As a congregational rabbi, much of my time is spent leading services, teaching classes and doing my best to strengthen community life, but my passions and interests ensure that my work extends beyond the walls of my community. For both my own spiritual journey and for those I teach, I believe that the spiritual path needs to open us up to the world, and sometimes even be an adventure.
My work has taken me many places. For many years I was a rabbi and educator at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, Oregon and have also been blessed with the opportunity to serve as spiritual leader in Conservative and Reconstructionist congregations in Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I have been a song leader and music teacher at various camps and synagogue supplementary schools, a nursing home chaplain and a university student advisor. Before moving to Canada, I was the rabbi of Beit Polska, the Union of Progressive Congregations in Poland, where I led a multi-congregational community working to help rebuild Jewish life in Central Europe. Currently I am the rabbi of Congregation Dorshei Emet, in Montreal, one of the first Reconstructionist synagogues and the first in Canada. Throughout all of this, social justice work, including environmental issues and animal rights have help guide my work and my activism.
I am a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, part of the denomination of Reconstructing Judaism. The movement has been at the forefront in creating inclusive and creative Jewish communities which honour many ways of seing God, faith and culture. Reconstructionist communities are queer celebratory, welcoming to interfaith and cultural/humanist families and individuals, and work to make Judaism relevant to an ever-evolving world. I hold an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I focused my studies on informal and community education, and worked as an educator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Living Museum of the Holocaust. I participated in the Clergy Leadership Incubator program through CLAL, and was part of the first rabbinic cohort of 18Doors, a program supporting and advocating for interfaith couples in the Jewish community.
I am passionate about helping to create participatory and holistic spiritual communities, where learning is intergenerational and a part of life both inside and outside of the community space. I work to ensure that all people on the spiritual search, including the unaffiliated, interfaith and questioning, find ways to connect to and learn from each other and see the importance of community in an ever changing world. I enjoy helping others through the journey of life, and approach all pastoral encounters with compassion and an understanding that we are all on a search for connection and meaning.’
My Connection with Animals
As I child, I was blessed to have a wide variety of pets. In addition to our family cats, over the course of my childhood, I had rats, gerbils, lizards, fish, hermit crabs, various insects, and a well loved turtle name Mikey (who “ran” away from my bedroom, never to be seen again). Each of these animal friends were truly my companions as I made my way through the joys and challenges of growing up. Learning from them helped me reflect deeply on my relationship with animal life and the natural world, and through expanding my world view, were a large part of my decision to become a rabbi. Through caring for these animals, I learned about the importance for reaching out to those most in need, and was able to deeply reflect on how we treat animals influences the way we treat people. I became active in animal rights issues in my teens, and worked in various organizations to fight against the exploitation of animals and help create a more compassionate world.
As I continued in my studies, I was excited to learn about the deep connection between Jewish tradition and compassion towards animals, and saw how both Judaism and other faiths saw how we treat animals as reflective on so much else in society.
In addition to a life of learning, I completed the Pet Chaplain training program through the Association for Veterinary Pastoral Education, and am currently enrolled in the Pet Loss Grief Certification program through The American Institute of Health Professionals and the End of Life Pet Doula certification program through the University of New England. I am on the Rabbinic Advisory Council of both Shamayim: Jewish Animal Advocacy and the Center for Jewish Food Ethics.
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I am married to Sarah Dolin, an Judaica artist and community leader, and I am the father of three wonderful kids, Elijah, Ezra and Nehama. We share our home with three cats and a very active Golden Retriever named Cora.