RABBI ALICIA HARRIS
Welcome About History Themes Complete Interviews
Interviewee: Rabbi Alicia Harris
Interviewee: ALICIA HARRIS
Interviewer: Cary Levy
Interview Date: January 6, 2023
Location: Troy, MI (Shir Tikvah)
DOB: March 25, 1990
Birth place: Rockville, MD
Interview No.: 01.06.23-AH (audio digital file)
(Approximate total length 58 minutes)
Transcription: Yousaidit (DS), Fiverr
Themes: Jewish Identity, Doctrine, Observance, Upbringing
Summary: When Rabbi Alicia describes her journey to becoming a rabbi, she speaks of her core values of social justice and making the synagogue a place where people can be authentic and welcomed. She speaks of her own joy in observing, discovering, examining, and then leading others to explore Jewish ritual. Jewish experience, music, and ritual were interwoven in her parents and grandparents’ homes. Alicia’s Jewish education progressed from the study of Hebrew in elementary school to intellectual discovery & curiosity about Torah in high school and college. At one time she was interested in becoming a cantor and had cantorial duties at a congregation. In becoming a rabbi, her studies in Israel and, most importantly, the advice, friendship, and scholarship that she received from many mentor rabbis led her to examine and understand her Jewish identity and become a rabbi.
Example of proper citation/ attribution:
Levy, C. (Interviewer) & Harris, A (Interviewee). (2023) Alicia Harris: Jewish Journeys [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from Jewish Journeys Oral History Collection of Congregation Shir Tikvah: https://shirtikvah.org/cstoralhistoryarchive
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Start [00:00:00]
Interviewer: The name of the interviewer is Cary Levy. The name of the interviewee is Rabbi Alicia Harris today is January 6th, 2023 and we're in the library at Shir Tikvah. I've explained the project to you and you've signed the consent form. Is that correct.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: So, now we can begin. So, first of all thank you very much for consenting to do this.
Interviewee: Oh, my pleasure.
Interviewer: We're going to learn more about you and here are things that we've never heard before and usually I start with a question about your upbringing, everything. But I have another question that I think is more important at this time than I want to start with because of recent history. A week ago, you had the honor of speaking at Governor Whitmer's inauguration and I'd like to hear your thoughts about that honor and how you were, if you know how you were selected and how that ranks on your highlights of your professional career so far.
Interviewee: Well, our professional career is short. So, it's pretty high up there. It was incredible. I felt so grateful and privileged to be a part of it and to represent Shir Tikvah. It was incredible. It was amazing. I have been working sort of with the governor's office on and off since I got to town basically. I moved here in 2020 and there was a whole thing with her all those people plotting to kill her …and all that stuff and a bunch of faith leaders got together and said like, we have to do something about this. So, there was that sort of I think is ..how it started, but really even before that the JCRC Rabbi Ashlow patent was told me like, I think it would be great for you to connect with the governor's office. I think they'd really like some of the work that you're doing and I just felt it was such an honor to be a part of it.
I have ambivalent feelings about prayer in public spaces to be quite honest with you. But if somebody's going to do it, I feel very grateful that it was me because number one of like of course what a privilege and number two, I think I have the unique ability to bring some more breath to prayer in public that's not just focused on one specific aspect of religion. So, it was really a cool day. It was, I got to sit up on the dais. My family of course was like we couldn't see you. I was like yeah; I was in the way back. I'm the least important person on the dais. But and also I'm hardly 5.1’. So, it's not like you could see me over all those tall people anyway. But yeah, it was ..I really won an honor to represent Shir Tikvah and State of Michigan and our community I felt really, it was very cool.
Interviewer: You did a beautiful job.
Interviewee: Well, thank you so much.
Interviewer: Well now that you mentioned prayer in public spaces does it help that there was people from other faiths up there also speaking.
Interviewee: It's not that. It's more like I don't think anything should be there, right? So, because I felt grateful to be a part of it because I knew there were other people do from other faiths doing it and I wanted to make sure that Judaism and who we are as a people was represented there which was important right? So that's like a personal church and state issue for me because I think it can get messy quickly. However, I really felt grateful to be like if there had to be prayer, I'm glad it was me.
Interviewer: Let it be me.
Interviewee: Yes, exactly.
Interviewer: So, let's start talking about your upbringing.
Interviewee: Sure.
Interviewer: Tell me about growing up in the Harris household and family very observant or and tell me all about growing up.
Interviewee: Yeah. So, my parents my dad grew up really like I would call it Conserva-odox and my mom grew up very reform my parents are incredible smart people. And we did a lot of debating and talking at the dinner table. I think I always was drawn to Judaism but Judaism was in our house, right. We did Shabbat every week except for I did think that Shabbat was cancelled in the summer, because often it gotten so late that often times, we wouldn't get the candles in the summer. But I have a ton of memories as a small child doing Hanukkah Passover whatever. I was always, we were very involved at the synagogue. I think my parents coming from their two different backgrounds when they moved to Toledo, they sort of settled on a reform community because my mom grew up, I mean, I would say closer to seculari-sh. She was like very classically reform, very classically reform and my dad grew up much more conservative and keeping culture in their house and stuff.
So, they found this reform synagogue which I think was sort of a good mixture for the two of them. I loved going this, like I loved going there. I always had my friends were all there. I was really involved in youth groups. I was BBYO. I being in our house meant that Judaism like Judaism existed in our home, that was just part of it. And then when you go to my grandparents, my dad's parents especially who I know I talk about often, because for them like they sort of were the embodiment of Judaism to me. It's really interesting because my mom's parents started Central Reformed Congregation in Saint Louis, which is a really famously social justice-oriented congregation there with a rabbi who has been there for many years.
She helped do my name, like she didn't do my naming but she helped my parents like pick a name and all those things. Rabbi Susan Tavy, but they sort of lean in the more act justice space whereas my other grandparents were like very like ritual based. All justice oriented but different. So, it's really, I feel like I'm kind of a mixture of those two things. But Judaism was always like joy. We're always like asking questions, arguing about something. I have a younger brother and he was less; I would say less interested but because of my enthusiasm perhaps he came along for the ride.
Yeah, I have, like there are pictures of me sitting at Passover. Like I remember being like hey the Seder's not over after the meal and people being like we're done. I was like, there's two wine cups of wine. So, I've always been really drawn to do to them, but we did. It was an important part of our household for sure.
Interviewer: Okay. Any favorite stories about Jewish holidays growing up?
Interviewee: Well, I love Passover and when I was about 12, my Zede was like, everybody always talks over me I'm tired of this and I was like I'll do it. so, as from about 13 on I got to lead Seder in their house, which is really cool.
Interviewer: That was your Orthodox, that was your father's Orthodox.
Interviewee: Yeah, they weren't Orthodox they were conservative for sure.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: But they're both first generation. So, in that sort of realm I was like I'm going to do this, and then I did it and I loved it and now I still love it so.
Interviewer: Okay. Then anyone grandparent more or any relative more influential in your love of Judaism or.
Interviewee: I mean my dad's parents really. So, we would go, they lived in Chicago. We grew up in Toledo and so it's like a four-and-a-half-hour drive. We would go there. I mean once every two months and just for the weekend and we would meet them there would come Friday afternoons after school. They would be waiting at the front door with hugs and the house would smell like Shabbat, and we would get there, and my dad has three brothers and we'd all sit down around the Shabbat table, wives and us and everybody would sit and my Zede would like, welcome everybody. He would start from the farthest away to the closest, like welcome from Toledo, welcome from Forest Park. And then we would have dinner and then after Shabbat dinner, my brother, so my dad's youngest brother is a musician. We would all like he would play and we would dance in the living room and sing together and it's just like a very musical family. There's a lot of harmony. There's a lot of likes, so those memories of and we always go in for all the holidays and those memories of being together on Shabbat really solidified.
Then my brother started playing music he's a professional musician now and that sort of was our ritual for many years of like we would all play together. We would sing and play in the living room and it was just the best.
Interviewer: Sounds like a joyous place to be.
Interviewee: Very joyous. Very joyous.
Interviewer: [00:09:57] So, as I look at you, you're very into social justice and you're very into Jewish Judaism and it sounds like that came from your two sets of grandparents.
00:10:02
Interviewee: Yeah. And my parents. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you're bringing up. Okay.
Interviewee: Yeah. For sure.
Interviewer: Okay. So, let's talk about your education.
Interviewee: Sure.
Interviewer: Did you always love Hebrew school?
Interviewee: I think so. I don't have a memory of not liking it. I was always interested. I always had questions. So, I went to like secular elementary school for a while until 3rd grade and then from 4th grade. Is that right? Maybe from 5th grade to yeah, 5th grade to 8th grade. I was at like the Toledo Hebrew Academy of Toledo and during that time it was really interesting because I really carved out my progressive identity in that way. Because it was that our teachers were the Orthodox. It was a community day school, but our teachers were the Orthodox Rabbi. The Orthodox Rabbi's wife like Orthodox Canter. In Toledo, we grew up with one of each flavor, right. So, as I like to say. So, like we would see them and even the conservative rabbi and Canter sometimes, but I never saw my rabbi there or my teachers. Sometimes the Hebrew Academy teachers would like teach Hebrew school on their places and that was but like I spent a lot of time working on how my identity as a progressive Jew which I couldn't have named at that time of course like fit in with all these people, right.
So, I had this very one very specific memory of learning like okay, God wrote the Torah and gave to Moses and I would walk from Hebrew Academy over, it was on the same campus. It was like in the JCC and it was in the same campus as Shomer as the temple that I grew up at. So, I would walk after school to Hebrew school and I was like and I would say like and I had the specific memory of talking to the rabbi and saying, Rabbi Sam like I learned this today. Is that true? And I remember him saying to me very clearly, like I remember where I was standing, I like a full sense memory of it. That the Torah we believe that the Torah was divinely inspired and perhaps not written by Moses. Like not written by God and given to Moses that way not written down by Moses and I was like, okay, right.
So, I spent a lot of time at that school. There's a lot of the narrative, I don't know if it was like the narrative in Toledo at that time or whatever of like reform Jews aren't Jewish enough. I think some of it came from the people that I was around and some of it came from like my teachers, but I worked very hard to be like I am also an observant Jew. And it was defining for me for sure.
Interviewer: What's interesting you say that because I've heard lots of stories about Frankel Academy and there seems to be a tussle between the Orthodox that run the school and trying to get some of the kids that go there come from here backgrounds and trying to get them to feel comfortable that what they're doing is equally important and equally Jewish.
Interviewee: Yeah, and anytime you ever hear about that Cary. I'm happy to talk to whoever wants to talk because that was really my experience. I worked very hard to say my Judaism also valuable and this way that I look at the world works for me.
Interviewer: Okay. And then you went to undergrad school. Tell us about that.
Interviewee: Yeah, so then I went to high school at Ottawa Hills High School, which was a not, there were not that many Jewish kids. It's a very small school in Toledo not that many Jewish kids. So, I worked really hard to like develop a lot of friendships in BBYO and sort of expand my, I worked at the synagogue and when you're like 16, they give you your own classroom. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was great. Because it like allowed me to sort of figure out that I like teaching and, (cough) excuse me. So, yeah, I went to University of Pittsburgh. What happened was my dad is a law professor. My mom is an entrepreneur and a business person. My dad was doing a visiting professorship at the University of Pittsburgh, the first semester of my senior year. At that time, he was hoping that they would hire him.
The University of Toledo is not usually a place where people stay for 18 years and so he was sort of working on seeing if he could get hired there. And then he was hired and I went, in the meantime we'd gone to visit and he would come back and forth and whatever and like I really liked it there. So, I wound up going to Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) which was important to me the things that I was looking for is like, was there a big enough Jewish population? Could I be in a city? How could I? And I got involved with political work and Hillel there right away. So, it was a really great place to go to undergrad and it was nice because I wouldn't have ever gone to UT like University of Toledo. I was never going to stay in Toledo. But because it was a new city and my parents were also there, it meant that I got to be with my brother while he was in high school. Which was I mean, I didn't live at home but like I got to like have some, I got to be near my parents which was really important to me. Part of the reason that I'm still so close to them I think is because as I was figuring out my own identity then I also got to be near them which was great.
Interviewer: Okay and before you went to Rabbinical School, you took on another career.
Interviewee: So, I was involved in politics all throughout undergrad. I worked at city hall as an intern for a number of years. I ran campaigns. I volunteered. I was really active in the political world. Then I graduated while in my senior year I lived abroad in Argentina, and I lived with a Jewish family, and I did my undergraduate. Some of my undergraduate thesis work on the Jews of Argentina. And then when I graduated, I was like, I don't think I want to work, like political work just wasn't doing it for me anymore. Like I could help somebody fill a pothole no problem, but like didn't have a lot of meaning for me. So, I was looking for a job. I had to do something and somebody connected me with the Nifty, like Nifty needed, the Nifty Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh needed a chaperone for a weekend thing. I was sure I'll do it and so I did that.
Then when I came back, they were like, oh we're hiring for this job of executive assistant to the senior rabbi and like maybe that would be a good fit for you. I really wasn't sure that it would be a good fit and to be fair it's not like my strongest set of skills, but the Rabbi Jamie Gibson sort of looked at me. I sort of told him my story and when I was a kid, I really thought I was going to be a cantor, because I had growing up one of the things, I didn't say was I had growing up a rabbi who was the same rabbi for 30 years. But a series of young women who were cantors who had just come right out of school. Toledo was often people's first job and they mentored me, they helped me. I'm still in touch with some of them today like I really thought that that was what I was going to do. I loved that work. I love teaching kids. I love the music, it was all and I got some chances to be on the bemah, like just one when the cantor was out of town, I got to do that. Which was really awesome.
So, like that was really where I thought I was going to go. So, when I got to this point where I was like well, I don't really know, I sort of thought I was going to do this job and then it turns out that I don't necessarily have the capacity for music theory. I kind of wanted to know more about all these people that I've been hearing about the rabbis for all this time in my life and what that was going to be like. So, I got a chance to do this job for Rabbi Gibson and he said, okay, you're going to do this for two years and you're going to find out if this is the thing that you want to do and I'm going to mentor you. I'm so grateful for that job because number one I learned a lot about the inner workings of a synagogue, right. So, when I got to school many of my classmates in our second years, we're all required to take a weekly or bi-weekly pulpit, a monthly pulpit, something like that where we go in. And many of my classmates were like shocked by what was going on inside of like the political piece of and I was like, oh no, this is nothing.
[00:19:59] Because I had seen what it was really like to be in a Jewish organization, which is of course not to say that Jewish organizations are uniquely insane. All organizations with people are people doing their best, right? So, like it's just what it is, like people are just people and they're doing what they can do. So, I was really grateful for that and also, I got to see the inner workings of like what is it like to be a rabbi and plan a funeral. What happens when there's a tragedy? How does a rabbi work and live and study? He was very diligent about, every week he would take a Hebrew lesson every week. He would study with the 20:38 [Inaudible] Charutah and that was really helpful for me. I study with the [Inaudible] now every week. Like it was really helpful for me.
00.20:38
So, after two years, I was kind of getting comfortable on my first ever paychecks that I was like living in a nice place and very happy. I don't that I actually would've, I mean I would have done it eventually but a family friend of ours MJ Tessie who's like amazing incredible person who really sort of pushed me in a lot of different ways. But she said, ‘Okay, time to take the GRE. I was like, ‘I don't want to.’ She's like, ‘I'm going to pay for, you need to keep moving in your life.’ I'm grateful she did that. She died before I got into Rabbinical school, but she's still continues to be an amazing influence on me.
So, I said those years sort of developing this idea of like what it meant to be a rabbi and what it could look like and I got to connect with other rabbis, right. And Rabbi Ron Simons who was also there was a much more justice-oriented rabbi and that was really helpful for me. So, those two years I credit them for a lot of the reason that I'm sitting here right now and then I went to HEC. I spent the first year living in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem was one of the most… Good? Yeah, Jerusalem was one of the most challenging and exciting and wonderful years of my life. Like living in Argentina was interesting, because I speak Spanish fluently. I have since I was a kid and I love Latin American culture. I dance salsa now, like those are all things that I with the first time that I went to Israel wasn't in birth, during my birthright in undergrad. People were always like this is your home, and I was like I don't feel that connected to it. Like I love history so I was really enamored with like the fact that we were standing next to stones that were thousands and thousands of years old. Like that was cool for me, but I didn't feel that like.
People get off the plane and feel like an immediate connection and that was not the case for m. So, when I went to Israel and live this year like I didn't speak Hebrew enough to like I couldn't have a conversation in Hebrew. I mean very little. I spent much like the culture is so different. Everything about it was so different for me and it took me a long time. I'd spent many years honestly trying to avoid talking about the conflict because that's like all anybody ever wants to talk about Israel and I didn't have a connection otherwise really. I think it's an interesting thing, because people are like this is your homeland and I got there I'm like no it's fine here. But it's not, my homeland is where my family is like American Judaism makes sense to me.
So, it took me a long time to adjust there, but I am so grateful for the year. Because not only was the program really interesting, but like every week we got to go out and like experience Israel in a different way and understand that like I could now have a conversation with you about the nuances of what's happening there in a way that I could not have done if I hadn't lived there. I got an understanding of I like stayed with the Palestinian family for a few days in Bethlehem. I like stayed, I tried to do everything that I could do to understand what everything. Like we have some family there and my dad and my Zede actually came to visit me over winter break, and we went to this wedding. Like a family wedding in one of the settlements and that really like everything about it just helped me so much understand what was happening there and then I came back and moved to Cincinnati and was there for 5 years in Cincinnati. Yeah.
Interviewer: Okay. So, one quick question. Your major was?
Interviewee: Religious studies and political science.
Interviewer: Okay. Obviously, that was meaningful and helpful.
Interviewee: Yeah, my religious studies courses, I still keep in touch with one of my professors who I totally love, Adam Shear., all my best friends from college, we all kind of met like in Hebrew class, Hebrew 101, like the first day and we just or like at Hillel. And then my political science degree was really awesome, because I got to experience so much of the world in a different light and it helped me a lot with like thinking about logic and help me with sort of understanding the system that we live in. I love politics. I always have, so it's really helpful for me to like to be able to have the ability to break down what's going on in the world.
Interviewer: You said you weren't conversive in Hebrew when you got to Israel. Are you now?
Interviewee: I was for sure. I would say yes like I can certainly have a conversation with somebody in Hebrew now. My Spanish is better than my Hebrew. It always has been. But yeah, I can get around.
Interviewer: Okay, and it sounds like your time in Israel was super important towards your development more so than going to Rabbinical School.
Interviewee: Oh no, the time in Israel was the first year of Rabbinical School. Right. So Rabbinical School. I mean obviously changed my life. I learned how to advocate for myself. I learned how to ask for help. Like I learned a lot of big things and also obviously like how to do this job. One of the cool things about the work that we, like I together those 6 years really gave me so much in terms of understanding myself, understanding the world, understanding how to, like one of the big things that we often talked about is like, you may not have every answer but you have the tools to navigate to get to those answers, right? And then, there are so many things that I picked up. I feel so lucky that I got to learn from so many amazing rabbis, who all gave me little tips along the way. Like I have two clocks in my office.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: I have one on the wall and I have one sitting on the table, right? So, when I'm sitting in my chair and I'm having a conversation with somebody I see what time it is and they can see what time it is. And that's like something that a rabbi told me to do so that people can keep track of where they are and you can keep track of where you're. Like what a simple thing that I never would have thought about, right.
Interviewer: That's cool.
Interviewee: And I live my life a lot of the time with those kinds of things in mind, right. Like I had a rabbi tell me, okay, so when somebody dies, after you've done the funeral, you call at the end of Shiva and you call end of [Inaudible][28:02].Sloshim. Like these different things that you just wouldn't know to do if somebody didn't tell you to do them, right. So, I just my years in Cincinnati were really hard and really great. Like Rabbinical School is not for anybody who isn't 100% sure they want to do this job and I have people who will often say to me, like I'm thinking about this. I'm like, okay, really think about it. If you can see yourself doing anything else do that, because it is not easy. It's a lot of self-reflection. A lot of like we did a summer of chaplaincy training. We're all required to do a 6 months or sorry 8 weeks of chaplaincy work over the summer and it was like we're in the hospitals. We're knocking on doors. We're doing the reflection piece is really intense and it's not easy.
The work is not easy and I feel so grateful for all of the people who mentored me and shepherded me along the way including Rabbi Ken Canter who was just like an amazing helpful, incredible source. He was the dean and Rabbi Julie Schwartz. All these people who really sort of gave me this path to sort of walk down. It was really cool.
Interviewer: Seems like you probably see people at the worst times of their lives many times and must take a lot of training to be able to deal with all the different people and all the different situations.
Interviewee: Yeah, the worst and the best.
Interviewer: The worst and the best, right?
Interviewee: Yeah. I see you at your wedding and your baby naming and your loved ones funeral. And when you have cancer and all those things in between.
[00:30:01] For me it's all about listening, right. When I was interviewing for this job, they said, like you're very young. So, how do you think that you can relate to people who are older we have a lot of older congregants. I said, like all anybody wants is to be heard. Period.
00:30:01
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: All anybody wants is for to feel like you see who they are, you love them and you appreciate them and you're there, right. So, like anything else, you can do anything from that position. And so, being with people like I'm still thinking about the very tough funeral that we had a couple of weeks ago. Like being with people in the moments in which they are completely devastated is hard and it is an emotional job. And one of the things that I've really learned over the past couple of years is like I have to give myself space to like wring myself out a little bit. Like sometimes it feels like I'm a sponge and I have to like let myself undo some of that stuff in other places. So, I have ways that I take care of myself so that I can help take care of the community. But it is an honor and a privilege to be a part of these intimate moments with people, right. To be in joy, be in pain, to be in the moments where you're just completely overwhelmed.
The fact that people feel connected enough to Judaism and to me and to our community that they say like we want you here. It's such a privilege and I feel so grateful to have really had the chance to learn so much about how to do this work at HUC. One of the things that people will often come out of a graduate program and say that be like this is not exactly, this is not what, I was trained this way but I'm not using anything I learned in school. I use everything that I learn in school, plus a million more things, right? I really feel very lucky and grateful to be a part of something so meaningful.
Interviewer: Okay. So, can you tell me was there a class or a rabbi at HUC that stood out being challenging or insightful or one particular?
Interviewee: Yeah. So, Doctor Mark, Rabbi, Doctor Mark Rusedski taught medical ethics and tall wood and all these other classes and he was great. I love learning with him. I like learning his style is really interesting. He really helped me to understand our text in a different way. Rabbi Julie Schwartz who did all of the like chaplaincy work and all of the training for like the pastoral care that I do. She gave me so much to in, like she's a person who I talked about the clocks. Like she just really has all these, she's amazing. She was a navy chaplain for many years, like the first female to do that job as a rabbi. And then she was like the senior rabbi of a huge congregation I believe in Atlanta, but don't quote me on that. As I guess it's too late. And then she came to HUC and she just has so much insight on like how people work and you got to hear those challenging stories. And those things sort of really stood out to me as helpful.
I learned how Rabbi Doctor Gary Zola who taught American, his American Jewish history said something to me that I often use which he didn't say to me. He said to everybody, everybody was there. I had something that I often use which is that whatever is happening in America is happening to the Jews and I've used that before. I think it's like we sometimes have this idea of like exceptionalism or this idea of like, well, we are exempt from this thing. Like it's not true, whatever's happening in America is happening to the Jews and that I think about him all the time. He helped me so much connect to our reform roots in this country and what it means to be Jewish and American, which is really helpful for me. Because I think both those things are such a big part of my identity. So, got anytime, anybody ever gets a chance to a class with him. He's like the smartest. He's got he runs the American Jewish Archives and we had the unique chance to work in the archives and it just like you get to touch papers that are from the people who started our communities and it's so cool. It's; he's incredible.
Rabbi Ken Canter who I talked about. I just feel like I had a lot of opportunities to learn with incredible people. I think the hardest classes for me were probably the ones that were a little bit more like the history of Second Temple Judaism. I found that very hard. But like one of the things that I learned how to do is how to learn on my own in graduate school. So, it was yeah, there's so many things that stand out, but to get to take a full semester. Doctor Jason Kalman taught this full semester on the book of Job. Like I got to take a full semester on this book that like I think about all the time still. Got another semester on Song of Songs. I got take a full semester on this crazy book of poetry that we keep in our, that we're like, this is our book.
I'm like, there's some crazy stuff in there. There's one line in which the person compares, this is crazy to say. But the person compares the teeth to sheep and that's first of all you don't want that comparison. Second of all like we that's part of our holy story, and like that is one of the biggest things I think I took away from being at HEC is that number one, those words belong to me and they belong to all of us, right. It's not just like if you just speak Hebrew if you just orthodox. Like our Torah and our writings and our Tnach, that's ours, number one. And number two like because it is ours, we have a responsibility to struggle with the stuff that doesn't work for us, right. And people have been doing that for centuries.
I finally got the chance to learn who the rabbis were. Like when I'm growing up at Hebrew Academy I was like, what did the rabbi say? I was like who the heck are those guys, and why do we care? So, I got a chance to engage with those voices in a new way and I also got a chance to say like, how do I as a woman fit into the story? How do I as a person in the modern world fit into the story? So, those things those are all, it was an incredible time. It was very just like any graduate school is a lot of work and many papers were written and I feel very proud of all the work that I did there. And also, it really pushed me to think about who we are as a people in a different way and.
Interviewer: Many years sermons you talk about difficult parts of the Torah for you that you bring in and into seriously.
Interviewee: Yeah, and I do that because I want people not just because I that Torah is difficult which there are parts that are. But I want people to understand that we shouldn't shy away from things that are hard for us and more than that, that like it is our responsibility to this. If we're saying like this is important to me, it's our responsibility than to engage with the stuff that's hard. That's our job. Yeah, so.
Interviewer: Okay. One last question about your, was there a moment in time that you said all of a sudden, I'm going to be a rabbi that you before that you weren't so sure and something happened and nothing.
Interviewee: Well, I mean, since I think, I said, since I was a kid like I was like, oh I'm going to be a cantor. When I studying for my Bat Mitzvah I was like, I love this. I never stop loving this. I love learning trope. I felt like I was unlocking secrets of my people. There was a moment, there were several moments where I was like oh, I'm doing this like I am the rabbi in this situation. One of the coolest moments actually was in 20, I feel like it must have been 2018 or 2019, I got to serve as the Rabbinic intern at Shomer? where I grew up. They have had rabbinic interns come in. It must been 2018 I don't know. It doesn't matter. And help at the synagogue with high holidays and I got a chance to do that with Rabbi Sam who I grew up with Sam Weinstein.
The Cantor, Cantor Jen Rohr came when I was in high school, I walked up to her and the first thing I said was, hi, I'm going to be a cantor, so I'm going to study with you. She reminded me of that recently and I was like of course, what a little. Like I was like hello, this is my job, I go here and nice to see you and then she left for a long time and then she came back. Now she's working there half time.
00:40:00
[00:40:00] So, I got to be on the pulpit where I had my bat mitzvah, giving a sermon that I wrote to these people who I grew up with. Then Rabbi Sam on Yom Kippur like the day before Yom Kippur, he had a stroke. He's fine and I wound up being the rabbi. And I was like, oh, I'm ready to do this. And so, I'm standing there singing with Cantor Jen who I sang with as a kid. I'm like, oh yeah, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. It was a very full circle moment. My parents were there, it was really cool and not much has changed in that sanctuary except for they change the color of the carpet, because and the color of the pews. It used to be this like green from the 70s, now it's like more of a cream color which is fine. But yeah, it was this feeling of like, oh, I know how to handle this problem.
Interviewer: That watching your parents when they do Zoom and stuff like that is obviously very proud of you.
Interviewee: Yeah.
Interviewer: Very excited that the path that you chose and everything.
Interviewee: Yeah.
Interviewer: So, let's talk a little about you now.
Interviewee: Sure.
Interviewer: So, is there a lesson that you think you've learned as being since you've become a rabbi something that?
Interviewee: Oh my God. I've learned so much. I feel like I learned something new every day. I think the lesson that I continue to learn is to ask for help when I need it and do my best to show up for people even if it's showing up in a way that's imperfect, being there is important. I've also learned that like, you can't like, (coughs) sorry. You can't take on too much at once, right? Having to learn how to balance living a life and being a rabbi is important. I think the and the other big thing that I've learned is like how to be honest about, when I say like I don't know, that was another thing that I learned at school. One of the most valuable lessons that somebody taught me was like I think it was Ken or maybe it was Julie. If you don't know, it's okay to say you don't.
I found myself doing that a lot for the start of this job in the pandemic, very weird time to start anything and then like I'm learning how to do this job. Now I'm learning how to do it again with people in person. So, I think that's been a big thing. It's just to say like I don't know how to do this I could really use your help. And also, to remember that people have so much to teach me, like I try really hard not to be like well I'm the rabbi and I have the thing. Like I'm learning to and there's so much institutional knowledge and so much, like we have so many people here who have been studying Judaism for much longer than I've been alive, right. And so, there are people here who know so much and have so much to teach me and I'm so grateful for that.
Interviewer: I tell you as just as an aside that we were absolutely the people that have been here for a while were amazed how fast you learn people's faces people that we knew that we couldn't recognize because they're wearing masks. You were able to pick up them out and know about people that we just thought there was learning with under different rules than meeting people and stuff like that.
Interviewee: Yeah, thank you. It's really important to me actually because I think remembering somebody's name and their face is feel like when somebody remembers me, I always feel good. So, I more than anything, the thing that I want for Shir Tikvah to feel is like a warm and welcoming place where everybody feels like this is their home and people feel like they can learn here and grow here and be exactly their authentic selves, right? So, part of that I think is learning who people are and also like this was the thing that I was doing. It was learning people like I was new. So, that it was important to me.
Interviewer: Anyway, okay. How do you know that Shir Tikvah would be a good fit for you?
Interviewee: It was a very weird time because I was interviewing without ever having seen this place and without ever having been here without ever. So, I took this without ever seeing the building and you know as the internet in here is kind of spotty so Pam and Rich bless them like try to take me on a little virtual tour but I couldn't see much. So, when I was doing my interviews with Shir Tikvah, I felt like people were very kind to each other and it's something that I continue to say. But the way that people treated one another with respect was one of the things that really stood out for me.
When the placement office said, hey, you should look at this place in Troy Michigan. I was like, I don't want to go to Troy Michigan and then it just right away felt very good to me. People were kind, the legacy of Rabbi Arnie, his kindness and his sort of proceed him in a lot of ways. Yeah, it felt good to me right away and I was in the process of interviewing with another congregation too and that didn't feel right. So, yeah.
Interviewer: Okay. Have you ever felt like you've been in the presence of God?
Interviewee: Yeah, and I often say that God is within us and all around us. We are part of God and God is a part of us. And anytime there's like a perfect harmony, I get what I like to call the spiritual tinglies, I'm sure there's a better word for it, but I get that feeling of like, oh, this is when I'm on the pulpit with Steve on the high holidays and we hit a perfect note together that feel like a presence of God for me. I also often feel that way, yeah, I try more and more to connect with that presence because I think it's everywhere all the time. I feel that way when a kid really like nails something at their bar bat mitzvah. I feel that way when I am anywhere near water. I feel that way when I'm sitting across from somebody and they're trusting me to hold something really big. God, I think is in relationship too, and so that's the other part that I often feel like I get to be in the presence of God in relationships. Yeah, I feel lucky that I connect to that very easily. So, yeah.
Interviewer: Has anything ever shaken your faith in God?
Interviewee: Oh yeah, all the time. I mean the world is chaos. Just like watching the way that people treat each other sometimes often will like shake my faith. When I was about 16, I got really sick and that moment I was like, why is it me? But what I saw was like my rabbi showed up for me, right? Rabbi Sokoban who was our Emeritus Rabbi Weinstein like always my cantors. I repeat my community showed up and that was another moment in which I felt connected. I mean, presence of God being shaken, like when somebody really important in my family dies or somebody dies young or like when something inexplicable happens or there's I mean just like the Holocaust. Like yeah, those things often shake my faith, but it's not, what it does is it shakes me up to look at a different perspective and to be reminded where I can find God even in those very hard moments. I think, yeah.
Interviewer: Okay. What would be the best legacy you'd leave when you left Shir Tikvah to retire?
Interviewee: I think a couple of things. I think, oh wait, can I go back?
Interviewer: Sure. Love it.
Interviewee: Yeah. I also think I often find myself; my faith being strengthened when I'm in the presence of other faiths. I find my best teachers have been people I've worked with in the justice world who are very strongly rooted in their Christianity. Some of my best friends are people who are like very observant Christians or like people who really believe. And they work to, it's like that iron sharpens, iron thing. Like they which by the way comes from the Bible. They work with me to help me see the way that Judaism works for me and I find myself feeling like I get to learn from everybody.
00:50:10
[00:50:10] So, like I never really felt like I had a personal relationship with God until I got around people who really had that. I was like, oh, actually God can be in my life in a different way, right. I have a spiritual counselor right now who practices IFA, which is an African religion and she's not Jewish even a little. And like although she's very connected to Judaism and a lot of Jewish spiritual work, like it I find myself learning almost often times the most from people who are not Jewish. Because I feel strengthen in what I believe when I see how strong they are in their faith. So, that's really important to me, because number one interfaith work is really crucial to me and number two, like that in the justice world in the work that I continue to do and I was doing I always feel so enliven and structured and like give and bolstered by that kind of faith. Okay, sorry.
Interviewer: No problem. We'll go back to the legacy. So, is Te chum Tikkun olum [INAUDIBLE WORD 51:16] is the basis of Judaism? Is it the wherewithal or is it the?
Interviewee: It's really interesting, right? Because the idea of Tikkun, if you look at Kavala is this idea that like we are working to prepare these broken vessels that were shattered when the world was formed. And by doing these things in this world then the Messiah will come in the next world. I don't know that I believe that, but I do think that like anybody can be good person, right? Anybody can do justice work. People can be animated by that, but I think there's something very specific about the ways in which Jews are told to care for others that makes it very unique for us and to me like as a minority population, we have the unique ability to put ourselves in other people's shoes. Do we always choose to do that? A different day, different question.
But I do think that I mean, I grew up in a house where my dad is a law professor and he has been working on racial profiling and anti-racial profiling work since like he was a first person doing that work in like in the late 80s, early 90s. Like that kind of fairness and justice comes directly from our text, right? And that is something that I've always really connected with is that the idea of treating people equally and giving people a life that they deserve and happiness and freedom, that comes from who we are as a people. Because and I do I really connect with the Passover narrative of like we were these people and we have been in this position. So, why would we ever put anybody else in that position and how can we help people get out of it. And at the same time understanding of course that like that story may not have happened and if that's the case, like it's still part of our collective memory which is what I say to kids often. Like we take the Torah seriously but not literally, right.
So, like whether or not that story is true, it is a part of our collective memory. Therefore, I think empowers us to work for a day when like the prophetic Judaism, reform Judaism and is so related to what the prophets are saying about how we should treat people and what God really desires. Which is like kindness and compassion and take caring for the stranger. Like that is so clearly in our text. It feels like it the thing that no matter if you believe in God or don't believe in God or whatever. Like if you have any Jewish cultural or secular identity, that is a thing that we can all see as like this is something that we are supposed to be doing. If you believe in being Jewish 54:12 [Inaudible] halachaly or not, like whatever like that is something we all have in common. So, that's one of the crucial things for me for sure.
Interviewer: Okay, so let's go back to your legacy.
Interviewee: Sure. So, I think for me and it's hard to sort of, it's interesting. It's not hard, it's interesting to think about what my legacy would be at this point in my career, right. I haven't even been a rabbi for three years yet. So, I think the things that are super important to me is that Shir Tikvah can survive while I'm here and without me.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: Right? So, like leaving a legacy of strong leadership, right. Because I think what we often see is that when there's a leadership transition not just in Jewish spaces but in any space. There's like this feeling of what are we going to do without this person, and I think that's really hard. So, to feel like Shir Tikvah will continue on, Shir Tikvah is a warm and welcoming place and we say that that's our story our headline. But I want that warmth and that welcoming to be real, right. I don't want it to just be our mission statement, I want it to be how it feels when you're in the building. So, leaving a legacy of kindness of like inherent justice work of feeling like and of connection to one another. That's a really important one for me, because I think I operate in joy and gratitude. If nothing else I want people to say, the rabbi was like always reminding us to be grateful for things, always reminding us to engage in the text even when it was hard and always like thinking about how we can make the world a better place for other people and for ourselves. So, those are the things that I really care about. Shir Tikvah already has a lot of that in place which is one of the reasons that I was so attracted to it and it felt a really important place to do that work.
Interviewer: Okay. So, is there anything else you should tell us about you that we would find interesting or any stories that we missed or anything we missed?
Interviewee: I don't think so. Don't think that we did. No, I think we did a pretty good job.
Interviewer: I appreciate. Good.
Interviewee: Yeah. I think there have been moments in my life where I have really worked hard to be Jewish and moments in my life where it's been easier. I think one of the things that I want to leave people with is that like all of those moments are valid and there have been moments in my life where I felt connected to God have moments where I felt disconnected and there have been moments in my life where I've lost somebody really important. There’re moments in my life where I've questioned everything. I guess I just look at what Judaism does for me in those right, the moment where we my bube was 77. Totally fine, went to the doctor, had been tired, turns out she had leukemia and two weeks later she was gone. And in those two weeks, Judaism provided and the weeks following a structure for me that we were walking around like zombies and that structure is the thing that animates us in a lot of ways.
I love a ritual. So, I'm always happy to work with something. But I think, I feel, I think the other thing I want to say is that I just feel super grateful for this community. I really do. It's a great place and I feel really lucky to have found it and to be a part of it. Well, thank you. Thank you.
Interviewer: I appreciate it.
Interviewee: Thank you. I agree. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for doing it with me, Cary.
Interviewer: Thank you. Thank you for your interview. It was wonderful and thank you.
00:58:30 (End of interview)
