their way to prestige due to money, fame, family connection, or just prior investment. This is true of rabbis, as well.” Underlying the concerns about contemporary schools, Valles argues, is a kind of tension that manifests whenever new cultural and educational tools emerge. “Any time there is a revolution in learning technology,” she says, “the elites from the centre express deep concern that the quality of learning and knowledge will decrease and that the wrong people, peo- ple who are untrained and unconstrained, will acquire access to unprecedented power. They are absolutely right. This is what creates a learned and empowered populace and actual- ly is something to embrace, rather than fight against.” WHO SEEKS OUT FREELANCE RABBIS? Many Jews have left organized communities but main- tained sufficient ties to their faith to create a demand for rabbis who can serve them where they are. Lara Rosenoff Gauvin is a professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba. When she moved from her hometown of Mon- treal to Vancouver, she didn’t feel like she belonged in any synagogue that she went to. Rosenoff Gauvin grew up attending a Jewish day school and going to services semi- regularly, but none of the communities felt like they fit. This was exacerbated after October 7, when she couldn’t stomach the political views some rabbis were preaching from the pulpit. But when a friend told her about Matthew Leibl and the services he offered for the High Holidays, she went and was sold. Leibl (my co-host on the Not in Heaven podcast) is the quintessential freelance rabbi: a former TSN radio journalist, he grew up leading services and reading Torah at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg. At some point, he left the congregation but still felt an urge to do something Jewish professionally. He went to a mostly- online rabbinical school and now works part time as a chaplain at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre, a Jewish nursing home in Winnipeg. He also conducts annual High Holiday services, and officiates at weddings and other life- cycle events in Winnipeg and beyond. Rosenoff Gauvin appreciated that the services he offers were larger and more formal, like the ones in the synagogues she grew up in, but different enough — the first one she went to was at a riverside — that they sustained her interest. She’s also glad she connected with Leibl because she had been at a loss as to how to proceed with her son’s bar mitzvah. “I was looking at the big synagogues,” she told me, “but I couldn’t do it at that point because I had been to that synagogue and again, there was another speech that made me say, I don’t know if I could do this . … I wanted [my son] to be able to ask questions, if they are political or spiritu- al, and I didn’t trust what I was hearing out of some of the larger synagogues. I even considered going back to Mon- treal and do[ing] it at one of my grandparents’ synagogues for the sake of tradition. It actually stressed me out for years because I had no idea what I was going to do.” She says that Leibl will officiate at the bar mitzvah, which they will have in their home next year.
CAN YOU FREELANCE A COMMUNAL LIFE?
Judaism, at its core, is a collective project. Our founding myth is of a national liberation and a revelation that occurred as a community. But there are many ways to define com- munity, and many of those definitions no longer include synagogue life. Some communities are cultural, some are non-traditionally religious, and some might not have — or feel a need for— hierarchies. The best freelance rabbis are mindful of community and actively seek to create it, or find communal spaces for the people they serve, whatever forms these may take. In the course of our conversations, Beth Tzedec’s Rabbi Wernick mentioned a theory of change developed by MIT professor Otto Scharmer. Called Theory U, it holds that, in Wernick’s words, “at a moment in which struc- tures are breaking down, you lean into your values and you constantly seek to iterate formats and structures by which those values can breathe.” For Judaism, Wernick sees those values as including shlemut (wholeness, internal well- being); ahavat Yisrael (an “absolute love for the Jewish people”); and being “a kli kodesh, a vessel of holiness” (well- versed in tradition). These values do not require institutional backing. Wer- nick told me he has great respect for freelance rabbis who are building meaning, purpose, and community in new and creative ways. “There are so many Jews that are unaffiliated and disconnected,” he says. “The ecosystem of Jewish life has plenty of space for people that are helping more Jews live meaningful Jewish lives.” Other rabbis, however, do feel threatened. One told me that, when she started doing freelance work over a decade ago, colleagues of hers in the pulpit told her that “rabbis aren’t supposed to do that”—perform weddings outside of a synagogue. Another, one in a pulpit position, told me that pulpit rabbis see freelancers as competition, giving people yet another reason not to join congregations. Heather Altman, the would-be doctor-turned-freelance- rabbi, recently heard from a woman whose wedding she officiated nearly two decades ago. Her husband was in the ICU, and she wanted some comfort and help with planning for possible next steps. Altman points out that the pastoral relationship is inherently rewarding and cuts across time. And it is not found only within institutions. Altman readily acknowledges that sometimes a gig can feel like a gig, and “you have to work at it so that it doesn’t, and when you stand under the chuppah with that couple, you really [are] present for them.” Whether you are a freelance or congregational rabbi, that ceremony may be your third of the weekend — but for a couple, what matters is that you’re standing with them on their most meaningful day and consecrating their marriage. You may feel connected enough that you want the same person standing with you decades later when you have a much sadder ritual to perform. In this way, a gig rabbi may not be that different from a pulpit rabbi after all.
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