Faith After the Flames

Kehillat Israel Associate Rabbi Daniel Sher On Loss, Resilience and Rebuilding After the Palisades Fire

By MICHAEL MATLOF | Intern

Racing home to Pacific Palisades from a conference in Palm Springs on January 7, Kehillat Israel Associate Rabbi Daniel Sher called his wife and three small children while they fled the growing flames enveloping their community.

Thankful his family was safe, Sher arrived to discover the devastation taking over the Palisades. Not only did many members of Sher’s own community lose their homes, Sher had as well.

“I shared a video on social media within about 20 minutes of knowing we lost our house because I needed to know who was sitting with me in grief,” Sher said.

When congregants informed the rabbi that they had lost their homes, he noted they always asked about his health as well.

“Everyone was thinking about each other,” Sher described.

For the rabbi, the stages of grief were undeniable: He said he found himself struggling to remember what items he still owned, wondering whether a suitcase had been burned or simply misplaced.

“I like to compare the physical items that you lost to tools to engage with the people that you love in this world,” Sher said.

Losing those items, Sher said, can feel gut wrenching. Yet, Judaism’s teaching of “life above anything else” provided him a compass for himself—and a message to send to his community: “Even when something is terrible, at least you get the chance to still be alive, right? That’s important.”

The rabbi said he would trade 100 of his homes for the safety of his children, even if there are many things he still misses about his house.

Since the fires, Sher’s focus on valuing life has been a major guide for himself and his congregation.

“Our congregation is just connected to a much larger history of people surviving tragedy and figuring things out and finding those bright moments,” he explained.

Despite the events, Sher said the KI community has been able to carry on. As an example, just five days after the fires, a KI bar mitzvah took place at Sinai Temple in Westwood.

“We still lifted him up on a chair,” Sher said. “Tragedy will not define us, it will shape us.”

To spread his messages, Sher has often turned to social media and Instagram as an amplifier. Sher’s congregation spread geographically post-fire, becoming a diaspora rather than a grounded community. To reach them, Sher began sharing more of his reflections online.

“Nothing beats being together, but I can reach people in the palm of their hand,” he concluded.

One major moment of hope for the congregation came through the fact that KI’s temple, located on Sunset Boulevard, withstood the fire.

“The minute I found out that it did survive, I didn’t ask why,” Sher explained. “I was flooded with the inspiration and the knowledge of what we would be able to do with it.”

While still under renovations and fire remediation, Sher said he believes the building provides a symbol of what is possible when rebuilding the Palisades community. According to Sher, faith isn’t why the building survived and the others surrounding it did not: “Faith is how we weather what happened,” he said. “Judaism teaches that we don’t waste tragedy. We don’t ask for it, but when it comes, we use it to grow.”

He said he thinks the Palisades community must ask the difficult questions of what comes next and how to build back with intention.

“If everyone woke up the next day and said, ‘We have our health, what can we accomplish next?’” Sher posed. “If we slowed down and thought about it and were intentional, that’s the next step, right? What does the Palisades look like with intentional redesigning?”

He said he hopes religious institutions in the Palisades can be part of rebuilding the Palisades in a logical way. According to Sher, the devastation of the fire also represents a rare opportunity.

“I’m going to sit one day on my porch, and it won’t just be the place where I raised my kids,” he said. “It will be the place they saw us rebuild something special. We can’t waste this chance. Intentionality is another word for love.”