Welcome to The Emergent Torah!
My name is Lindsey – I am a rabbi, teacher, writer, and lifelong seeker.
In my work, I seek to create intimate, grounded, and personal connections between our authentic selves and the wisdom offered by Jewish tradition.
I created this site as a home for sharing the creative process of Torah with others. I currently offer poetry, Torah teachings, and reflections on spirituality and making meaning in a complex and ever-changing world. As my offerings continue to emerge, I hope to open more opportunities for learning, exploration, and connection.
I believe that Torah is an evolving conversation – between our innermost selves, our wisdom traditions, our embodied experience, our communities and the Divine Presence. Spirituality is what we create, and what we allow to be created through us.
My story
I received rabbinic ordination and a master’s degree in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and I am a member of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement.
I began my rabbinical training with a focus on traditional text study. I wanted to immerse myself in the Jewish textual tradition that I find so nourishing to be able to share it with others. During my time in rabbinical school, as I started a family and juggled classes, internships, and my home life, I found myself stretched to my limits and in a state of depletion. I experienced a disconnect between the intellectual, the spiritual, the reality of my embodied experience.
Through my work, a global pandemic, and a lot of self-learning, healing, and reflection, I have come to a deeper understanding of who I am and what I need to thrive. That emerging process revealed to me just how important reconnecting with my sensory experience, and re-grounding in the physical world is – not just for me as in individual, but for all of us. That was important Torah that I needed to learn.
As I have revisited and reviewed my own spiritual practices, I feel called toward a re-integration of the mind, heart, body, and spirit. While I have a deep love for the intellectual stimulation and challenge of academic and traditional Jewish text study, I also know that I am not a floating brain or disembodied spirit. I am a living, breathing human being, who experiences the world through my senses, who is intellectually curious, spiritually inquisitive, passionate, sensitive, creative, and in relationship with the people around me. And you are, too.
The Jewish tradition offers us a variety of metaphors to understand Torah in all its beauty and complexity. It is said that there are 70 faces of the Torah -it is a multifaceted gem, reflecting different aspects to each person who encounters it. The Torah is also identified with Chochmah, the feminine personification of Wisdom herself in the Book of Proverbs, and compared to a Tree of Life, an abundant ever-growing source of wisdom that nourishes those who hold onto it and help it to flourish.
I hope you will join me in bringing to life the Wisdom that needs to be born in our time.
Educational and Professional Experience
Here are some highlights of the experience that informs my work:
- Over 5 years experience as a community rabbi, with previous years of internship experience in communities
- Passion for and extensive experience in teaching Jewish educational programs for adults, including ongoing Introduction to Judaism courses, thematic series, and one-time workshops
- Over a decade of practice as a leader of prayer and ritual facilitator
- Ongoing creative writing practice
- Rabbinic Ordination, Jewish Theological Seminary, 2018
- Master of Arts Degree in Talmud and Rabbinics, Jewish Theological Seminary, 2018
- Master of Arts Degree, Museum Studies, New York University, 2009
- Undergraduate study in anthropology and philosophy
- Usui Reiki Level 2 practitioner