May our lives be reflected in our prayer; may our prayers guide us to reflect on our lives.

The Purpose of Prayer:

Hashiveinu Adonai Eilecha, v’nashuva. Take us back, Adonai, to you, and we will return. Each time we enter into prayer, we step into a moment of reflection. Prayer provides an opportunity to reflect on our values, our relationships between others, our selves, and God, and to do so all within community. I have seen, too often, how prayer spaces can make people feel unseen, bored, or lesser than. My goal as a cantor is to create a prayer space which celebrates community, impresses upon us the moral urgency of our time, and is spiritually deep.

Life Reflected in Prayer:

For the first 10 years of my life I lived in an interfaith house. I remember celebrating Christmases with my maternal family and a hanukkiah being lit right beside the christmas tree. In California, we searched for a synagogue where our life was reflected in the prayer space. Not only did we find a space where we were welcomed, but our rabbi, Rabbi Janet Marder, created a ritual to honor all of the non-Jewish parents of Jewish children. When my mother ultimately decided to convert, she was welcomed with open arms; still beloved just the same, within the covenant, too. As Rabbi Marder held our family in its complexity, I aim to perform rituals that hold congregants in all aspects of their lives.

In today’s age of isolation and cynicism, it is all the more important to be part of a spiritual community - and to explain its value. When a community member is in the hospital, or just had a death in the family, we need community. It is a place to meet people across differences but with common ground. Synagogues are places for Jewish education and opportunities to cultivate our interior lives. And all of these merits would be for nought if our values, reflected in our prayer, weren’t practiced within the community itself. That starts with helping people feel seen each time they enter the sanctuary.

Prayer Guiding Life:

As our prayers reflect our lives, so too should our prayers guide action. Our Torah teaches that we are here as humble stewards of God’s earth (Gen. 2:15), and that justice should roll down like an unending river (Amos 5:24). From an early age, caring for those unlike me has been an important value. I got involved in efforts to raise money for Save Darfur, fought for marriage equality in California, and led my J Street U chapter in college. The image of a God as loving and compassionate (Ex. 34:6/High Holiday Liturgy), combined with the Talmudic injunction that a life is the whole world (Sanhedrin 37a) were powerful distillations from where I derived Jewish pride; as a nation which promotes dignity for all human beings.

As I grew older, my pride in Judaism morphed from a motivator towards social justice into a holistic life; filled with learning, ritual, friends, music, and culture. Most acutely, I found this on a farm called Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center as a Jewish outdoor educator. It was there that I started paying heed to shabbat, learned how to pray, and lived with Jews from all backgrounds and denominations. Not only did I live with all kinds of people, but we learned to care for each other. From orthodox rabbis to queer socialists, our differences only strengthened our relationships.

When disagreements arose, we were able to approach them from a place of shared sense of community. We were trained in non-violent communication, giving us the tools to approach disagreement with shared care for the other person. On the occasions where the disagreements were too fraught, including questions around Israel, we still had to show up in order to work together, eat together, and pray together. The disagreements didn’t disappear, but the priority was on the task we had of building our Jewish community. Having this opportunity gave me the ability to navigate emotionally challenging conversations with steadiness and care.

Theology:

I also developed my theology while living at Isabella Freedman. My job there was to help 5th and 6th graders develop a relationship and sense of responsibility towards the earth through Jewish language. We made blessings for glorious sights, shouted “sababa” (slang for “cool” in Hebrew) at interesting finds, and prayed outside. I found God there; where there was almost entirely unmediated connection between myself and others, or myself and nature. God was present when I felt my hands in the soil, and equally present during deep conversations with students or peers. I was moved by Jewish prayer because it connected me to the Jewish family across time and space; all while I conferred with God. My relationship with God and my connection to Jewish prayer each encourage me to live a life guided by my values every day.

Another place where God showed up for me was on the streets of San Francisco. In 2023, I spent the summer as a pastoral counselor for the San Francisco Night Ministry, where I provided spiritual care for those who lived on the streets of some of the grittier parts of the city. Some of the people were in the lowest moments of their lives. But in the act of being a present listener to them, I saw people who were simply searching for dignity. They were kind, humble, and lost. We prayed together, and I think of them often.

Indeed, my life was guided by my prayers, and my prayers reflected my values.

Jewish Spiritual Leadership:

So my sense of Jewish spiritual leadership was set. I see concentric circles of care from outside in; care for the earth, connect across all of the Jewish people, develop a relationship with my local community, and, most importantly, be present to the congregation to whom I serve. My priority is always on the person in front of me; making sure that they feel cared for and supported in their spiritual journey.

To that end, at Temple Emanuel I learned the value of creating structures that simplify our work so that we can provide crucial pastoral care. At Temple Emanuel, we had developed a structure for everything from our thank you emails to the High Holy Day services. This allowed me more time to be present with families in the B’nai Mitzvah program, conversion candidates, congregants struggling with sobriety, and much more. Creating structure allowed everyone to show up in a system which they trusted. I hope to create or reinforce such systems wherever I am, so that I can focus on the important thing: the individuals in front of me.

Music is often the doorway into community, and I hope to lead prayer which creates a wide door for community. I always encourage singing, and I strive to make the music beautiful for those who are new to the prayers. I pay attention to the congregation’s needs and history, and I take joy in introducing a community to the wide breadth of Jewish music. Prayer should be fun, and it should lead us towards introspection and, ultimately, acting out our values.

The Work of a Lifetime:

I couldn’t be more grateful for the work that I found myself doing. My entire purpose as a cantor is to make a better world by helping people grow in their own spiritual journeys. I love leading prayer, teaching Torah, providing pastoral support, and making a beautiful spiritual home for our community. My job as a prayer leader is to set an example of living a values-driven Jewish life. I chose to be a cantor because I wanted to show, not tell, how to live. I love the Jewish people, I love all kinds of Jewish prayer, and I love Judaism. The rest is commentary.