Photo by Travis Pratt Rabbi Morris Kosman is shown at his Frederick home. Purchase this photo

Kosman has served as Beth Sholom's spiritual leader since 1961.

Next year's High Holy Days are expected to take on a slightly different character. The soon-to-be 82-year-old Kosman, who has an alley named after him downtown, will reduce his responsibilities as of Jan. 1, 2010, and assume emeritus status.

After receiving 30 applications, Ilene Liska, Beth Sholom's search committee chairwoman, said the field has narrowed to two rabbinical candidates. Each will visit separately in October.

In addition to his rabbinical duties, Kosman instructs at Beth Sholom's religious school; teaches Hebrew, history and literature classes for adults; and travels daily to Baltimore for his own religious instruction. He has also taught at the Frederick School of Religion.

He expects to remain as busy as ever.

"My obligations will be different, but there is room for more than one rabbi," Kosman said. "I will be there as needed, to teach -- or whatever."

Kosman has seen the Beth Sholom congregation grow from 60 families to some 200 today, even as Frederick added a second Jewish congregation in 2003, the Reform community Kol Ami. The time has come to turn Beth Sholom over to a younger rabbi "to look to the future," he said.

"I'd have to say he's had more of an effect on Jewish life here than anyone else," Kol Ami Rabbi Dan Sikowitz said.

The two communities held a joint Holocaust Remembrance Day last spring.

"Fifty years is a lifetime," Sikowitz said. "He's done an awesome job, and I respect him a great deal for all he's done."

Liska described Kosman as a rabbi always ready to meet people wherever they are spiritually.

"He's flexible and accepting, and that has been important for a diverse congregation like ours," she said. "He's warm and welcoming."

'The voice of God'

Although Kosman is not leaving, a new rabbi represents a "fundamental change" for the congregation, former Beth Sholom President Andy Carpel said.

"He's been the voice of God," Carpel said of Kosman. "He's been our rabbi for so long, but this is probably the last time he will lead the High Holy Days services. It's kind of bittersweet, very special this year. Everybody loves him."

A Detroit native, Kosman earned his undergraduate degree from Wayne State, where he was a member of the school band. He compared his duties as rabbi to playing percussion.

"I'd put down the bass drum, pick up the cymbals, put the cymbals down to pick up the triangle, and then run to the xylophone," he said. "In a small community that's what you have to do -- whatever is needed. I've loved it."

Kosman completed his training at the Rabbinical College of Telshe, an Orthodox institution transplanted from Lithuania to the United States. He is also a graduate of Baltimore Hebrew University and a recipient of a Distinguished Scholar's Certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Kosman and his wife, Carol, raised seven children. They have more than 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Their son Chaim, a father of 10, is a rabbinical professor in Baltimore, where the Frederick rabbi travels each weekday for religious study.

"There is never an end to the literature there is to learn from, and it helps you look at old things with new eyes," Kosman said. "Self-improvement and study is constant, and forever improving yourself is a spiritual goal. Spirituality, to me, is movement."

As a young man, Kosman said, he never intended to become a rabbi. He wanted to be a teacher. In the end, that is the role he thinks he has served.

"The exciting part of learning is not the accumulation of knowledge," he said. "It's in the sharing what you've learned."

All along his relationship to Judaism has been "just like someone who enjoys a symphony," he said.

"More than anything else you want your friends to be there experiencing it with you."

When he arrived nearly five decades ago, Kosman did not bring an overriding vision for the Beth Sholom congregation.

"I recently read a story in Fortune magazine about leadership," he said, "and one CEO, she said, even when picking up a napkin off the floor, the leader needs to keep their vision of the company in mind. That's not me, I just worked every day.

"One person at a time, I have shared my vision of Judaism."