Rabbi's Reflection
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor
I love being a rabbi.
At any given moment, a thousand urgent things can happen. And sometimes I can do some reading. In any interaction, what was casual conversation can explode with profundity. And sometimes heavy conversations are lightened by friendship. Every day is its own experience with unpredictable questions and interpersonal navigation. And sometimes those three things spontaneously lead to the One. When it is a difficult day, it is difficult because it is a reflection of life. And when it is a lighter day, that is life too. Being a rabbi is living life intensely, walking with awareness.
I love being a rabbi because I am supposed to be a rabbi. But it is also so powerful to be a rabbi because anyone can. The conversations I have with people are not hierarchical – they are honest, open-ended reflective conversations, even when I am required to provide an answer. And those very answers are birthed from my soul's weddedness to Torah as lived and learned – and I don't own the totality of this journey. I get to live it, revisit it - and share it - frequently and with newness.
Every intense moment carries something of God, something exquisitely inclusive of both Infinity and mortality. We each are that.
Being a rabbi is being in love.
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Rabbi Menachem CreditorJoined: September 20, 2007 A prolific writer, musician, and leader in the Conservative Movement, Menachem Creditor’s rabbinate has taken him from coast to coast. For the first 5 years of his rabbinate he served as the assistant Rabbi of Temple Israel in Sharon, Massacusets. His work within that community lead to meeting Rabbi David Paskin, with whom Rabbi Creditor created Shirav and recorded two albums. Their album Deeper & Deeper contains the track Olam, which has become a spiritual anthem in the Renewal, Reform, and Masorti world. Rabbi Creditor's first solo album "Within" was released in 2011. Described as “a vocal proponent of gay and women’s rights”, Rabbi Creditor co-founded Keshet Rabbis, the alliance of gay friendly conservative rabbis and recently, Rabbi Creditor became the international co-chair of Rabbis For Women of the Wall. Since becoming Rabbi of Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, CA in 2007, the synagogue’s membership has swelled, the participatory nature of the synagogue has flourished, and the outreach programs generated, including Bay Area Masorti, which Rabbi Creditor currently chairs, have achieved regional, national, and international recognition. Rabbi Creditor currently serves on the Executive Council of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Board of Trustees of the UC Berkeley Hillel, and on the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of Shalom Bayit. Rabbi Creditor’s writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Forward, The Jewish Week, J. Weekly, The Jewish Advocate, The Boston Globe, Kolot: Voices of CJ, JewsbyChoice.org, Conservative Judaism, and in several Jewish anthologies, including the recently published Paths of Torah. Rabbi Creditor has been called a "power-blogger" and his rabbinate is a constant vehicle for Jewish connection within social media. He blogs at rabbicreditor.blogspot.com. |