Category: Rabbinic Reflections

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell on Cultivating Hope in a Time of War and Spiritual Challenge

I write this in the shadow of our shared grief. Rabbi Andrea Weiss’s death is a loss to our community, and to the world. So many of us have lost a teacher, a mentor, a trusted colleague. May we continue to teach her Torah of deep scholarship, her love of our precious inheritance, and her commitment to the health of a vibrant, inclusive Jewish tradition.

I am sitting on our Tel Aviv mirpeset in the sun. It is another gorgeous day: blue skies with only whispers of clouds, climbing up to 70 degrees, birdsong complementing the voices of children at play.

I, and they, are grabbing a few minutes of sanity as we wait for the next siren.

The children are outside on the grass because there’s no school. No school, limited commerce, unpredictable intercity transportation. This tiny land-locked country has become an island of fear as we wait for the next siren that will send those of us lucky enough to have one into the shelter.

I am one of the lucky ones. For me, this isolation is reminiscent of Covid times, when we kept inside and apart from others because of a different kind of fear. For the majority of Israelis, these days have taken them back to last June, what is now “the first Iran war,” and to October 7, and the months that followed. For too many, their minds swing back to hours locked in safe-rooms, and the subsequent discovery that beloveds had been murdered or kidnapped and their homes destroyed. And then, months of no recovery, no government support, no new housing, no return of the hostages, alive and dead. All this is just below the surface for thousands who call Israel and Palestine home.

Thousands of residents of Israel walk through their days with unaddressed PTSD. And yet, and yet there is kindness and caring and deep wells of compassion.

And amazing resilience. I spent a day the week before last, just before the war began, in Bethlehem with two friends, an Israeli and a Palestinian friend, both of them activists in Combatants for Peace. We shared coffee and conversation, visiting the Healing Center that Nimala, our Palestinian friend, is building in Beit Jala, then being tourists for an hour at the Church of the Nativity, where we were guided by Mohammed, the husband of their colleague, Fatima. When I was in Palestine last year, Fatima shared her story, thanks to a translator, of her work as a peace activist in Gaza, and her amazing escape to the West Bank. Her story was shared at the annual Joint Memorial last year, read by someone else, as Fatima herself needs to shield her identity.

Thanks to the invitation of Rabbi Efrat Rotem, director of MARAM, I was able, on Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12, to join over thirty of our Israeli rabbinic colleagues for a two-day study retreat. We gathered at Kibbutz Dalia in the north of Israel. Study and meditation retreats have been essential to my professional and spiritual growth, so I was delighted to join my Israeli counterparts for an immersion in Jewish study, prayer, and sharing our work and our lives.

Our colleagues gathered from across the country, from their full-time and part-time positions working for the College, the Israeli Reform Movement, the World Union for Progressive Judaism, individual and regional congregations and k’hilot, training the next generation of Reform Jews in a range of educational settings, and work as chaplains and freelancers. Like the CCAR, our Israeli colleagues include men and women and non-binary souls of a wide range of ages in backgrounds.

Our scholar in residence was our colleague Rabbi Nancy Wiener, Director of the Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling, and professor of Human Relations at Hebrew Union College in New York. Nancy has been researching and writing about moral injury, helping her students and colleagues better understand and address the profound spiritual wounding that takes place when core beliefs are shattered and betrayed.

This topic was not theoretical for the Israeli colleagues who came together from all over Israel. Nancy taught in Hebrew, illustrating her teaching with a series of illustrative Hebrew slides. We learned about the invisibility of moral injury, and the challenge of honoring that we, as caregivers, are each carrying versions of the harm that we learn to identify in others. She reminded us of the essential role of listening and honoring the silence—or the floods of words—that may be shared with us. She taught us the linguistic and clinical differences and similarities between PTSD/post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury, illustrating psychological and spiritual challenges with examples from our sacred texts.

As those of us who have had the privilege of studying with Nancy know well, she challenges her students, in this case, her colleagues, to immediately explore the learning she has shared by breaking into chavurot or small groups. Throughout our day of learning together, we explored a typology of survivor narratives to help us, as listeners, better accompany those who share their stories with us.

Our retreat was expertly and wisely led by our colleague Rabbi Efrat Rotem. Our time together was a rich balance of prayer, study, and play. I especially appreciated our evening of trivia. Efrat is a gifted comedic impresario and had crafted an evening of silliness rivaled only by some of our colleagues’ elaborate Purim presentations. We divided into teams of five to eight and competed with one another for mastery of an extraordinary range of trivia, from daily prayer to rabbinic citations to popular culture to geography. I was fortunate to sit next to Rabbi Michael Marmur; without his translations and encyclopedic mind, I would have missed much of the fun! I loved the easy comradeship—indeed, the full engagement—of our colleagues that, for me, mirrored the deep connections and mutual devotion between them.

Sharing t’filah with other rabbis is one of the greatest gifts of inclusion in our community of sacred service. When we lift our voices together, I am wrapped in sacred intention, reminding me of the clarity that brings me back, again and again, to our holy gatherings.

As I write this, there are no non-Israeli flights into and out of Israel. It is unlikely that our Israeli colleagues will be able to join our annual CCAR Conference in California. We continue to pray as one for a cessation of this wide-ranging and destructive war.

May all who gather for the CCAR know that we are indeed one, each of us working in our own small corner of the world, cultivating sacred seeds of hope in this time of war and spiritual challenge.

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell (HUC-JIR ’86) has been blessed with a rich and varied rabbinic career. She currently serves as Spiritual Director at the New York Campus of Hebrew Union College. Blessed to be a savta of three, Elwell lives in Philadelphia and Tel Aviv with her partner, Nurit Levi Shein.

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Rabbinic Innovation Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbinic Innovators: Rabbi Michael Lezak on Living Torah, Serving the Community, and Transforming Lives

The Central Conference of American Rabbis, Reform Judaism’s rabbinic professional leadership organization, is home to more than 2,000 Reform rabbis across North America and beyond. And while Reform rabbis wear many hats, often at the same time—Torah scholar, officiant, pastoral counselor, chaplain, educator, organizational leader, activist—they also serve in a wider range of settings, changing the shape of the sacred work of the rabbinate with innovative new visions for Jewish communal life.

We’re proud to share the stories of CCAR members who are taking our ancient Jewish traditions and imaginatively and courageously building new programs, practices, collaborations, communities, and transformational approaches to Reform Judaism. We’re also sharing how, even in dark times, so many CCAR members find joy as rabbis, and we share their hopes for the future of the Reform rabbinate and Reform Judaism.

How do you describe your rabbinate?
I am the Director of GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice. GLIDE is both a historically Black church—with a forty-member gospel ensemble and a seven-member funk band—and a social justice/service agency located in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. GLIDE is on the forefront of addressing some of society’s most pressing issues, including poverty, housing and homelessness, and racial and social justice.

GLIDE is dedicated to fighting systemic injustices, creating pathways out of poverty and crisis, and transforming lives. Through our integrated comprehensive services, advocacy initiatives, and inclusive community, we empower individuals, families and children to achieve stability and thrive.

I create immersive learning experiences for elected officials, corporations, foundations, schools, and groups from all over the world. Be they six-hour engagements in the Tenderloin or five-day justice pilgrimages to Alabama, we help learners of all ages wrestle with systemic racism, economic inequalities and, ultimately, summon individuals and groups to moral strength and responsibility to bring healing, hope, and change.

Brandeis San Francisco (the local Jewish day school) brings their seventh graders to GLIDE eight times during the year to learn Torah, to live Torah, and to rise into responsibility as agents of change in their families and in their community. Before Rosh HaShanah, I brought all fifty seventh graders to the beach below the Golden Gate Bridge to sanctify the beginning of the year and to set the stage for the deep engagement with GLIDE. We will return to Crissy Field at the end of the school year for another immersion to take inventory of their learning and to plot out their future justice engagements.

GLIDE and The Kitchen (my wife, Rabbi Noa Kushner, founded The Kitchen fifteen years ago) have an ever-deepening justice covenant. The Kitchen’s K–12 Freedom School regularly meet at GLIDE learning Torah and living Torah. Kitchen members bake 100+ challot most Friday mornings of the year, perfuming the building with the smells of the best challah in town. They then walk challot throughout the building, delivering hot challah to GLIDE staff, who, amongst innumerable righteous acts, serve upwards of 700,000 hot meals every year. The Kitchen’s One City initiative works with GLIDE’s Walk-In Center to get needed items (furniture, cookware, etc.) to newly housed San Franciscans.

GLIDE and The Kitchen also have a years-long partnership with Ben Gurion University (and many other Israeli organizations). BGU sends over twenty students each year for an immersive week of learning at our institutions. The students spend multiple days at GLIDE, serving meals, waiting in the food line, baking challot, and coming to Sunday Celebration. In between, they spend twenty-five hours of shabbat praying, learning, eating, and recharging at The Kitchen and at our apartment.

How has your rabbinate evolved throughout your career?
I was a congregational rabbi for eighteen years. I loved that life. And, having two rabbis in two separate congregations proved unsustainable. In my most recent congregation, I brought my congregants into jails and prisons around the Bay Area, doing restorative justice work, celebrating Shabbat and holidays with incarcerated men, counseling them, and, with the head of the Chevra Kadisha I built in Marin, we taught the men who run the Prison Hospice in Vacaville about taharah and sh’mirah. It was one of the holiest days of my rabbinate.

What is your rabbinic motto that guides your rabbinate?

Psalm 145:14–19: GOD supports all who stumble,
  and makes all who are bent stand straight.
The eyes of all look to You expectantly,
  and You give them their food when it is due.
You give it openhandedly,
  feeding every creature to its heart’s content.
GOD is beneficent in all ways
  and faithful in all works.
GOD is near to all who call,
  to all who call with sincerity.
Fulfilling the wishes of those who show reverence,
  [God] hears their cry and delivers them.

סוֹמֵךְ יְיָ לְכָל־הַנֹּפְלִים וְזוֹקֵף לְכָל־הַכְּפוּפִים

עֵינֵי־כֹל אֵלֶיךָ יְשַׂבֵּרוּ וְאַתָּה נוֹתֵן־לָהֶם אֶת־אָכְלָם בְּעִתּוֹ

פּוֹתֵחַ אֶת־יָדֶךָ וּמַשְׂבִּיעַ לְכָל־חַי רָצוֹן

צַדִּיק יְיָ בְּכָל־דְּרָכָיו וְחָסִיד בְּכָל־מַעֲשָׂיו

קָרוֹב יְיָ לְכָל־קֹרְאָיו לְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָאֻהוּ בֶאֱמֶת

רְצוֹן־יְרֵאָיו יַעֲשֶׂה וְאֶת־שַׁוְעָתָם יִשְׁמַע וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם

What is the most rewarding aspect of your rabbinate?
Building sacred connections across lines that we don’t usually cross in America: race, religion, class, education, and zip code.

What excites you or makes you feel the most hopeful about the future of the rabbinate?
I feel fully in my sh’lichut, being a rabbi at GLIDE six days a week and bringing in Shabbat at The Kitchen every week. It feels like a remarkably sacred balance. I couldn’t do my work at GLIDE without Shabbat at The Kitchen. Plus, my GLIDE colleagues and our clients inspire me to no end.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Valuing the Torah of My Life: Rabbi Laura Geller Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

There were thirty-nine (or so) men and me in that HUC-JIR entering class in Jerusalem in 1971. Many were there to get out of the draft; I was there to figure out what being Jewish meant to me. I was shaped by the identity politics of the late ’60s at Brown University—civil rights, anti-war, feminism—and the two white male Protestant chaplains who modeled a connection between spirituality and social justice.

That first year was hard: my friends were wives of some of the guys in my class, struggling like me with how one can be both Jewish and feminist. My next four years were divided between Los Angeles and New York—also not easy years. I was singled out for humiliation by Professor Steven Passamaneck, but in those days, challenging a tenured faculty for inappropriate behavior was unthinkable. I knew then of President Gottschalk’s inappropriate relationships with other women students. It was only years later (2021) that HUC released the investigation which revealed the sexual harassment, racism, misogyny and homophobia that had existed for years. I’m proud that HUC committed to do teshuvah. I was moved beyond words by the reordination ceremony when Rabbi Andrea Weiss put her hands on me and blessed me.

What did I learn from those early experiences? Beyond the Torah of tradition that HUC taught me, I learned to value the Torah of my life and to explore how each enriched the other.

My work over the years of my rabbinate was varied, challenging and fulfilling. After ordination, I served for fourteen years as the Hillel director at the University of Southern California. My mentor Rabbi Richard Levy taught that everything a rabbi did was holy, from teaching, to counseling, to empowering student and faculty leaders, to encouraging university officials to pay attention to the role of spirituality in higher education. All holy work—including shlepping chairs.

Next I was the regional director of the American Jewish Congress. I learned during those years (1990–1994) how complicated social justice work can be and that this too was holy work. The Los Angeles uprising was in 1992; what followed were years of intense community organizing and reorganizing. I learned how important it was to listen to the experience of people very different from me, and to recognize the ways in which my own privilege as an upper middle class white cisgender woman sometimes made the work of building coalitions difficult. The issues: police reform, intergroup coalitions, gun violence, pro-choice advocacy, Middle East peace, and economic justice (particularly around sweatshop conditions) opened my mind and my heart. And at the same time, my work to create the first Jewish Feminist Center gave me a safe space to find new ways to celebrate the Torah of my life.

When I was forty-four, Joshua was twelve, and Elana was five, Wilshire Boulevard Temple was looking for a Westside address; Temple Emanuel was facing bankruptcy. The leadership of both temples and the senior rabbis supported a merger. Bylaws required that there be a congregational vote; it was defeated by twenty-six votes. Suddenly Emanuel was looking for a rabbi, and I was looking for a new position. The idea of being a part of transforming a challenged synagogue was exciting to me. Even though I had not one day of congregational experience, Emanuel decided to give me a chance. So I became the first women selected in a national search to be the senior rabbi of a major metropolitan synagogue. The headline was: “Woman Rabbi Smashes Stained Glass Ceiling.” The real headline should have been: you can begin your career anywhere and end up anywhere. Take chances. Follow what you love.

I loved the work. Together with lay leaders and talented colleagues, we created a culture that celebrated our different talents, a web of connections rather than a hierarchical structure. We took chances with innovative programs. During those years I was a fellow at the Hartman Institute, part of the first cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and a trustee on the Corporation of Brown University.  Each of those opportunities helped me become the rabbi that I am. I am grateful that I was so often in the right place at the right time.

A few years after I came to Emanuel I found my soulmate, Richard Siegel, z”l. We worked together on a project that became the book Getting Good at Getting Older. Together we were cofounders of the first synagogue village, a partnership between Temple Emanuel and Temple Isaiah for active older adults who want to age in place. Chai Village LA is now in its ninth year.

I became the rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in 2016. I consider this stage not retired but rewired, asking the question: Now that there are more years added to our lives, how do we add more life to our years?

What I look forward to now is continuing the conversation about growing older through my new book, Moments that Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond, coauthored with Rabbi Beth Lieberman. And I look forward to the unfolding of my journey, wherever it leads.

Rabbi Laura Geller is Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Joel Soffin Reflects on 50 Years of Blessings, Community, and Social Action

Looking back, it might seem as if my career followed a straight line, from loving Hebrew school (really), giving the 7th grade graduation speech in Hebrew, to becoming the interim “rabbi” in my senior year at Harpur College. But being accepted at Yale in Economics broke that line. That is, until my (uncompleted) PhD thesis brought me to El Salvador, face-to-face with real poverty, and the realization that Jewish values compelled me to care about the needy and the vulnerable and to try to build a Jewish community that would reflect those values in the context of worship, learning, and social action.

I found that community in, of all places, Temple Shalom, in Succasunna, New Jersey, where 244 families were open to such a vision and joined me enthusiastically for twenty-seven years, making it a reality, whether it was ROQ (Pure) Shabbat creative services with our singing congregation, learning opportunities where all interpretations were encouraged, or worldwide Fain award-winning social action. There was the Temple Shalom question: How can we help you? and the Temple Shalom way of doing things: People come before rules. We doubled in size, drawing from twenty-seven communities, for our whole congregation was one enormous caring community that walked the Jewish walk.

We adopted the Vietnamese Lieu family and six Soviet families, giving them everything they needed. We created the International Committee to Rescue the Mendeleev Family and what became the URJ Adult Mitzvah Corps, building homes in post-Hurricane Sandy New Jersey with Israeli partners and in Maine with teenagers. Groups of us went to Zvenigorodka, Ukraine, bringing a Torah and a 180-piece ark to the newly renamed “Temple Shalom.” 

The Million Quarter Project, which provided that many meals for hungry Ethiopian children waiting to come to Israel, led to my becoming the president of the National Coalition on Ethiopian Jewry. 

None of this would have been possible without the hundreds of people who contributed time and money, lifting my spirits when I was down. We took this holy journey together. I was also blessed with so many mentors along the way who saw something special in me and helped to bring it out: Cantor Arthur Yolkoff, z”l; Chuck Kroloff; Professors Eugene Borowitz, z“l; Larry Hoffman; Michael Chernick; and Norm Cohen. I can only hope that I can do nearly as well by my own mentees, rabbinic and lay alike, here, in Israel, and East Africa, and the seven clergy who grew up at Temple Shalom.

I was blessed with many sabbatical “pieces,” which enabled me to volunteer in Bakersfield, California, with Cesar Chavez, z”l, at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism with the indefatigable David Saperstein, and for months at a time in Israel with Sandy and our sons, Jeremy and Aaron (six grandchildren were yet to come).

When I retired in 2006 as Emeritus, I received two wonderful blessings. One came from Elyse Frishman and the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, where I was welcomed into a second thriving community, spending sixteen years as Sabbatical and Social Action Rabbi and then Talmud and Torah teacher. 

The other came from a congregant who suggested that we create what became the Jewish Helping Hands Foundation, so I could continue my worldwide social action projects. Over twenty years, with no fundraisers and no overhead, we have raised some 2.5 million dollars to help nearly 100,000 new Rwandan mothers receive the eggs and milk they need to heal, to support dozens of genocide widows, and to create youth centers of dance, computers, and English in Rwanda and Uganda. There is also the newly dedicated Mishkan in Rishon LeZion, a sanctuary for people experiencing homelessness and some twenty other projects in Israel.

As my book, The Mitzvah on Your Forehead, recounts, I have found my calling and tried to fulfill it to the best of my ability. My life continues to be one of blessings given and even more received in return. Nearly every homeless person to whom I give a dollar in Manhattan says, “God bless you.” I respond, “May God bless you, too, for giving me the opportunity to help.”

At 81, I’m still going forward full steam, ever grateful for the life I’ve been so fortunate to lead.

CCAR member Rabbi Joel Soffin is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Making a Difference in Israel and Throughout the Jewish World: Rabbi Joel Oseran Reflects on 50 Years a Reform Rabbi

Upon ordination in 1976, I knew two things: I wanted to live in Israel. and I wanted to make a difference in the lives of Jewish people throughout the world. Looking back, I am blessed to have done both and to still be doing both. 

My goal of living in Israel was sealed when I met my wife, Rachelle, from Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) who was working in the NFTY office after graduating from the WUJIS program in Arad. I was working back then at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem after my ordination in 1976. I was sure if I met a woman to marry who was already committed to living in Israel, my goal of making aliyah to Israel would become a reality. It did. 

After a few important years of working in the US as a rabbi in Los Angeles, my next goal was to secure a position back in Israel that would enable me to serve the Jewish people both in Israel and around the world. This came about when I met Rabbi Dick Hirsch, Executive Director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, at a UAHC biennial in Toronto in 1985, and asked him if I could come work with him at the World Union office in Jerusalem. He told me flat out that he had no budget for a position. I asked him what if I would bring with me funds to cover my position for two years, would he then have a position for me. Anyone who knew Dick Hirsch would know his answer:  “Absolutely,” he said, “you bring the funding, I will create a job for you.” I did and he did. 

The World Union position became secure after WZO funding began the following year. It was my professional home for thirty years and a source of tremendous pride and satisfaction for my rabbinate. During those years I was able to “make a difference” in Israel, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and throughout the world. I learned a great deal from Dick Hirsch, which helped me build my symbiotic relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. I worked in both, and I came to appreciate the value and importance of both. 

Arriving in Israel with two small boys (my third son was born in Israel in 1989), I quickly came to see that if there was going to be a school setting that would be the right mixture of liberal Judaism and secular studies, I and other like-minded parents would have to establish it. And so we created a new school in Jerusalem, linked to the TALI educational system (Tigbor Limudei Yahadut) which began using rooms in HUC-JIR and Bet Shmuel in Jerusalem and later blossomed in the neighborhood of Bayit V’Gan (imagine that). Back in the late 1980s, that was a big deal. 

Timing is everything in life: I fell into my World Union position just as the Soviet Union was imploding and Jewish life was, once again, a possibility for millions of our Jewish family members who knew nothing about Judaism, but everything about their deep commitment and sense of belonging to the Jewish people. I helped build Jewish communities in the FSU and raise up a generation of rabbis and lay leaders there, all the while feeling that this work was personal as well as professional. My family roots on both my mother’s and father’s side were from Ukraine and Belarus. What an opportunity to contribute to those family members who were less fortunate than I—who lived through the Shoah and were searching for a meaningful doorway into their Jewish identity. Progressive Judaism provided that doorway and I was there to help open it for hundreds upon hundreds of my family still in the “old country.”

I traveled the world with the World Union, helping to establish and support Progressive Jewish congregations throughout the world, but primarily in Latin America and Europe. The last community I helped establish was in Rome, Italy. When I retired from the WUPJ in 2016, I began serving Beth Hillel in Rome on a part-time basis, and ten years later, I continue to be the rabbi for the community. We have purchased a building in a beautiful neighborhood in Rome and will begin renovations later this year. This is a retirement I never imagined, but one which I highly recommend.

My class of 1976 met in Atlanta at the recent NAORRR conference. What an amazing few days to remember who we were back in 1971 in our first year in Jerusalem and then again, fifty years after our ordination. I am grateful for the opportunity my rabbinic ordination afforded me to help make a difference, both in my beloved Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

Rabbi Joel Oseran serves Beth Hillel in Rome and is the VP Emeritus, International Development of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Supporting, Sustaining, and Guiding Jewish Communal Life; Rabbi Jack Luxemburg Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

Looking back over forty years as a congregational rabbi, plus ten as an “active emeritus,” it is clear to me that I was fortunate to be engaged in the Jewish enterprise at a time of great energy, anticipation, creativity, and purpose. Intimations of peace were all about. The work of liberating Soviet and Ethiopian Jews was in high gear. Movements of social justice and community service were making progress. We felt the arc of history bending towards justice and opportunity for all. Our congregations were thriving. Our Movement and its affiliates were opening new perspectives on Jewish life, learning, and spirituality in America, in Israel, and around the world. Our camps and our seminaries were raising up new generations of Jewish leaders and teachers. And we eagerly took part in it all.

It may have been among the best of times, but it also contained the seeds of for some of the most difficult of times. It is hard to recall the heady times of Middle Eastern peace-making in light of the wars, the intifadas, the terrorism, and the destruction wrought on both Israelis and Palestinians—and Americans—since Sadat’s famous visit. The “start-up” nation became the start of arguments. We are excused, if not expelled, from certain tables where pressing matters of social justice are being discussed. Public institutions of culture and learning, which Jews have supported, sustained, and in which we have flourished, feel less welcoming. The political culture of promise has morphed into one of prejudice. Our Movement, its institutions and affiliates struggle to keep pace. And we were part of that, too, even if reluctantly.

It seems to me this is a pattern repeated in our history. In how many times and places did our folk and faith flourish only to flounder when the political, economic or cultural currents shifted?  Sometimes, our people fled to more promising situations. Too many times, however, the option of flight was denied. Those communities suffered greatly, and they are no more. But, despite all that, our people live. Our communities persist. Our Judaism remains vibrant and relevant. It is a miracle too often taken for granted. And, happily, we are part of that, too.

My fifty years in the rabbinate have been fifty years of supporting, sustaining, and guiding Jewish communal life; fifty years of sharing, teaching and, to the best of my ability, modeling the wisdom of our Judaism, the timelessness of Jewish values, and the sensitivities of the Jewish soul. Fifty years of celebrating, consoling, listening, and comforting. Fifty years of so many interactions and episodes, both social and spiritual, they are beyond count. I have come to this: That what our folk and faith derive from the times of plenty (of whatever kind) is what will sustain us through the lean years. It is not about social, political, or economic success. It has always been about communal fortitude, spiritual strength, moral clarity, and prophetic vision, the insistence that tomorrow can be, should be, better than today, and that the vision applies not only to our people, but to all people. Not only on the grand scale, but also in the context of daily interactions and personal relationships. And that our Torah, our traditions, our prayers, the entirety of our Judaism is to inspire us, guide us, and move us towards that ideal.

Embroidered on the corners of my tallit is the teaching of Shammai:

שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:  

Shammai used to say: Make your [study of the] Torah a fixed practice; speak little, but do much; and receive all men with a pleasant countenance (Pirkei Avot 1:15:2).

This is my watchword. I tried to teach and live my rabbinate with integrity and consistency, which does not preclude creativity or growth. I tried to let my deeds outnumber my words (a losing battle). And I tried to be as open, embracing, and caring a person as I believe Judaism to be.

I thank my teachers, my colleagues, friends, and family, my congregants and students, for the privilege and pleasures of serving my folk and faith as Rav b’Yisrael.

CCAR member Rabbi Jack Luxemburg is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

A Career Overflowing with Satisfaction and Joy: Rabbi Jan M. Brahms Reflects on 50 Years As a Reform Rabbi

I have been blessed with the privilege of bearing the title “rabbi” for one-half century. That designation alone has resulted in respect, admiration, and opportunity. Doors have been opened for me in congregations, communities, and academics. My goal has always been to act in accordance to that honor. Much of my success and fulfillment could not have been possible without the unlimited support of my wife of fifty-two years, Ann Dee, my children, and in retirement, my grandchildren.

Being a rabbi, I was invited into the lives of my congregants at the most significant religious moments of their lives, birth, b’rit and ‘brit b’not, naming, consecration, bar/bat mitzvah, confirmation, wedding, and the end of life. I have been trusted to advise during times of challenge and confusion along with rejoicing and accomplishment.

Often, past congregants will contact me remarking that I was helpful to them at a significant moment of their lives. Recently a grieving mother came up to me shortly after the untimely death of her twenty-five-year-old son telling me how much he admired me for making a positive influence on his life. I treasure those relationships.

It is with much satisfaction that I have been able to teach Torah within my congregations along with adjunct professorships at colleges and universities.

As president of my rabbinic region, MWARR, I was honored to serve on the Board of the CCAR learning from colleagues. Through the CCAR, I was also able to serve as the chairperson of the Mentoring program to hopefully assist fifth-year rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and into the first two years of their rabbinates. I was entrusted to serve on the NCRCR trying to guide rabbis and congregations in resolving conflicts and bring shalom to all parties.

To my teachers and students, my classmates and colleagues, my congregants and friends, and especially my family I say, “Todah rabbah” for granting me a career filled to overflowing with satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy.

CCAR member Rabbi Jan M. Brahms is the Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Beth Shalom of The Woodlands in The Woodlands, Texas. Throughout his rabbinic career, he also served synagogues in Madison, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Supporting Reform Rabbis, Religious Pluralism, and Democracy in Israel: Rabbi Barry Block Reflects on Participating in the 39th World Zionist Congress

In late October 2025, hundreds of Jewish leaders—including several dozen Reform rabbis—from around the world gathered in Jerusalem to participate in the 39th World Zionist Congress. Reform and progressive leaders came together in the hopes of advancing our shared vision of a just, democratic, pluralistic Israel that equitably represents all of Israeli society. Here, Rabbi Barry Block reflects on his experience.

As part of the ARZENU delegation to the World Zionist Congress, I was asked to consider my “why,” i.e., my reason for working to maximize votes from the community I serve for the Vote Reform! campaign and then to travel to Israel for the Congress. My “why” is clear: To express through action my partnership with our Reform Movement in Israel, together with a wonderful group of rabbinic colleagues and global Jewish leaders of all ages and genders.

Members of MARAM—Israeli Reform rabbis ordained by Hebrew Union College Jerusalem—are my teachers and inspiration, instilling confidence in the future of a Jewish and inclusive Israeli democracy that seeks peace and embraces shared society.

Just as I need my Israeli colleagues to teach me how best to articulate my progressive Zionism in the US, they consistently welcome and express a need for partnership and support from CCAR rabbis and the communities we serve worldwide. I was honored to be part of a diverse global delegation to progressive Zionists who came to Israel for a hard-to-explain and quixotic gathering, the World Zionist Congress.

Foreign as the process is to Israeli and Diaspora Jews alike, our leaders assured that we achieved critical goals for Israel’s future. Working with closely aligned partners such as the Conservative Movement and others with whom we share less, Shoshana Dweck and Harry Levy led the delegation to assure robust ongoing support for our Movement in Israel and the adoption of policies and declarations to chart a path toward a better future for every citizen of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. 

Those who are concerned about the next generation ought to meet the young adults who came from around the world to be part of ARZENU’s Reform delegation and also in MERCAZ, the Conservative Movement’s analogous organization. Many of them products of URJ congregations, camps, and Israel programs, they range from the youngest of adults to new college graduates to recently ordained rabbis. Their Zionism is as progressive as it is robust, making a congregational rabbi their parents’ age very proud.

My week in Jerusalem fittingly ended with HUC’s beautiful ordination ceremony for six new Israeli Reform rabbis, three of whom I have already had the privilege to learn with. One of them, Rabbi Yael Schweid, is to serve a new community seeded by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism in the Eshkol Regional Council in the Western Negev, including several kibbutzim that were massacred on October 7—Be’eri, Nir Oz, and Nir Yitzchak among them. 

I left Jerusalem with my friend, Rabbi Ayala Miron, to welcome Shabbat with her and the congregation of Bavat Ayin, in Rosh HaAyin, as I do whenever I’m in Israel. Israelis are often amazed that Rosh HaAyin, known as “a Yemenite city,” has a Reform congregation. It’s packed every Friday night. The community center they use for worship works for them for now, but they need and deserve their own synagogue. Israel’s courts agree, thanks to our Israel Religious Action Center. As a rabbi who serves a geographically isolated community in Little Rock, Arkansas, I understand the unique importance of Bavat Ayin having its own synagogue, proudly announcing the presence of relevant, egalitarian Jewish spirituality and culture where it is least expected.

I left Israel on Motzei Shabbat Lech-L’cha with renewed optimism for the future of our Reform Movement’s liberal values in Israel and worldwide.

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is the editor of  The Mussar Torah Commentary and  The Social Justice Commentary, both published by CCAR Press.

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Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Presence, Partnership, and Compassion in Action: Serving Shoham Israel’s Ve’Ahavta Reform Community In a Time of War

Rabbi Rinat Safania Shwartz serves the Ve’Ahavta Reform Community in Shoham, Israel. Here, she shares her experience serving the Reform Jewish community in Shoham during the twelve days of the war with Iran, part of the ongoing war they’ve been living through since October 7, 2023.

Living Without a Shelter

To protect myself emotionally, I tried to disconnect from the reality of what might happen to my family and me. Still, on the first morning of the war with Iran, Friday morning, I joined hundreds of Israelis at the supermarket—stocking up as if for a world war. I spent 2,000 shekels buying food and water, feeling that familiar sense of hysteria and dread. That’s how we cope here.

My home has no shelter room. We run to my brother-in-law’s when sirens sound. Two weeks prior, just as we sat for Shabbat dinner, the first siren sounded. The evening was over before it began. We hardly slept. We got up three times during the night because of the missile alerts. When not in the shelter, we sat in fear, watching horrifying images from Ramat Gan and Rishon LeZion—the first two cities to be directly hit by deadly missiles.

And yet, in a strange way, the missile fire from Yemen in recent months has developed in us some kind of resilience. The kids know the drill, but the fear has only grown deeper. The destruction is massive. The uncertainty is endless. And through it all, I’m checking on our community, leading Zoom-based Kabbalat Shabbat services, trying to keep us spiritually connected.

I worry not only for us, but for our Jewish brothers and sisters abroad, facing growing threats. It’s heavy. I try to function through distance, but it’s hard.

A House Destroyed

It was a terrible night: eleven dead, three missing, dozens injured, and thousands without homes. People emerged from rubble in pajamas. The trauma is everywhere.

As a community, we canceled events due to safety regulations. We have no shelter room in our synagogue. Instead, we called every member, making sure they had shelter. Then, I received a message from a young family in Rehovot—a couple I married—whose home was destroyed. They made it to the shelter just before the explosion. Now they had nowhere to go. I talked the mother through what to pack. I drove over to be with her. She was having a panic attack. We sat in the shelter together, along with others waiting to be evacuated. Volunteers, social workers—everyone helping each other. Eventually, the family was sent to a hotel in Jerusalem.

That same day, we opened a joint relief center with Shoham’s city council to gather donations. And, like every afternoon since October 7, we stood at the intersection, holding photos of the hostages.

Each night brought with it the same uncertainty. And we were afraid.

Our Community Response: Acts of Love and Solidarity

In the face of crisis, our Ve’Ahavta Reform community in Shoham is motivated by compassion and purpose.

We turned our synagogue into a center of compassion, in partnership with Shoham’s welfare department and the Yad MiShoham volunteer organization. We collected clothing, toys, and baby items for displaced families. Teens sorted donations. Volunteers delivered supplies to hotels.

Our youth baked challot and cookies for families of people called to reserve duty. Others prepared meals for these families. Women crocheted dolls for evacuated children. We also supported children with special needs whose routines collapsed, offering relief to their parents.

This is what a community looks like: presence, partnership, and compassion in action.

Holding the Soul

Amid the chaos, we held onto our spiritual core. Each evening, after praying for the hostages, we opened a quiet Zoom space. No expectations. Just presence. On some days, five people attended. On some, fifteen. I was there each time— not to preach, but to be with whomever needed it.

We continued our Beit Midrash. We kept singing, even through tears. Board members called every elder just to ask “How are you today?:

Shabbat continued—on Zoom, or around a single candle. We made space for grief, fear, resilience—and for one another.

Small Hands, Soft Clay

Sometimes healing begins with something small—like soft clay in a child’s hands.

Ronit Hana Golan, a member of our community, opened her pottery studio to parents and children. Schools were closed. Fear was high. Most families were stuck at home. The workshops took place near a bomb shelter. Kids could create. Parents could breathe. It wasn’t just art, it was therapy. A reminder: we are not alone.

Standing with Displaced Israelis

Nearly a hundred buildings around the country were completely destroyed or severely damaged, and tens of thousands of Israelis have lost their homes and had to be displaced. Many lost everything. Others had only ten minutes to retrieve whatever they could

In Bat Yam, we met evacuees living in hotels. They face emotional trauma and bureaucratic chaos. Most are not even officially recognized as displaced. Some were instructed on Saturday night to leave their rooms by Thursday—with nowhere to go. Agreements extended hotel stays until Sunday, but the future is unclear. We’ve started visiting hotel rooms, offering presence, comfort, and dignity.

Now is the time for Jewish solidarity. To listen, to support, to act.

Rabbi Rinat Safania Shwartz is the founding rabbi of the Ve’Ahavta Reform Community in Shoham, Israel.

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inclusivity LGBT Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Robin Nafshi’s Pride Reflections: ‘They Got a Lesbian Rabbi After All’

In honor of Pride Month, the critical contribution of our LGBTQIA+ rabbinic and Jewish community, and the 35th anniversary of the CCAR Report on Homosexuality in the Rabbinate, the CCAR is honored to share the stories of the experiences of LGBTQIA+ Reform rabbis.

In the mid 2000s, I applied for a pulpit position in a very conservative part of the country. I had been ordained three years prior, and had not received a single full-time job offer. I pursued this position in part because my partner’s father was from the area and she had many, many wonderfully loving relatives living there.

I was met at the airport by the synagogue’s search chair. He told me that he was excited about my candidacy, as he really hoped the congregation would offer me a job and prove that they were not a bunch of rednecks. I knew my time with these folks was going to be challenging.

At the synagogue, the first person I met asked me if I talked about being gay in all of my sermons. I responded that I usually talked about the Torah portion, not my sexuality. Another person asked if in my previous jobs, I was allowed to work with children. I was so stunned, I just looked at the person with a blank stare.

When I finally got around to meeting with the committee, the questions were irrelevant and even offensive. I was grateful when someone asked me about my favorite professional basketball team, a sport I had not followed since the 1970s. “I was a fan of the New York Knicks when I was a teenager,” I said, not revealing that it was because my dad was a Knicks fan; “I’m sure I could become a fan of the local team if that’s important to the community.” I wondered what presumptions were going through their heads when they asked a lesbian rabbinical candidate about sports. Did straight women get those questions?

Needless to say, I was not offered the job. A wonderful colleague did, who, after a few years, came out of the closet and married her female partner. They got a lesbian rabbi after all.

Rabbi Robin Nafshi serves Temple Beth Jacob in Concord, New Hampshire. Her partner, Cantor Shira Nafshi, also serves Temple Beth Jacob.