Rabbinical School Professional Placements

As a rabbi I envision leading community in the spiritual practice of deepening our questions.  Questions of spiritual life: How do I find meaning? How is God present? Questions of learning: What are the stories of my tradition? Where is their wisdom? How do I live with their challenges? Questions of healing: What are my sources of strength? Who is with me? Questions of justice: Where is there suffering? What can I do? 
   One of my favorite questions is asked by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “What is a sacred act?” His answer reshapes our religious tradition: “A prayer in the form of a deed.” I envision leading community where our greatest commitments emerge from our prayers: May we live with kindness. May we comfort one another at times of loss. May we be mindful of how we consume. May we apologize and forgive. May we celebrate what we share and respect places of serious difference. Rabbi Heschel gives us an insight into how we might grow a sacred community: look deeply inward toward the neshama and reach outward toward one another.

 As a rabbi and organizer, I build and serve communities where tikkun atzmi (inner transformation) and tikkun olam (outer transformation) are in dialogue and reinforce each other…   
   …communities where prayer, ritual and Torah study are transformative, emotionally engaging and spiritually nourishing, where these practices motivate and obligate us to act politically.
   …communities where our souls are connected to the very real problems around us, and where our political actions compel us to return back together to pray together.
   …communities where people know and support one another, change together, and mourn and celebrate with each other.
   …communities made up of individuals of diverse sexual orientations, generations, gender identities, races, family arrangements, and Jewish identities and backgrounds.

For each of us, only one question really matters: "What is the meaning of my existence?" Or, in the words God spoke to the first human being: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). This is a universal (and fundamentally religious) challenge. As a teacher, I help students derive personal meaning from the storehouse of Jewish texts and traditions. As a pastor, I help sufferers find comfort in meaning, which transcends all experiences of joy and pain. As a spiritual leader, I inspire values of love and justice as a way to achieve meaning. I devote my life to rabbinic work so that others may encounter meaning in theirs.

My rabbinate is driven by my favorite imperative in all of Torah (from the Song of Songs), "Hashmi'ini/Let me hear you!" Inspired as well by a teaching of Rebbe Nahman's, I envision my work as finding the dots or notes of goodness in those around me, evoking these many voices and weaving them together.
   This happens on many levels. Intra-personally, I continue my own work of weaving together the seemingly "ill-matched threads" of my own life and guiding others in this work as well. Interpersonally, I connect people with one another, matching needs and abilities, building relationships. When the community comes together, I use my physical voice to call others into song and prayer. 
   Work on the community level also means helping the congregation as a whole to function at its best and to formulate its own vision, to find its own song, for itself. In connecting with the larger world, I listen for confluences between the voice of the congregation I serve and the voices of the surrounding world. I support, urge, and sometimes goad those I serve to discover how best to add their individual and collective voices to the larger weave of Creation. 

"These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in This World but whose principal remains intact in the World to Come. They are: Honoring one’s mother and father, acts of loving-kindness, and bringing peace between two people; and the study of Torah is equivalent to them all” (Mishnah Peah 1:1). 
   One of my congregants at my internship asks me every week: “What does Judaism have to teach me?  How can this improve my life?” In contrast to the message we receive from popular culture, Judaism teaches that our happiness depends not on the accumulation of material possessions, but on the way we act in the world.  This text claims that the study of Torah is the most rewarding of these actions. Why? Because it leads us to do the others.
   What Judaism has to offer that is unique from secularism or other traditions is a particular modality of practice to bring about a healthier, happier life. It is not just that we should honor our parents because it says so in the Torah or that we study Torah because we are told that it is good to do so. These serve not only as ends unto themselves, but also as practices that instill within us a sense of serenity and contribute to the betterment of the world as a whole.
   When people in a community engage in these ways with each other, they earn the immediate reward of deeply meaningful moments, as well as the long-term impact on the health and vitality of the community.  For this reason the Mishnah states: the reward comes not only in “this world,” but also in the “world to come.”

From the midrash: “One day King Solomon was walking on the road when he saw two men carrying a large stone. King Solomon asked the first man, 'What are you doing?' The man sighed and replied, 'I am carrying a very heavy stone.' King Solomon then asked the other man, 'What are you doing?' The man replied, 'I am building The Temple; I am building a home for the indwelling of God.'"
   We all carry our burdens with us. As a rabbi, I see my mission in helping people make meaning of these burdens (as well as the joys) of their lives. We cannot always change the weight of the stone we are carrying, but we can come to realize that we are building something sacred and holy, that we are part of a communal effort, and that may make our personal burden feel lighter.
   My kavanah in serving a community is to allow each individual to become part of a sacred community, fostering individual wellbeing, communal engagement, and tikkun olam. When we find meaning in our own lives, we connect to the source of all meaning, to the divine part within us, and to the divinity surrounding us.

As a person with an evolving relationship to Judaism, I bring to community the spirit of exploration that has inspired me. As a rabbi, I build meaningful, authentic, shared spiritual experience and practice into the daily, weekly, yearly and life cycles of Jewish time. I lead services where people who cannot imagine themselves singing can soar through the voices we bring together. I teach in ways that invite people to engage with key moments and relationships in our lives, alongside the urgent questions of our time, through the lens of Torah’s many faces. As a community organizer and pastoral care-giver, I foster relationships that allow us to weave our individual stories into a vibrant tapestry of shared story. 
    Recognizing that community is an ongoing process, I am committed to the long-term work of nourishing deep community, where our presence with one another at moments of joy, struggle and sorrow enables us to act together in the larger world. As a witness to the fundamental humanity of each person I encounter, I listen deeply and strive to speak with each person where they are, while nurturing a sense of hope for what is possible.

“God formed man from the dust of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). We all have a divine source that animates our lives. Too often in this hectic world, we lose that inner-essential point of aliveness and subsist as forms. Judaism is a vehicle for sacredness and meaning--to living from that which is most important and essential. Through teaching, preaching, counseling and leading, my work as a rabbi is to help individuals and communities experience our tradition as a path to a life well lived.

“My God, the soul you have given me is pure.”  This liturgical piece captures for me what is one of the most important teachings in Judaism.  We say it each morning to try and start our day infused with the idea that despite our imperfections, at our core we are wholly good. We Jews believe that each and every person is created in the image of God, and that therefore there is an aspect of holiness in every individual.
     How we treat others and ourselves reflects how we treat God. I believe that the outlook on life that these teachings provide can help us tap into our best and strongest selves, to treat others with dignity and love and to help contribute to the betterment of our community and our world. I enter the rabbinate hoping to serve the Jewish People guided by these twin tenets of what it means to be human beings on this earth.

I was raised in a secular intermarried family with visceral commitments to social justice and critical thinking, but with little Judaism. Nevertheless, from my childhood I was drawn to explore the mysteries of reality, delving into experiences that point toward Oneness--from Buddhist monasticism to Sufi chanting to consciously living close to the Earth. In my mid-twenties, I learned that one can either dig many shallow wells or one deep well, the latter providing a more consistent and abundant source of water.  I decided to dig deep, and to connect underground with Miriam’s Well.
   Now over a decade later, I draw from this well to serve those who are thirsty for meaning, thirsty for connection to a Judaism that is relevant for everyday living and during times of transformation. I draw on waters of Torah, the wisdom of ancestors, to help us navigate global challenges--climate change, human rights issues, the seeming scarcity of time. I draw on the well’s healing waters as a balm for our personal and collective traumas so that we can create sweet music, share in moving prayer experiences, and together move beyond victim mentality and shine forth as a strong and compassionate people.

Growing up in an assimilated Jewish home in the 1950s and '60s, I felt the loss of connection to the culture, language, religion and traditions of my immigrant grandparents. My parents were modern, forward-looking intellectuals who had no use for a past filled with pogroms, poverty and particularism. Yet, I always felt intuitively that something essential to my being was missing.
    I have been on a lifelong journey to reconnect with Judaism and discover what still matters in our traditions. I love sharing that journey with others and accompanying them on their own journeys to make Judaism a meaningful part of their lives. I cannot give anyone a map because I don't know exactly where each person will end up, but I can point out different paths they may want to explore.
   I believe we are all searching for meaning and connection, and this is my passion--to build communities where people can make connections with each other, with themselves, with Torah and with the divine spark in each of us and in the world.

When my first son was teething, I made a board-book siddur with small print and bright colors that I could pray from while he chewed on the edges, and called it "v'shinantam l'vanecha," a play on words meaning "repeat (or teethe) them [words of Torah] to your children." Using that siddur, I felt doubly blessed--having, myself, grown up in a home suffused with Judaism through holidays, music, language and my parents' passion for teaching their children, and having the opportunity, now, together with my husband, to set the traditions and patterns of life in our home for ourselves and our children.
   My dream is to support individuals, families and communities in weaving Judaism into their daily lives, holidays and lifecycle milestones--to serve as a resource, helping Jews develop the skills to engage with joy and love in Jewish study, community, culture and ritual--in modes and forms that feel authentic and meaningful for them.
   I hope to lead communities where the imperative of social responsibility is essential to being Jewish, where the home and family is a primary locus of Jewish life, and where parents are active participants in their children's Jewish education even as they continue to develop their own spiritual lives. I especially look forward to accompanying emerging families as they embark on the journey of making thoughtful and joyful Jewish choices from their children's first moments on.

I see Judaism as a lens through which we experience life. It helps us focus; it clarifies and gives definition to moments and experiences in our lives, both the ordinary and the magnificent. It is my hope to work within a community where individuals are encouraged to explore in learning, praying and doing in a way that is deeply Jewish as they search to make life meaningful and fulfilling.
    As a CPA, I have professional business experience that roots me in the real world. My experience as a Personnel Consultant trained my ‘people skills’ and allowed me to help job seekers find what they were looking for. As a volunteer in the Jewish community, most notably as president of a large suburban synagogue, I discovered my passion for working with and for the Jewish people, and as a soon-to-be-rabbi, I hope to work with a community to help the institution and the individuals within it see life through a Jewish lens, helping them make a life of fulfillment, of meaning and of action.