Why I Want to be a Rabbi

Everyone loves to ask this question and I struggle to answer it. The reasons change moment to moment, semester to semester, as I learn and grow in to this role of "Rabbi." When I started, my stock response was, "I want to shape and nurture Jewish Souls." This was the statement I created with Rabbi David Thomas I was working for at Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley. I was strongly motivated by ego reasons at that point in time for starting in the rabbinate. I liked the authority. I liked having a place. I liked being successful and being known as "RachaelBregmanShe'sGreat" as if it were all one word. But somewhere along the way, my ego needed less stroking and I needed a greater sense of purpose for the work I was doing. It was actually February 21, 2008 when it happened, when I found my new calling to the rabbinate.

See, I spent a large part of my first two years at the NYC campus of Hebrew Union College working for the Soup Kitchen in many capacities including being the coordinator. In my years of services I learned many important lessons, two in particular.

1) The hungry and homeless community of New York City is an exemplar of caring and commitment. I have never seen people with less find the ability to give more. No one there ever seems to say no to a request for help. When there are not enough bananas to go around and one soup kitchen guest asks for one, another guest will give theirs away to meet that need. When there is information on the street, the grapevine word of mouth spreads that information like wildfire. No one hoards what they know to get ahead of someone else. No one keeps what they have at the expense of someone else. If those of us who have functioned more like those who have-not, there would be more of "us" and fewer of "them."

2) Suffering is awful and I wish it on no one. The gift that it brings to the world is one person's ability to offer care in its wake. Without suffering, could we have the depth and richness of care that is offered? I am driven to the rabbinate to respond to suffering. When I see suffering, I am stopped dead in my tracks and have to react.

So now, I want to be a rabbi because I am driven to respond to suffering and being a rabbi gives me an opportunity to do just that. Being the "Rabbi" often generates an invitation to share other people's burdens. I feel this is my calling, this is a part of my purpose in the world.

And when asked, "what kind of rabbi do you want to be when you are ordained?" I usually answer "employed." Truly, I do not know. I am lit up by teaching, by social justice, by the study and transmission of Torah, and by being with people in their most liminal and heightened moments (both joyous and painful).

Who knows where this journey will lead me, but I revel in the walking of this path and seeking out my own way through the world of ever becoming a Rabbi.