Laurie Coskey

As the silver-haired, senior rabbi at one of America's most prestigious temples went before his congregation one night last week, the standing-room-only crowd grew profoundly silent. Rabbi Michael Sternfield, 46, had come to confess the secret that he and his protege, Rabbi Laurie Coskey, 35, had kept for the last eight years. Once, they had been lovers. Both were married to other people at the time.

As the silver-haired, senior rabbi at one of America's most prestigious temples went before his congregation one night last week, the standing-room-only crowd grew profoundly silent. Rabbi Michael Sternfield, 46, had come to confess the secret that he and his protege, Rabbi Laurie Coskey, 35, had kept for the last eight years. Once, they had been lovers. Both were married to other people at the time.

The San Diego Rabbinical Assn. is calling for an investigation into whether the rabbinical code of ethics has been violated at a local temple where two rabbis last week admitted to once having had an affair with each other. Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal, president of the association of San Diego County's Jewish clergy, said a request for an investigation would be forwarded to the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the national organization of Reform denomination rabbis.

The senior rabbi at one of the West Coast's most prominent temples has resigned in the wake of his confession that he and a younger female rabbi had a brief affair eight years ago, the temple announced Wednesday. Michael P. Sternfield, 46, submitted his resignation to Congregation Beth Israel on Wednesday, just days before the full congregation was to vote on his job status, a temple spokesman said.

As firefighters continued to gain control of wildfires smoldering across Southern California, residents of the once-threatened mountain communities around Big Bear Lake trickled home Sunday, stocking up on groceries, unpacking heirlooms from crammed SUVs and finding, to their relief, that their homes and neighborhoods had not been harmed. "We got so lucky up here," said nurse's aide Julie Eberhard, 45. "I thought the whole mountain was going to go up."