Shalom! I’m an ordained maggid. That’s a pre-modern Jewish clergy role that has been re-created in this century. In former times, rabbis specialized in teaching and judging halachah, religious law, while maggidim (the plural) focused on spiritual education, especially through storytelling. I hold a master’s degree in Jewish education from Hebrew College, Boston, and received maggid ordination in the line of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi through Rabbi Goldie Milgram.
In spiritual education, I focus on “Torah of Meaning” (learning Torah as a source of personal meaning rather than only as history or law), religion and science, and environmental and climate activism. I'm available as a teller of classic and modern Jewish tales, and of science stories.
As a ritual officiant, I can conduct weddings in New York and many other states, b’rit mitzvah ceremonies, baby namings, and funerals. I will officiate at same-sex marriages and most interfaith marriages--just ask! I'm based in Elmira, New York, serving the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions.