Cantor At United Jewish Center​ In Danbury To Retire After 28 Years

DANBURY, CT —Ordained 30 years next month, Cantor Penny Kessler, the senior clergy and spiritual leader at the United Jewish Center in Danbury, has announced her retirement.

Although she has been leading the prayers at UJC for 28 years, Kessler said she came awful close to scraping molars, instead.

In 1978, Kessler and her husband made their way up from her original home in Brooklyn, to Danbury, where her spouse planned to open his dental practice. She worked as a secretary for a while and then in her husband's dental office. She was also raising three children, and getting restless. So Kessler did the sensible thing, and began planning for her next act, as a dental hygienist.

As she was laying the groundwork for her change in careers, the former college music major was also singing in UJC's adult choir. One day she was given the opportunity to fill in for the cantor, and realized she had the knack.

"And it suddenly occurred to me," Kessler said, "maybe I could do that?"

And she could. In 1990, the Hebrew School dropout was accepted into the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, and was ordained three years later. After a stint at the Jewish Family Congregation of South Salem, NY, Kessler was called upon to fill a newly-vacated opening for cantor at UJC. She started in July 1995.

She has spent the years since helping the Danbury area Jews forge, and reforge, connections with their faith. Kessler said there is an "essence" missing inside many of them.

"I wanted to be able to tap into that."

Music helps — "There is something in that music that calls to people, that touches people's souls" — but it's not the only avenue.

"There are so many paths into being a Jew," Kessler told Patch. "Sometimes just providing the doors, opening various doors, and letting people find their own way in, is just something wonderful. It gives people a chance."

For people in their 20s and 30s, the path is often found in community.

"Whether it's through social gatherings, whether it's through education, whether it is through worship services — that's what brings the Jews into a Jewish community," the cantor said. "I think that warm, welcoming, non-judgmental kinds of experience brings people in."

Kessler said she was looking ahead to her "next great adventure," but is waiting for the Universe to make the first move.

"I have found that over the years, doors have opened when I least expected it. And I think that that's actually what's going to happen."

The community is honoring Cantor Kessler at a Havdalah service and concert on Saturday at 7 p.m., and then again with a gala celebration to be held at the Portuguese Cultural Center on May 21, from 5-9 p.m.

Kessler said the high points of her career as a cantor have been many, and keep on coming. She finds those achievements in the number of former students who continue to ask her to perform at their weddings, and from those former brides and grooms, now parents, who are raising their children in traditions taught at UJC.

"If I can finish a career saying, 'yeah, I helped people connect with Judaism?' I'll take it."