, overseeing all of Temple Sinai’s programs and planning a capital campaign to ensure the synagogue’s future.
“I found my purpose,” he said. “Had I not struggled in that way, I probably would have taken a different path.”
Perice’s 2021 Zoom call led to the Inquirer article. Once it ran, he started doing speaking engagements at synagogues, medical schools and other locations.
He still gets calls and emails to take his story on tour. But he’ll maybe do one a month. And that’s fine. Perice is happy.
“It almost exists more in my memory than it being so visceral as it once was. Since that time, so much good has happened,” he said of his addiction. “I don’t think I did anything special. I think if anybody is given the right inspiration, resources and help, they have unlimited potential.”
When Perice interacts with his 120 or so congregants, he just tries to listen. And then he tries to help.
“He was a breath of fresh air. He’s energetic. He came in wanting to learn who we are,” said Steve Hochman, a Temple Sinai member since the early 1990s. “When you see somebody is happy with what they are doing, it lights you up a little.”
Now, Perice’s challenges are the challenges of modern synagogue life. The “people who do the most” in the shul are over 60, according to Hochman. There are members in their 70s and 80s on synagogue boards, doing fundraising and planning events.
To survive for another generation, the Conservative synagogue will need new blood. Perice said younger members have joined during his rabbinate. But they are offset by older congregants who have died or moved away.
“As a young rabbi, I get really inspired with my congregants. I also sometimes struggle with the challenges,” Perice said. “Nothing is perfect.”
Temple Sinai does have enough young families to continue with its religious school, nursery school, after-school program and Families with Young Children Group. There are about 20 students in the Hebrew school for 2023-’24.
Perice explained that there’s been a “demographic change” in Cinnaminson. It became a “very Jewish area” in the 1950s and ‘60s when big companies operated in nearby Camden.
“Obviously, that’s changed,” he said.
But Burlington County towns like Mount Laurel, Marlton, Delran, Medford, Delanco and Moorestown still have small Jewish populations. None of them are Cherry Hill. Together, they can make a congregation. At least that’s the theory behind Temple Sinai’s capital campaign.
“The Jews who live in this area have a synagogue to feel like their own,” Perice said. “I believe we are the most affordable and we work with families.”
Temple Sinai’s building is 60 years old. Perice wants to renovate the façade and the parking lot, among other priorities.
“There’s an idea depending on how much money is raised that we’d explore different areas to look to spend the money,” Perice said.
