{"id":15590,"date":"2015-11-06T00:15:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T08:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=15590"},"modified":"2015-11-04T13:49:12","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T21:49:12","slug":"welcoming-new-rabbi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/11\/06\/welcoming-new-rabbi\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcoming new rabbi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Hannah Dresner wants \u201cto come to know my congregation and the culture of Jewish Vancouver, to understand what the needs are and draw from our great tradition.\u201d (photo from Rabbi Hannah Dresner)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s Congregation Or Shalom welcomed Rabbi Hannah Dresner as its spiritual leader this summer, recruiting her from Berkeley, Calif., where she was working part-time for Congregation Netivot Shalom, teaching niggun and meditation, and traveling broadly to hold spiritual retreats.<\/p>\n

Dresner, a mother of three who grew up in Springfield, Mass., was ordained in January 2014 and worked previously as a visual artist and professor of fine arts. At Northwestern University, she taught painting and visual aspects of directing for graduate students in theatre direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy artwork has always had a spiritual content, but I felt I needed further enrichment in developing the content of my work,\u201d she said of her decision to seek ordination in the Jewish Renewal movement. \u201cI began to study, got caught up in the study of Chassidic texts and became very enchanted with the imagery and worldview. I see the resultant shift of my professional energy to the rabbinate as another aspect of being an artist. I\u2019m building my life as a work of art, and this is just another way of reaching people in a more direct manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her spiritual leadership at Or Shalom comes at an important time, she added, because it follows the recent death of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of Jewish Renewal. Dresner has tremendous respect for the congregation\u2019s founding rabbis, Daniel Siegel and Hanna Tiferet Siegel, and for Laura Duhan Kaplan, the rabbi who stepped back just over a year ago. \u201cI consider them to be visionary people and I feel like, because of its strong rabbinical leadership in the past, Or Shalom is a community that\u2019s primed and ripe for learning \u2013 head, heart, body and spirit,\u201d said Dresner, who took over the congregation\u2019s spiritual leadership from Louis Sutker, rabbi during the transition period.<\/p>\n

Dresner grew up the child of a Frankfurt-born mother with an Orthodox background, and a father from the American Midwest, from a highly assimilated family. \u201cOurs was a hybrid family that embraced an observant culture and engaged in a lot of social activism,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

She plans to develop Or Shalom\u2019s musical davening program and Shabbat observance, to strengthen its b\u2019nai mitzvah program, and to present varied adult education programs \u201cthat reach out not just to enrichment of our intellects but also offer points of entry that are more heart-centred.\u201d<\/p>\n

This fall, there is a midrash program on women in the Bible, beginning with the character of Tamar. Another new program is on spiritual eldering. \u201cIt will begin with a life review and talk about an evaluation of our lives, looking to the end of life with the perspective of wanting to live into our very fullest selves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dresner is also planning a davening laboratory where congregants can learn parts of the liturgy and practise their davening skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rabbi, I think about Judaism as a treasure chest that speaks to all our human concerns,\u201d she reflected. \u201cI want to come to know my congregation and the culture of Jewish Vancouver, to understand what the needs are and draw from our great tradition \u2013 halachic, agadic, liturgical and Chassidic \u2013 in answering our real, current, human questions and concerns. I think these are very deep wells of wisdom that remain alive if we keep them alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Kramer<\/strong>, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Hannah Dresner wants \u201cto come to know my congregation and the culture of Jewish Vancouver, to understand what the needs are and draw from our great tradition.\u201d (photo from Rabbi Hannah Dresner) Vancouver\u2019s Congregation Or Shalom welcomed Rabbi Hannah Dresner as its spiritual leader this summer, recruiting her from Berkeley, Calif., where she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4791,4790,218,22],"class_list":["post-15590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-hannah-dresner","tag-jewish-renewal","tag-judaism","tag-or-shalom"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}