It has been said that inspiration grows where inspiration is needed. I believe that this is true. When I was a child, my parents—determined to find a Jewish connection for their no-longer-Brooklyn-based children—found a place where my older brother and I could excel: a second home at Temple Beth El in Spring Valley, New York. I belted out solos in junior choir, kicked up my heels (literally) on the bima for Purim plays, and started my youth group career at the age of four. Temple Beth El gave me opportunities to engage in Judaism that resonated with my way of interacting with the world, a gift that would help me find and ground myself in Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Jews. I fully belonged.

Finding avenues for creativity and connection through Judaism was not enough for me. I wanted others to experience this connection as well. Once I began teaching and working with the unengaged and underengaged Jewish populations on campus, I learned how I could bestow this gift of belonging onto others who didn’t immediately know how to relate to or find themselves within a new environment. Judaism and the Jewish people felt distant from the Jews on campus who I knew and engaged with daily. I turned “I’m not Jewish enough” into questions and conversations that enabled us to link seemingly-outdated texts and traditions to our modern-day lives. We created unique Shabbat dinner opportunities on campus. We perused Pirkei Avot’s values face-to-face over frozen yogurt. Through individual interactions, we strengthened each person’s recognition of and connection to their own brand of “doing Jewish” by uplifting their questions and stories. Using these unique experiences, we then co-constructed a communal connection, using Judaism itself to draw these Jews close to the Jewish people.

Over the last two decades, I established a structure for my personal brand of a relational rabbinate: uplifting the voices and experiences of others. Through my work with congregations, college campuses, and creative virtual spaces, I find great joy in cultivating conversations and opportunities that highlight personal understandings of practical Judaism. When I hear “I’m not Jewish enough for this,” I see the opportunity to help make Judaism accessible, resonant, and relevant.

Judaism has never been “one-size-fits-all.” When I worked on campus and heard people say, “Judaism says this about…,” I worried that this exclusivist, inaccessible language would make students feel like they could not and did not relate to a monolithic tradition. But Judaism is not monolithic! The most consistent value in Judaism is the value of debate and questioning. As a Hillel educator, an enthusiastic Jewish collaborator, and an engagement practitioner, I opened up students to the plethora of diverse Jewish practices in an inviting and approachable way. As campus students, parents, and seekers continued to claim, “I’m not Jewish enough for this”—a ringing in my ears alerted me to my ability to challenge this conception, reframing the struggle as Rebekah’s succinct yet significant biblical question in Genesis 25:22: “Lamah zeh anochi?—Why is this for me?” My first “Rabbinic Thought”™ had been crafted—I had found my calling in the form of a question.

Through my rabbinical school experience, I learned that my love of empowering others to connect to Judaism on their own terms and in their own time, enabled an expansion of ways to “do Jewish.” During the worst of the pandemic when congregating physically became impossible, pivoting to digital discourse became the best way to explore and experience Judaism. We uncovered new, digital ways—for me, this came in the form of podcasting—to meaningfully express the connection among the Jewish people. Even on Zoom, I could augment access, sharing stories and transmitting tradition. As people sat at home, I was able to amplify my relational rabbinate by crafting quintessential questions and embracing explorational experiences through new media on a weekly basis. Just as architects can find holiness in building a temple or a townhouse,  I was blessed to help build spaces that made Judaism’s teachings relevant and powerful for the Jewish people.

Another way my relational rabbinate exists is in helping others find their ownership of the Jewish tradition by cultivating confidence and competence. By developing the diversity of shared stories, questions, experiences, and difficulties, I believe that we can break down some of Judaism’s boundaries and barriers to entry. This will create a compassionate culture that engenders a feeling of genuine belonging. We can find holiness in encounters where we truly engage with one another’s stories, lean into our passions, and support our learning with the things we love—be it a laser tag Chanukah program, a hike segmented by the shofar service, or co-creating meaningful and memorable Jewish lifecycle moments.

Engaging with one another allows us to cultivate the questioning that is so important in the development and practice of Judaism. When our communities explore and expand their understanding of Judaism with deep questions, feelings of belonging increase as people take ownership of their shared traditions in personal ways. Crafting profound questions empowers us to come together as a community and to pave new pathways as communal and personal challenges inevitably arise.

Jewish institutions are increasingly facing the question “What does it mean to be Jewish at this time?” Answering this question requires relationship, as our communities and opportunities thrive when we invite in multiple perspectives and practices. As a rabbi who loves learning with and from the Jewish people, I find that the best relational rabbinate for me (the answer to my original “Rabbinic Thought”™) comes in the form of an honest exploration and explanation of what Judaism can mean to the Jewish people and the Jews themselves, as well as providing my own inquiries and interpretations.

Lamah zeh anochi? Why is this for me? As a rabbi, I am a sharer of stories, a teacher of tradition, an encourager of examination, a liaison to learning, and a community connector. Judaism—when shared and created meaningfully with the Jewish people—generates an accessible, relational, and resonant environment. As a rabbi, this is my gift to give: to uplift the Jewish people’s voices, to highlight the significant shared and shapable elements of Judaism, and to introduce and reinforce feelings of belonging and ownership for Jews of all ages and stages, wherever they stand on the path of Jewish life.