Confessions of a Female Rabbi

“The center of Judaism is in the home. In contrast to other religions, it is at home where the essential celebrations and acts of observance take place, rather than in the synagogue or temple. The synagogue is an auxiliary. A Jewish home is where Judaism is at home, where Jewish learning, commitment, sensitivity to values are cultivated and cherished.”

—RABBI ABRAHAM HESCHEL

I didn’t grow up that religious. But even still, the way I did grow up is in conflict with the way I live now. On any given weekday in New York City’s posh Upper East Side, I can be found with my MacBook Pro and shih-poo, Scout, on my lap. I’m likely sitting in my living room or in the beauty salon. Either Cindy from St. Vincent or Jenny from the Dominican Republic, my friends and go-to hairstylists, add wavy curls to my long brown locks and someone asks me a question about where to find a Jewish holiday calendar online. Both the salon regulars and stylists know me as the young female enterprising rabbi—I guess I leave an impression. Under the din of hairdryers, as my long pink nails clack away at my computer, I hear people getting ready for trips, business meetings, and the like. I’m building custom prayer books, following up on invoices, and emailing with private families that I serve like a Jewish life concierge—a personal rabbi. I smile, thinking how different my rabbinate is from those who taught and trained me. My outfit is nothing like the frumpy dresses of teachers or ill-fitted suits with wrinkled button up shirts from rolling and unrolling a sleeve to wrap tefillin, leather prayer phylacteries, of my bearded male rabbis. Then again, I’m from a different generation.

I grew up in the idyllic suburbs of Washington DC, in Potomac, Maryland. Past winding tree-lined roads and a one-lane bridge, a half-hour’s car ride away was my entire word: The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School (JDS). It feels like I spent most of my upbringing within the walls of this rigorous and wholesome small private school. While half of the day was spent learning usual general studies like math and language arts, the other half was totally immersed in all things Jewish and taught in the Hebrew language. My siblings and I thrived in the dual-curriculum program and enjoyed studying Torah and other scripture, prayers, Jewish law, and modern Hebrew. I would race to complete the entire school year’s new Hebrew grammar workbook within the first or second weeks of classes. I would try to do my older sister’s Hebrew homework too. In my spare time, for fun, I would make dioramas or computer drawings of Bible stories. In the fifth grade, I took a giant cardboard box, covered it in tin foil on three sides, and cellophane-wrapped over the front to make a cross section of Jonah sitting inside the belly of the whale. I would volunteer to do reports on the weekly Torah portion. I would create quizzes for my classmates and reward those who answered correctly with candy. In high school, I assistant directed the middle school Hebrew musicals. I led daily class prayer minyan, a quorum of at least ten Jewish adults for public worship, because I loved to sing and I could daven, recite prayers, so efficiently that my peers and I would always have a few free moments for socializing before the first period bell rang. I was a teacher’s pet and loved learning.

I trace my value of Torah lishma, learning for learning’s sake, to my dynamic and brilliant educators at JDS. Many of my favorite teachers were Israeli and some of the most memorable educators had survived the Holocaust. Even if you didn’t have a survivor as your teacher, you heard their story. One of the teachers, Mrs. Lowy, had her uniform from Auschwitz displayed in her second-grade classroom. Many of my classmates had grandparents who were survivors. I distinctly remember our annual assemblies on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, during which I cried with my classmates; we heard of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, and I had many friends who mourned losses or imagined the torture of their family members. Some of the teachers’ origins were Arab countries from which they were exiled after the establishment of the State of Israel. My sister’s fourth grade Hebrew teacher was a lively Yemenite woman, Mrs. Horn. I imagined she got her name because her family always blew the ram’s horn at religious holidays in the fall—but I have no idea if that was true. Mrs. Rozmaryn survived the Nazis death marches. Mrs. Etzion was hidden by her father and told us a story about a family jeweled comb that they hid in a floorboard during the war. Respect for the past and Jewish suffering was ingrained in the students. It was normal. Mrs. Kedem, the hardest teacher, made us memorize Torah verses and would bang her hand on the table to get us to be quiet. She was remarkably austere, donning long hair and only black clothing because one of her sons had tragically passed away. Mrs. Lerner, an Israeli educator, was the smartest woman I knew and commanded all of my respect; she was my Hebrew and Torah teacher in third and sixth grade. As I got older, I had wonderful teachers, mostly Israeli women, who taught me modern Hebrew and scripture. My only male teacher was the most special, jovial man named Yoram Bar-Noy; besides being one of our class advisors, Mr. Bar-Noy taught me the stories of Joshua, Samuel, Saul, and David for several years in honors Bible classes. Mr. Bar-Noy also supervised daily prayer minyan and was one of the first supportive men in my life to recognize my ability to lead services. I looked forward to visiting JDS when I was in college and catching up with my favorite educators. My teachers’ integration in my life was contrasted by distance from the headmaster of my school, who was male rabbi. The interim principal during my high school years was also a male rabbi. All of my rabbinics classes were taught by male rabbis. At the many synagogues with which my family maintained memberships, all of the rabbis were men. Therefore, I believed that a rabbi, the figure head and spiritual leader of a community, was a role reserved for men.

To further complicate things, I lived simultaneously in two worlds. I was raised as a devout egalitarian Jew and my family was also modern. We were one of the only families who drove to synagogue on the Sabbath because we lived too far away to walk. As opposed to spending weekends in synagogue youth group, I studied vocal performance at the Washington Conservatory of Music and spent summers at a prestigious performing arts program. I even had a high school job selling clothes at United Colors of Benetton at the Montgomery County Mall about twenty minutes from my house in Bethesda, Maryland. I loved makeup, nail polish, jewelry, and fashion. I played many lead roles in school and community plays. I pushed the envelope with my costumes and makeup. I recall times my Orthodox teachers would express their displeasure at my loudly colored nails, lipstick, dangly chandelier earrings, and extremely high heels. My mother, Merry, who was a Barbie look-alike, was also sometimes ridiculed by school staff or other mothers for wearing sequins, eyeshadow, and bright colors. But we were active members of our synagogue and participants in community Jewish life.

Unlike most of the Netflix series you see about Jews feeling repressed by their religion, renouncing their upbringing, and running away from their insular communities, I loved my very Jewish childhood. Perhaps my enjoyment in my religion was because we were not stringent followers like some of the Jews portrayed on TV. I think I am from a rare breed, especially because Conservative Judaism seems to be dying out. While I knew plenty of people who were Orthodox, we were not. We were a hybrid. I also wasn’t the least religious person I knew. While I did have a dress code, I could breathe in my clothes and wear color. In my adult life, I actually dated a Haredi, ulta-Orthodox, man whose parents were contacted by his dry cleaner upon receiving his colored shirts; an intervention was held. I didn’t grow up in a space like that. My love for Judaism was synonymous with loving life. The only real ways I knew how to express myself was through Jewish channels like prayer, Hebrew music, and poetry. Also, I felt great about my family’s roots in Israel.

I often attribute two things to my strong Jewish foundation: being raised in a loving home with joyous Jewish experiences, and a day school education with equal importance on religious and secular subjects. My parents have a beautiful and loving marriage, with their engagement story anchored in Jerusalem and my mom’s desire to live in Israel. Merry and David Eisenstadt got engaged in Jerusalem and decided to build their family back in the US with one agreement: their children would attend a Jewish day school and speak fluent Hebrew. My older sister, Rachel Leah, younger brother Eli Benjamin, and I are the products of that agreement. In fact, all three of us chose partners that have similar upbringings. A citizen of America and Israel, Merry worked as a journalist for various Jewish press outlets. She wasn’t one dimensional. As we played childhood dress-up, my creative mother dolled me up in a pop-star Madonna costume, and would put on the karaoke machine so my sister and I could perform our routines. I had a poster of Paula Abdul hanging in my bedroom until I went off to college.

My mom and dad are incredibly practical people and nurtured my interest in working. My father, Dr. David Eisenstadt, is a PhD economist who taught me early on that I could monetize any skill. As an eleven-year-old, I used to call up babysitting clients and request a higher rate with my father’s coaching: “My Saturday night has an opportunity cost.” From the Monday after my bat mitzvah, I opened a business and began instructing other children in Hebrew and taught them how to chant from the Jewish scriptures. My parents sometimes drove me to tutoring sessions at other people’s homes and allowed me to turn our dining room into my office. By high school, my after-school hours and weekend were split between time at the synagogue, managing clients and students, school work, and rehearsals for various performances.

My childhood Hazzan, cantor, was Abraham Lubin, Cantor Emeritus at Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, Maryland. He trained and encouraged me with his ever-present smile and joyful demeanor. I also discovered I had a way with children who were shy or struggled with the complex Hebrew language. I would specialize with children who had learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorders, which had become increasingly diagnosed. No obstacle was too great to help a family or child achieve a goal. Anyone can learn for a bar or bat mitzvah; one especially meaningful experience was working with a student with a profound developmental disorder. Through a musical and creative service, the family and I were able to craft a meaningful lifecycle event for this enthusiastic boy.

And it’s never too late; I even teach adults, especially women who never were given the opportunity to have a bat mitzvah when they were of age. (A decade before Zoom was popularized during the pandemic, I taught my own mom Torah cantillation over Skype sessions.) I have always found a way to excite a family or child about their studies. Maybe a student liked learning about our rich history, current events, or maybe they just love singing prayers. No matter what, religion has so many points of entry.

In my youth I didn’t feel my blend of religiousness in tension the way I do now. I didn’t get asked constant questions or experience public scrutiny and judgment as I currently encounter. In my early years, I simply followed what my parents and Jewish day school laid out for me. There was a lot of happiness and joy around all of the observance, learning, and teaching. My religious identity was inextricable from enjoyable time with doting grandparents, troves of cousins, community, and the music and prayers we loved to sing. We didn’t strictly keep the Sabbath—we marked it with some level of observance. Even though I’ve played around with varying levels of religiosity, to this day, marking, but not by-the-letter observing, is what still feels the most comfortable for me. Sometimes we’d go to the mall on Saturday after services. When I was little, we always had family dinners with my grandparents on Saturdays at either J.J. Muldoon’s or Wu’s in Bethesda for Chinese food. We never ate pork, but kept kosher style when dining out. Once I made the choice to keep fully kosher, I would only eat vegetarian food out of the house. Wu’s dinners would be the hardest for me, as I began replacing Kung Pao chicken with Kung Pao tofu.

My four grandparents were also quite a mix of religiousness. My mother’s parents, the Madways, were a blonde haired, blue-eyed, gentile-passing, and prominent family. The older I get, the more I see how they actually resemble my current clientele. Grandpa Ralph spotted Grandma Bette at a dance hosted by the Penn State Jewish student group, Hillel, and even though he was pinned to another girl, fell in love at first sight and asked my grandmother to dance. Before she would allow him to walk her home, Bette had asked the Hillel rabbi for his approval of my grandpa’s character. Ralph was the youngest of nine siblings, only two of whom were born in the US. A branch of Ralph’s mother’s family had emigrated to pre-Israel/British Mandate Palestine in the early nineteenth century to escape pogroms and antisemitism in Karlik, Russia (now Ukraine—oy a whole other can of un-kosher worms right there). My close Israeli family members are primarily based in the city of Haifa.

Most of the Madways moved to the Philadelphia area. After attending the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Penn State and rising to the rank of major in the US Army in World War II in France and Germany, Ralph and two of his brothers, Harry and Sam, expanded their father Rubin’s lumber business into sizable real estate development and engineering firms. Siblings Alan Madway and Pauline Madway also played notable roles in the businesses.

Bette and Ralph eloped right before he went to Europe. When Ralph returned, they started on making a family, which grew to four children. The youngest is my mother, Merry Ann. My mother followed through with her own mother’s mission to strengthen the ties between the Israeli side of Ralph’s family and the American relatives. Merry made her first trip to Israel when she was sixteen years old. When my mom was young, the Madways all belonged to The Main Line Reform Temple of Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, where she eventually married my father.

As a child, I thought the Madways lived completely nonreligious lives—especially because my mom didn’t have a bat mitzvah. By the time I knew them, my Madway grandparents were de-shuled. For example, when Grandpa Ralph put on a tallit, religious prayer shawl, at my sister’s bat mitzvah, he unknowingly wrapped it around his neck like a scarf. They always ordered muscles or linguine with clam sauce and I dreaded going to vacation dinners in Atlantic City with them, fearing I would get sprayed with non-kosher shellfish juices. Still, I was always proud of the Madway buildings and real estate legacy. I still meet people who have parents or grandparents that live in my grandfather’s buildings in the Main Line. In fact, by sheer coincidence, I officiated a wedding for a very special bride, Ali Cohen, who married an equally wonderful groom, Joe Kroll. (Their exuberant wedding was held the first weekend after October 7th, with special mention of our joy in the face of threats and destruction.) While working together we discovered that the bride’s grandmother lived in the Madway’s Greenhill building after Grandma Bette brokered the sale of their family home. My mom said Bette was the queen of real estate. For me, Bette was an amazing listener and great pen pal. She was supportive when one of my cousins started their gender-transition therapies and surgeries for reassignment. Bette used to keep samples of makeup from the Clinique counter that my sister and I loved to use. She gave me a bag of junk costume jewelry and upon going through it I noticed it actually contained some real fourteen karat gold pieces. From that bag, I wear a charm on my necklace every day; the charm is her name, BETTE, vertically cut in gold, with a little diamond at the top. The Madways were modern, glamorous, secular, and open-minded, yet somewhat formal.

On the other hand, my father’s parents, Jack and Revelyn Eisenstadt, were warm, traditional, and modest. They were the dictionary definition of Jewish grandparents. They slept in the same full-size bed their entire marriage of over sixty years. Down-to-earth memories include Jell-O molds, hand-shaken milkshakes, art projects like collages made out of spare buttons, dinners consisting of meatloaf, presents wrapped in repurposed newspaper comics, games of Go Fish played with a pair of ice tongs in a bucket of pennies and, of course, stickball. The Eisenstadts lived in the same house for close to fifty years until Jack’s advancing dementia forced them to downsize. They belonged to their Silver Spring Conservative-movement synagogue, Ohr Kodesh Congregation, since its founding. They celebrated all the Jewish holidays, and came to all the performances and sports games of their ten grandchildren. As a sergeant in the US Army, Pacific Ocean theater, during WWII, Grandpa Jack worked as a cartographer for the US Defense Mapping Agency. Grandma Rev had worked first in the Nestlé chocolate factory in upstate New York, then as a governess in Washington, DC, and after as an administrator and secretary for agencies in Washington, DC. But she really excelled as a visual artist. Grandma Rev was the oldest girl of her seven siblings, and my dad always said she was the smartest.

The Eisenstadts spent nearly every weekend with us as a family. We shared synagogue services, Saturday night dinners, trips to the public pool, Grandma Rev’s personalized art classes, and eating baked potatoes at fast food restaurants. Even when Grandpa Jack’s Alzheimer’s disease caused him to lose all speech and ambulatory skills, he would still hum the tune to the Chatzi Kaddish prayer as he was wheeled through the hallways of his nursing home. Jack and Rev were my parents’ best friends, and my greatest influence other than my parents. I could talk to my grandmother about everything and shared my deepest feelings with her. As I got older and she prepared to live in an apartment, I enjoyed long visits sorting through her decades of possessions and hearing about family history. Grandma used to wear rings that seemingly cut off the circulation in her meaty fingers. Their Silver Spring house was robbed in the nineties and most of Grandma’s fine jewelry was stolen. I don’t believe she had that much to steal, but luckily, whatever she had left in terms of fancy jewelry was just what she wore daily. She wore a ring that was made up of the birthstones of her three children and small diamonds from her mother, Rose Bernstein-Kamp. My aunt, Susan Eisenstadt Dreifuss, who is now the matriarch of our clan since Revelyn passed, made a ring for my sister, my cousin Jessica, and myself out of those stones. Since 2008, I have never taken off my Grandma Rev ring with two diamonds from my great-grandmother and the ruby symbolizing my father’s July birth date (my siblings and I were also all born in July).

Besides schooling and family, there are many wonderful summer camps that reinforce Jewish values, learning prayers, and foster friendships that last a lifetime. Indeed, camp and Jewish lifecycle experiences seem to be the only joyful Jewish moments Americans can agree about. The future of religious education may very well be in their combination. Unlike where most of my Jewish day school friends spent their summers, I went to a few summer programs. I always felt a little sad that I didn’t go to one of the many religious camps like Camp Ramah. While my grandparents summered in the Catskills, my father had attended Camp Kaufmann. My mom went to Akiba and Camp Shalom, among others; those various Union for Reform Judaism programs fostered her Jewish foundation. At ten years old, I started going to a predominantly Jewish camp, Camp Louise, that had limited Jewish content in the Catoctin Mountains in Cascade, Maryland. However, the camp felt extremely non-religious in comparison with the rest of my religious upbringing.

After my bat mitzvah, I really took womanhood seriously. I also wanted to start my training as a professional actress. I had done research about camps that would be a great launch pad for my budding talent and help me make it as an entertainer one day. The all-girls Belvoir Terrace Performing Arts Program seemed like a good compromise, situated in the idyllic Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts but centered around many cultural institutions like Jacob’s Pillow and the Tanglewood Music Center. The other camps were coed and my parents were too conservative to send me away to both a secular camp and a coed overnight camp. I remember my phone interview with the owner. She said something to the effect of: “Yes, most of the girls here are Jewish, but are you sure you wouldn’t be happier at one of those Jewish camps?” I was determined to go, and it was more about convincing my parents.

Perhaps I should have listened to the owner’s advice. It was on the first day, after I unpacked bags, set up my bed and said a tearful goodbye to my parents, that the campers loaded into a large dining hall for lunch. “Kielbasa” was written on a chalkboard and before that day, I had never heard that word. I asked a girl next to me what that was and she told me it was pig hotdogs. My mouth must have dropped. Stunned, I asked, “Aren’t most of the girls here from New York? Aren’t most people here Jewish?”

“I’m from Manhattan,” she corrected me, as if that was the answer to her place of origin and religion. I had never been in a place where Jews openly ate pork. That day I decided I would never eat non-kosher meat again and never have.

Later that same afternoon, I actually experienced antisemitism for the first time. I was excited to wear an asymmetrical one-strapped leotard for dance class. Always modest and uncomfortable getting undressed in front of total strangers, I got dressed under my comforter on my top bunk. Feeling proud of my costume change, my mood quickly changed when I was suddenly accosted by a strawberry-blonde-haired girl who resembled a Barbie doll. This physically beautiful teen popped off her bunk bed and said, “I know why you’re wearing that leotard—you’re Jewish and you’re too cheap to afford the other strap.” I was speechless—I knew there were people out there that believed Jews were greedy and cheap; but where I came from Jews were generous and behaved like everyone else. I certainly wouldn’t have thought of us as cheap—frugal or smart with spending was something else. Immediately I felt like an “other,” and that consciousness has never left me. Still, none of this was enough to deter me from my inner-pride for my Jewishness. If anything, this was all part of some heavenly plan to draw me to meld my two worlds.

(As an interesting aside, decades later, I was called by the now director of the same camp to teach her child for her bat mitzvah and supplement her Hebrew tutoring. We maintained a relationship mostly because my brother had gone to the brother camp, Greylock, and was a superstar camper and athlete. I visited the camp as an adult to teach that student. I helped this child, also in high school, write an essay for her biblical literature class. When I told the camp director and her daughter these two stories, they were horrified and apologetic. I told them it helped shape my identity in positive ways.)

After moving out of Maryland, I made my way to Manhattan to study at New York University’s acclaimed Tisch School of The Arts, with a minor in marketing at the Stern School of Business. I wanted to be a performer and producer. There, I began to see where my natural talents were most appreciated and in conflict. I was appreciated for my ability to do voices and characters (a natural talent I can attribute to having so many Eastern European or Israeli teachers and family members). I had a deep sense of history and intellect that informed my performances and personality. While well praised and highly graded for my talents, my marks were threatened by unexcused absences for religiously observed holidays and even the Sabbath. I couldn’t attend Friday night services at the NYU Bronfman Center because my rigorous program had classes until 6:30 p.m. on Fridays and often the Sabbath would start well before then. I couldn’t attend important auditions at the start of the year that conflicted with Yom Kippur. No one in the acting program wanted to eat with me in the kosher dining hall. I had to navigate my Jewish observance with eating and personal identity. I decided I would join the student senate and form a religiously sensitive club that produced plays with all-female casts.

It was in my third year at NYU that I met my mentor, the prolific composer, director, and writer Elizabeth Swados. Swados found me in my formative years and shaped the woman I am today. She was most famous for her groundbreaking Broadway musical Runaways. By the time she was twenty-eight years old, Liz Swados had four Tony Award nominations, an Obie (Off-Broadway’s highest honor), and countless other awards. Liz Swados was a part-time faculty member at the Tisch School of the Arts. For one of the mainstage productions, she was going to rewrite and devise an adaptation of the Yiddish Classic The Dybbuk. As Liz had a commanding presence and reputation, I was nervous but determined to try out. In my audition, I had to make an otherworldly sound and I screamed from deep within my kishkes (guts). I didn’t know Liz at all, but after I let out the shriek, I saw her light up and her eyes pulse. She pulled me aside at the callback and immediately told me she cast me as the lead, the girl who gets possessed and eventually exorcized. Liz trusted me during the process to guide the cast with Jewish dramaturgy, authenticity, and even religious instruction. When technical rehearsals geared up toward the weeks of production and overlapped with the holy days of Passover, Liz told me I shouldn’t travel home to Maryland for first and second seder meals. Instead, Liz gave me her credit card and let me organize and cook a kosher seder meal for our cast and crew of forty people in her massive New York City downtown loft. We went around the table reading from xeroxed copies of various Haggdot, seder scripts, singing and explaining to a group of mostly non-Jewish, and definitely secular, college kids about the iconic Exodus story and freedom.

With Liz, I expected to star in many future productions. Instead, she asked me to manage literary works for her. At first, I was disappointed but I soon understood her plan. Liz wanted to groom me as a writer, collaborator, and content creator. She and I worked on many musical and literary projects, often with Jewish subject matter. In our meetings on the soft blue couches, we talked for hours about dating, gossip, and my supplemental work as a Jewish educator and tutor in beautiful New York homes and iconic houses of worship. That we were both Jewish, had wild, long hair, and loved shopping, was only part of our similarities. We found inspiration in our teaching, meaning in mentoring others, and both cared about making money, though I was much more business minded. Liz helped me see that I could have an impact outside from being an artist. Liz kept telling me I was too smart to just be an actress, and yet, when I would just focus on teaching, she did not want me to give up entirely on art. She loved the duality in me and memorialized it in some of her writings. She had hundreds of poems that remain unpublished, some that feature me with soulful cole-lined eyes, sentimentally worn down with a charm necklace, kicking the dust with cowboy boots, and long hair like hers whipping in the wind. As gifts, she let me keep the handwritten copies once I decoded and transcribed her shaky handwriting that often had no vowels.

“You better be writing all this down,” Liz would instruct during our long meetings in her Mercer Street loft. It was always the same greeting; I’d buzz her from downstairs and she’d let me in saying “hellooooooo.” I’d take the large clunky elevator up to her second-floor apartment, and as soon as the chrome elevator doors would open, I’d see Mz. Liz standing in her doorway, waiting for me with a smile. Her thick maroon mane would be pressed against the doorpost and wisp up towards her stone mezuzah (doorpost accessory containing a piece of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah) that was designed by her friend, artist Tobi Kahn. Wearing comfortable and warm boots, long baggy pants, and a tighter shirt, Liz was always dressed in layers, as if it were cold outside. Her thin, lanky frame led me slowly into her playground for artists and creativity; her bed was more of a jungle gym with a custom slide, stairs, and even poles to slide down. The floor would always creak under our feet and I would feel honored thinking of all the luminaries who had stepped inside this apartment before me: Joseph Papp, Elie Wiesel, and Julie Taymor. Past the piano, African drums and dolls, posters and awards, beyond the modern but mostly unused kitchen and steel counters with pill boxes filled for each day of the week, we’d sit down in the center, on the mismatched ink-stained, dog-chewed blue couches. They were set up in a square formation for salon-style conversation. Curious trinkets from Liz’s various travels and books were stacked everywhere: poetry, history, graphic novels, and a space for notebooks, reading glasses, pens, and sheet music yet to be written. It was always too warm and my black clothes would turn even more black around my abdomen and arms as I’d sweat during our lengthy talks about all things: literary and poetry work, chasing grants, discussing politics and ideas for new plays or musicals, the jews, my failed dating life, and gossip. I would tell her stories about breaking through to young children on the Upper East Side and accessing their spirituality; it would remind her of the work she did with runaway homeless youth, or relationship building in Washington Heights between Hispanics and religious Jews. Maybe due to her own complicated upbringing with mental illness effecting family members, and ultimately her mother dying by suicide before she was twenty years old, Liz understood young people in their quest to find themselves. She never judged a struggle with darkness but was a torchbearer to help you out of your own tunnel through the other side. Between stories about the actresses Liz had helped to launch (Meryl Streep, Diane Lane, Shaina Taub, and more), Mz. Liz would insist that I wait to settle down and marry; I should break free from religious norms. Liz wanted me to be a leader in the Jewish world.

Like Liz, my mother and father started to suggest a career change to Jewish clergy, but it took me years to warm up to the idea. I did not believe a woman could really hold any such title. Plus, while I was already a “Jewtor,” a religious tutor, since the age of thirteen, I wasn’t totally ready to let go of being an artist. Moreover, I was afraid of what others would think of me becoming a female rabbi. I doubted if I was even legitimate as a clergy member, as only modern streams of Judaism accept female rabbis.

One of my favorite projects Liz and I worked on was an oratorio about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur called Atonement. Then, at age nineteen, famed Tony-winning Broadway composer and actress Shaina Taub was our musical director. Tony Nominees Grace McLean and Justin Levine were in the cast. Years later Liz also composed the music to my lyrics of a musical about the biblical sisters Rachel and Leah. But Liz’s health was up and down, with public struggles with bipolar disorder, and later, a gruesome battle with esophageal cancer. I continued to assist Liz, and worked as a Jewish lay leader; I avoided more serious rabbinic training. I stayed hanging in the balance.

I worked as a Hebrew school teacher, professional Torah reader, family religious service facilitator, bar and bat mitzvah tutor, Hebrew tutor, math tutor, translator, Yiddish actress, Jewish musician and performer, and graphic designer for more than a decade after college. I had a free membership to gyms by working for SoulCycle. I would write, audition, teach, date, fail, and try. I would go to Israel every chance I could. I read books and newspapers in Hebrew. I lived with my older sister. I was diagnosed with Celiac disease in 2011 after being extremely anemic, vitamin deficient, and ill. I was overextended, tired, and unsure of what would bring me a fuller and more steady life. I always had a different Jewish boyfriend—whether Israeli, Sephardic, Persian, or Ashkenazi. Nothing was really working for me. Then Liz got cancer.

One of the last times Liz actively guided the course of my life was through her last work. Walking the Dog, a novel published by Feminist Press, was released after Liz tragically passed away in 2016. I remember when she began to write it and told me that she was including me as a character. Elisheva is me: an enterprising b’nai-mitzvah educator who wears dark eyeliner, performs in Yiddish plays, spins while wearing a heavy charm necklace, and helps the main character mend relationships through Jewish lifecycle moments. In the last scene of the book, my character leads services as a rabbi. At some point during the writing process, Liz sent me a draft and asked me for notes. In the hospital, while working on the book and reviewing Elisheva’s character arch, I asked Liz if that was what she wanted for me. Liz nodded. She wanted me to start the process for formal canto-rial or rabbinic ordination. There was an urgency in us both, as illness reveals how fleeting life and time can feel. It was the push I needed to break free from what held me back and take the lead. I’m lucky that my visionary mentor honestly told me exactly how she envisioned my life working out. I was allowed to change course midstream and that encouraged me to open my tightly held fists to swim a different stroke as the tides changed. Liz believed in me more than I believed in myself. She knew me better than I knew myself. She had been on earth longer than me and seen that change is possible and necessary. I was allowed to redefine my relationship to my religion and its leadership without being disrespectful. She understood that I didn’t have to be one thing, and that I could be a trailblazer like her. I was allowed to ask for a seat at the table even if I didn’t resemble the others already with a place setting. I should trust where I came from, my deeply Jewish foundation, all of the work we did together, and my strongly developed inner voice to guide me for the future’s tough choices. Liz used to call me the “Jewish Wonder Woman,” and reminded me that I possessed all the skills of teaching, storytelling, leading, singing, and empathy to be the title of rabbi—which means “master.” It was kosher to let the gentle current of the universe and her guidance support me on my journey. I started interviewing at religious seminaries right then and began my quest to become a rabbi.

The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was my own fear. I held misconceptions about the few female rabbis I knew. I worried about how others would judge me. Now, I constantly hear people say, “You don’t look like any rabbi I’ve ever known!” I experience a mix of imposter syndrome and butt up against my own and others’ old-school thinking. This critique, at times, has shaken me off my game. However, with age and success comes boldness. I’ve learned that you can never make everyone happy. Once I learned to let go, I was able to gain confidence that allowed me to support and lead families—in short to do the real work. For all the people struggling to find their path and who they are: the most important thing is to live authentically and tune out the bull-plop. I take strength in two quotes: one from Jeremiah 1:18, and the other from an original Bravo Real Housewife of NYC. Jeremiah prophesied, “Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land.” I protect my spirit and values like an iron-clad fortress. The beauty and strength of my belief, conviction, and personal practice can fortify me against negativity from outsiders and within myself. And, to quote one of my favorite reality TV stars, authors, and business moguls, Bethenny Frankel, who popularized the term “zero fucks” so epically it launched a successful apparel line: “The zero fucks lifestyle is a way of life.”⁴¹ I am who I am and I’m proud of it. I drink añejo tequila on the rocks. I keep kosher. I’m head over heels for my dog. I love to dance and sing. I get fired up when I see Jewish people have little to no education. I work out like crazy and even joke that I was even one of SoulCycle’s first brunette employees (when I worked there all the girls at the desk were blonde). I am in love with my husband who does more good in the world than most rabbis, but he doesn’t feel drawn to religious observance. I long to be a mother but fear how it will impact the rigorous work schedule I keep. I am who I am.

I’ve dabbled in the many sects of Judaism and never felt at home in any of them; from Orthodoxy—with a short stint in the Hasidic world—Conservative, and Reform. A little bit like Goldilocks, nothing quite seemed right. So, like many other seekers, I felt the need in New York City to keep tight to my beliefs and individual practice without ever really finding my own community. I think labels are really useful for other people to define you from the outside, but don’t quite do the job of describing a whole person. My husband, Ben, is actually very similar to me. He grew up in Melbourne, Australia and went to a variety of Jewish schools including a cultural Yiddish elementary school called Sholem Aleichem and a Hasidic high school called Yeshiva College Melbourne. He’s been involved in the religious and secular Jewish worlds. He is only really drawn to practices that help preserve or elevate the dignity of other human beings. He also has a killer sense of humor and loves Jewish and Russian food. We maintain an active membership at The Carlebach Shul (Orthodox) and are “friend members” at Romemu (Jewish Renewal Movement) on the Upper West Side; still, we only attend our shuls for major holidays and frequently visit other synagogues for work and religious events in our community of friends and family.

Years ago, before my husband and I officially started dating, he asked me to have a drink at Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side. There, the walls are gold, the ceilings are low, and the lighting is warm; I was convinced this was a date. I had just come out of a relationship with someone who was very religious. Ben and I spoke for at least a half hour about the book Rebbe, by Joseph Telushkin, profiling the life and work of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. We both loved the book, the Rebbe as an inspirational figure, and found many inspiring lessons throughout. Telushkin masterfully tells the story of this seventh-generation head rabbi of the Lubovich movement who transformed Orthodoxy to include loving-kindness, education, race relations, international aid, Zionism, science, and tireless outreach. As the world’s best-known Hasidic movement, Chabad-Lubavich is particularly celebrated for their joyful strategies of engagement and welcoming. The term ChaBaD, coined by founder Alter Rebbe Shneur Zalman in 1775, is actually an acronym for chochmeh (wisdom), bina (understanding), and da’at (knowledge)—the top three devine emanations in the Kabbalah. The Chabad-Lubovich observances are very close to traditional Orthodox, but culturally the members have differences. Chabad has a pay-as-you-go system which makes it hard to track membership but is attractive to people of varying commitment levels. Pew reports sixteen percent of US Jews participate in some part of Chabad services or programming.⁴² You have probably seen their black-hat-wearing shluchim, or emissaries, on streets and in parks handing out religious items and insisting Jewish people to say prayers. Chabad is utterly accepting of all Jews—so long as you have a Jewish mother. They meet you at basic levels. They have ways for Jews to get involved as little or as much as they want. While Chabad has had tremendous success in their programing, and I have personally benefited from meals and several holidays and Shabbat services at their facilities around the world, they are still Orthodox and geared towards male participation and commandment obligations. For a modern family in the modern world, the way the Chabadniks, members, dress can feel strange or off-putting. Due to modesty rules, the large size of families, and limited integration in popular culture, most ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t live lavishly, so their lifestyles aren’t particularly aspirational for outsiders.

In some ways, my life would have been so much easier if I could have just accepted the life of an ultra-Orthodox community member. I would have gotten married at around twenty years old, had children, and could even be planning my daughter’s wedding by now. I had moments in my twenties and thirties that I tried dating ultra-Orthodox men only because I figured after a few dates they’d be crazy not to propose to me. But I was really just trying to put a square peg in a round challah tray. I’m a free spirit and modern person. While sometimes wearing long skirts, I felt ashamed or guilty as a woman who enjoyed wearing pants both literally, religiously, and even for business. I loved to sing at synagogue services while growing up, but I felt silenced during Orthodox services—Kol Isha is the well-known prohibition for a man to hear a woman singing, or that woman’s voice is not permitted to be heard singing in public.⁴³ I couldn’t stand being on the other side of mechitza, a divider, while men would lead prayers; often I was more capable than the Torah reader who chanted with several mistakes and needed corrections. Still, out of respect, when I go to an Orthodox shul as a visitor, I have no problem abiding by their customs. After many months, when I dug deep and checked in with myself, Orthodoxy didn’t feel like home to me and that is why I’m not very active in the Chabad communities around where I live.

The problem with Chabad taking over the bulk of outreach to unaffiliated Jews is that the way they observe isn’t comfortable for a lot of people they serve. At some point, those participants hit a wall and will likely leave. Still, the facilitators of Chabad centers have gotten something right and in my exposure to them; I’ve tried to emulate their openness, friendliness, and non-judgmental nature. They don’t try to focus on all 613 commandments but just a few important ones and they build upon them. My core important principles are Jewish education, holiday observance, and literacy.

I call myself “hipsterdox”: strict about some things, while cool and flexible about other doctrine. I wish I could take credit for the cute term, but it originated from a strictly observant ex-boyfriend (he loved wordplay more than he wanted to accept and marry me). I won’t mention his name, out of respect for his privacy, as not all of his family members even know that he dated someone as hipsterdox as me. Likewise, I started to realize there were many other interesting, successful people out there, who wanted religion in their lives, but they too didn’t feel turned on by the current institutional offering. Being de-shuled doesn’t mean having left the religion. Nothing compares to the ideal Jewish environment that I grew up in. Maybe I’m nostalgic for time with my grandparents and my carefree childhood eating butter pound cake at the shul kiddush, lunch after Sabbath services. After all, I enjoyed going to bar mitzvahs in seventh grade so much that I chose a career with the same weekly itinerary. Maybe it’s a combination of a bunch of things that make me not want to go to synagogue that often; but obviously I’m Jewish and I consider myself an active practicing Jew through and through.

To my surprise, I have always been met with more support than criticism. Other than my Orthodox brother-in-law telling me it was social suicide to become a female rabbi, most people think it’s really interesting, cool, and important work. All the time, women tell me how inspired they are by my choice to break into a male-dominated profession—it has even gotten me attention from Oscar-winning Hollywood moguls and producers. As it often goes, I was always my biggest critic. It was hard to lean in and I stayed away until I couldn’t help it any longer. I can still come up with a thousand excuses why breaking the traditional synagogue model and sharing this book could cause me trouble. There will always be naysayers, “negative Nancys,” or people trying to kill the vibe. They cling to the past or resist change that this world so badly needs. Some lead with closed fists and hearts; some govern with fear and exclusion. There will always be a place for purists, but there is a growing need for innovative providers and leaders like me for the future of faith movements.

Like it or not, all religions evolve and traditions change. This is especially true with Judaism, a religion which originally prescribed worship as ritual animal sacrifice in one central temple. Observance and stringency are changing. Because as of 2023, there are just about 15.5 million Jews out there,⁴⁴ I feel that we can’t afford to lose a single one due to apathy or disinterest. Religion is either becoming totally irrelevant or what you make of it; we are shifting to on-demand mediums in every form of consumerism . . . and religion is not immune to this trend. A lot can be learned from success stories that follow this model, like Uber, Netflix, Amazon, and DoorDash. I operate my rabbinate similarly. Instead of abiding by an institutional board and organizational red tape, I’m free to work when and how I choose. I’m governed by my religion as I understand it, strong morals, and my client’s needs. At one point, I caught the eye of Hollywood producers and made a deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine to develop a documentary series about my professional and social lives as a woman working in a traditionally male-dominated world. It was going to follow the novel work I do and the way I do it. Ironically, we were pitching the show to many of the on-demand streaming networks.

How do I manage to toe the line between modern and traditional, hip and serious, by the book but with my own flavor of chutzpah? I meet families in their environment, see where they are at, and where they are looking to go with respect to their religious practice. Usually, I come in for a specific moment—like a birth, coming of age, weddings, and even death. I do my best to maintain a relationship and presence after the occasion. These are huge life-cycle moments, but also religious matters. People feel the weight of tradition and G-d when they observe these tremendous markers of time. Why does someone like me particularly thrive in this work? I am modern and I look like everyone else who is getting coffee, beauty treatments, or shopping in the same neighborhood. I am open and open-minded. I keep religion relevant and accessible. I’ve practiced a wide array of observance through the years so I can fit in with almost anyone on the religious spectrum. Because I’m in their home, I’m the whole family’s friend or an honorary family member. I’m sure of it, because clients keep inviting me into their homes for the next child’s education, more events, holidays, and sometimes on their vacations to Israel. It takes a village and I’m there to help raise their children with values and meaningful experiences.

Rabbis often use stories and parables in their sermons. Normally they access the canon of rabbinic mashal, stories that expand upon the biblical stories or Jewish law in order to illustrate a point (like an allegory). As a modern, pop-culturally attuned millennial, I’m going to reference a great story told by the wildly successful comedian, Steve Harvey. Harvey was a guest on episode seventy-eight of the Shay Shay Podcast that premiered on April 24, 2023, hosted by three-time Super Bowl champion Shannon Sharpe.⁴⁵ As Sharpe interviewed Harvey about his career in comedy and television, Sharpe asked why Harvey never made the crossover into the movie business. Harvey didn’t directly answer the question, and instead recounted a night out with Denzel Washington. The two were having dinner at Sweet Georgia Brown in Los Angeles when Washington pointed out to Harvey: “I’m going to show you the difference between me and you. Want to know the difference between me and you? I’m a movie star and you’re a TV star,” he said. “Watch this. Stay with me. People would come up to me and say, ‘Oh My G-d, Mr. Washington, OH MY G-D, Mr. Washington! I watch every movie! I go everywhere! Thank you so much because it’s so great.’ You know why man? Because to come see me, you gotta get a babysitter, get your car, stand in line, buy a ticket, stand in another line, buy your popcorn and stuff, go to a seat and wait, and I come up on a screen twenty-five feet tall. Then they leave and they don’t see me no more unless they come to another movie. I’m a movie star,” Washington said. “Watch how they come up to you. When they know you. As soon as they see you: ‘Steve! Whaaaaat! What’s up! Hey man! Steve remember that time!?’” And as Harvey looked at him Washington continued, “You see the difference? The difference is—I’m a movie star and you’re a TV star. They gotta pay to come to see me and they invite you into their house every day.”

Both of these entertainers have become household names with huge followings. But as Washington points out, only one of them feels like family. One of them has fully integrated into the people’s lives, by nature of being in their homes all the time, on-demand, and on a regular schedule with weekly TV shows. The movie star exudes respect and awe, but keeps his audience at a considerable distance. Such is the difference between institutional clergy and an in-home and on-demand religious provider. What makes people feel like religion is truly part of their lives will be a provider like Harvey, someone with whom they can be themselves. I often found that the most active members in any synagogue community growing up, including my parents and grandparents, were friends with their synagogue rabbi. (Funny story, the first love letter I ever wrote was to my grandparent’s rabbi when I was three years old.) My family found a way to bring the institution close to them. It is hard, but doable. However, synagogues are merging to economically survive rising costs of rent and labor. It is understandably difficult for providers to have enough time and bandwidth for hundreds of congregants and really maintain genuine friendships with all of them.

To demonstrate, I recall the hours before one Jewish New Year began. To maintain anonymity, the following is a composite depiction of real clients stories. Typically, most rabbis with a pulpit or synagogue are putting the finishing touches on their sermons and ironing their formal white robes they will wear the next few days. Not me. I had just returned from a shiva call for one of my past clients. If you don’t know, after the funeral, the immediate family of mourners sits at home and hosts prayer groups for seven days, otherwise known as a period of shiva. It is customary for friends and community members to stop by, pay respects, and participate in the prayer groups. I was at this shiva to support my former student. Here I am changing their family name and some details out of sensitivity, but those won’t effect the moral and purpose of sharing this story. My student had tragically lost his mother. I taught Max Leib from the age of ten until his bar mitzvah. For the entirety of our lessons, my apartment was only four blocks away. I ran into Max’s mother practically every day while walking my dog. She was the most loving, warm, and personable woman. She somehow made time for everyone and everything. The Leibs have one other young son that kept up with regular Hebrew school at their synagogue, but Max wanted to work with me for a variety of reasons. Once I finished teaching Max, I also taught his cousins after meeting his Aunt Janet at someone else’s pool in the Hamptons. I heard from Janet that Max’s mom was ill with breast cancer. In the summer of 2023, I bumped into the whole extended family at Georgica Beach in the East Hamptons when my fiancé and I took a quiet stroll. I noticed that Mrs. Leib wasn’t there and asked others how she was feeling. Then, I learned from Max’s Instagram account that his loving mother passed away, three days short of Rosh Hashannah. I no longer teach this client, nor his family. They don’t keep me on some type of retainer or pay me dues. But from our time together, and friendship through study and experience, I am a part of their lives and they are a part of mine. I reached out instantly and texted condolences to all of the family contacts I had. I actually had a death in my own family so I couldn’t attend Mrs. Leib’s funeral. My mom’s Israeli cousin (who now lives in New Jersey) Issac “Yitzchaki” Zaksenberg, lost his loving wife of thirty-four years to ovarian cancer. I remember being a child when Yitzchaki and Beth used to visit our house even before they were married. I remember their wedding was the first I ever attended and I met all my Israeli relatives for the first time in one place. My grandfather’s cousin, Rakhel, gave me a box of chocolates that I savored. I loved Beth and have always loved my cousin Yitzchaki, so without question I rushed to New Jersey and represented my family at the modest graveside funeral. Meanwhile, the following day, I did have a chance to attend the Leib’s shiva. Shiva is typically held in the home of the deceased; it is said that the soul of the departed hovers close to where they dwelled, and so you sit for seven days on low stools, cover mirrors, wear torn cloth, and feel the grief. When shiva coincides with a holiday it is cut short, so there were only two days of shiva for both families. Unlike how the Zaksenberg family held a shiva at their suburban home for my cousin Beth, the Leib’s shiva was held in an historic NYC country club with waiters, catered platters, and a full bar even at noon. This is just how shiva works in New York within some circles. It didn’t take away, though, from the sadness that there are now kids without their mother and a husband without his wife. I showed up because of the little comfort I felt that I could provide hours before my own holiday, with all the preparations I still need to accomplish. It is one of the greatest mitzvahs, or commands, to offer condolences, a shoulder, or support to the bereaved. However, I didn’t see their synagogue rabbis at the country club. This family pays thousands of dollars a year in membership, Hebrew schooling, and ticket fees. I’m sure the rabbis were getting ready for their main event—the High Holidays; that’s what those rabbis get paid the big bucks to do. I was at shiva because I’m on demand for people and in their lives when it counts. I didn’t stay for the whole shiva, but long enough to give each person a hug and offer support.

41 Frankel, Bethenny (@bethennyfrankel). 2022. “The zero fucks lifestyle is the way of life...” Instagram video, July 7, 2022. https://www.instagram.com/p/CiV7XONgFSz/.

42 Pew Research Center, “Jewish Americans in 2020,” 70. 42

43 Hasida, Rav. Gemara Brachot 24a:17 based on Shir HaShirim. (2:14) https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.24a.17?lang=bi

44 The Jewish Agency for Israel. 2023. “Jewish Population Rises to 15.7 Million Worldwide in 2023.” The Jewish Agency for Israel. September 15, 2023. https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-rises-to-15-7-millionworldwide-in-2023/.

45 Shannon Sharpe, Steve Harvey. 2023. EP. 78: steve Harvey on Divorces, showering In Bathrooms, Importance Of Women & Daughter Lori. Club Shay shay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEUlZVBP-j8.