{"id":29536,"date":"2018-06-29T03:47:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T10:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=29536"},"modified":"2018-06-28T10:26:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T17:26:52","slug":"rabbi-chosen-as-a-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/06\/29\/rabbi-chosen-as-a-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi chosen as a fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Susan Shamash began a fellowship with Rabbis Without Borders this month. (photo from Susan Shamash)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRabbis Without Borders addresses borders within Judaism,\u201d said Rabbi Susan Shamash, one of two Canadian rabbis who began a fellowship with Rabbis Without Borders (RWB) this month. \u201cThe fellowship aims to span denominations and to break down barriers between rabbis of different denominations, so that they can cross the borders and collaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at a Shabbaton led by RWB when she was a rabbinical student, Shamash became interested in the Clal fellowship. Established in 1974 by Rabbi Irving Greenberg and Elie Wiesel, Clal\u2019s \u201cmission has been to help prepare the Jewish people for the unprecedented freedom and openness of North America,\u201d notes the announcement of Shamash\u2019s acceptance into the competitive program, which began in 2008.<\/p>\n

Shamash told the Independent<\/em> that RWB tries to develop rabbis who are able to think and work outside the box while working inside specific communities. Although based in the United States, Clal welcomes Canadian rabbis to its fellowship and, this year, Rabbi Denise Handlarski of Toronto\u2019s Oraynu, a secular humanist congregation, was also accepted.<\/p>\n

Shamash completed her rabbinical training in January 2017, obtaining semichah<\/em> (ordination) from Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, after a decades-long career as an administrative law judge. Shamash received semichah with four others at that year\u2019s Ohalah conference in Boulder, Colo., from a large number of rabbis, 10 of whom signed her certificate. Her training was overseen, as are all Aleph rabbinic trainings, by a committee of three. In her case, it was Rabbi Victor Gross, Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel (one of the founders of Vancouver\u2019s Or Shalom) and Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan (formerly spiritual leader of Or Shalom, now on the faculty of Vancouver School of Theology).<\/p>\n

Shamash has been involved with Or Shalom since it started and counts the founding teachers, Siegel and her husband Daniel, among her mentors, as well as Duhan Kaplan, who is delighted to have her aboard. \u201cAs a longtime member of the RWB network, I\u2019m delighted that Rabbi Susan Shamash will join us,\u201d Duhan Kaplan told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cWe need more Canadian voices like Rabbi Susan, willing to creatively address emerging issues in our religious and cultural life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am excited to join Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan and [Or Shalom] Rabbi Hannah Dresner in bringing the deep wisdom of this fellowship to Metropolitan Vancouver,\u201d said Shamash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went into law school because I needed a professional skill, and it was a wonderful and rewarding career,\u201d she explained. \u201cI met Rabbi Daniel Siegel while at school \u2013 he was a Hillel director at the time and just founding Or Shalom. I learned a lot under his and Hanna Tiferet\u2019s mentoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Shamash enjoyed her judicial career, she said she is deeply satisfied with her transition to a second career. \u201cIn some ways, I came home, even though I really loved the law,\u201d she said. \u201cI might have become a rabbi for my first career but, at that time, it was not at all encouraged [for a woman]. I was very interested in the study and the prayer life as a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Primary areas of interest for Shamash include interfaith ceremonies and outreach to underserved Jewish communities, both of which she thinks the fellowship will help equip her for. \u201cThe fellowship will inform the work that I do with interfaith families or marriages between observant Jews and unaffiliated Jews or non-Jews, as well as working with people who want some Yiddishkeit for \u2018hatching, matching and dispatching,\u2019 as they say, the cycles of life, but want that outside of synagogues and institutions,\u201d she said. \u201cI would also like to take Judaism [beyond] the Lower Mainland and bring Jewish experience to smaller communities in B.C.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said there is a lack of diverse offerings for Jews outside of major urban centres, and she would like to help fill that gap.<\/p>\n

Shamash currently teaches Talmud at Or Shalom, where she delights in making the study available to people who might otherwise not have access to it. She is hoping, over the years to come, to collaborate with others in the Jewish community to increase the options for serious adult yeshivah-style learning for the non-Orthodox.<\/p>\n

Matthew Gindin<\/strong> is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the <\/em>CJN, writes regularly for the <\/em>Forward, <\/em>Tricycle and the <\/em>Wisdom Daily, and has been published in <\/em>Sojourners, <\/em>Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Susan Shamash began a fellowship with Rabbis Without Borders this month. (photo from Susan Shamash) \u201cRabbis Without Borders addresses borders within Judaism,\u201d said Rabbi Susan Shamash, one of two Canadian rabbis who began a fellowship with Rabbis Without Borders (RWB) this month. \u201cThe fellowship aims to span denominations and to break down barriers between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,218,22,8232,8231,8233],"class_list":["post-29536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-aleph","tag-judaism","tag-or-shalom","tag-rabbis-without-borders","tag-rwb","tag-susan-shamash"],"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\/29536","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=29536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}