The past two months have been an incredible—if somewhat overwhelming!—experience for me.  While we are all busy at Temple Sinai getting ready for religious school, the High Holy Days, new and exciting programming, adult education, social action, Open Houses, and on and on, I have to admit that my favorite part of every day is when I am able to get to know each of you.  It seems that every day, someone new pops into our offices, and I get to meet you and hear your story.  I have been told of times of joy and times of challenge.  I have been told stories that make me cry and make me laugh.  Sitting with you, getting to know you, has been a true blessing for me in just the short amount of time I have been here. 

During our conversations, many of you have asked me about why I decided to become a rabbi.  Here is my answer, as I wrote in my personal statement to the Temple Sinai Rabbi Search Committee: 

I was called to the rabbinate during my junior year abroad in Israel.  I spent my first summer in Israel on a kibbutz for my Hebrew language intensive, and becoming immersed in Israeli and kibbutz culture was an incredible experience.  As part of the kibbutz experience, I was assigned work in the screw factory, where our day began at five in the morning and ended at three in the afternoon.  All day, day after day, I packaged screws.  This was not the vision I had when I signed up for the kibbutz, yet since I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life anyway (I was waffling between being an interior decorator or a wedding organizer) I trudged to the factory each morning and packaged screws.  For weeks I repeated the same action until it became rote, and I soon found that it put me in a meditative state of mind. 

Then one day, after leaving work at the screw factory, I was walking on a path of blooming eucalyptus trees.  All of a sudden, something came to me and said “You’re going to be a rabbi.”  I was not hearing voices, but instead had a sense of deep knowing that came from outside and into my body, and that deep knowing told me I was going to be a rabbi.  I was so startled I literally stopped in my tracks.  Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, yet I knew God was calling to me.  Sometime later, a few of my friends found me still frozen on that path by the blooming eucalyptus.  They asked, full of concern, “Annie, are you okay?”  I looked up at them, and said, “I am going to be a rabbi.” 

For me, that was it—one moment that literally changed the course of my life.  While I have had times of doubt and struggle on this path of the rabbinate, it has overwhelmingly been a path filled with opportunities for growth and blessings beyond count.  I am grateful every day for the work I “get” to do; I am grateful every day that I get to share it with all of you.  I hope that as the year continues, I am able to sit with each and every one of you, and listen to your story too.  Give me a call—I am here for you.

May your New Year be filled with sweetness and joy.  Shanah Tova!