Here I am

I have lived my whole life in Mississippi, and I have been part of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson since 2010. First as a congregant. Then, beginning in 2012, as the congregation’s cantorial soloist. And since July of 2025, as its student rabbi.

Beth Israel has shaped my Jewish life in ways that are hard to separate from the person I have become. I learned here by sitting in services, singing beside people who knew the melodies before I did, asking questions, getting things wrong, studying, celebrating, grieving, and watching people take care of one another. Some of the people I serve now are the same people who helped me find my own place in Jewish life.

So being the rabbi here feels deeply personal to me. This isn’t simply the congregation where I work. These are people who have known me for years. They have watched me grow, and I have watched their children grow. We have stood together at weddings and funerals, around Shabbat tables and hospital beds, through ordinary years and very difficult ones.

There is a word I keep returning to:

הִנּֽנִי

Hin’ni — here I am.

It is what Abraham says, and Moses, and Samuel, and not one of them knows yet what is about to be asked of him.

I love that.

Hin’ni isn’t an answer. It doesn’t mean I know what to do. It means: I am here. I am listening. You have my attention.

More and more, I think that is where being a rabbi begins.

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I came to the rabbinate by way of music and psychology, which turns out to be less of a detour than it sounds. Both taught me something about listening — not only to what someone is saying, but to what they might be carrying underneath it.

In 2025, I was accepted into the ALEPH Rabbinic Ordination Program, and I am working toward s’micha now while serving the congregation that has been part of my Jewish life for more than fifteen years. Most of that formation happens in the middle of an ordinary week: Shabbat and festival worship, Hebrew school, b’nai mitzvah and confirmation, adult learning, hospital rooms and kitchen tables, celebrations and losses, and the pastoral work that happens quietly and rarely gets named out loud.

Every week I write Sacred Sparks, a short d’var Torah for the congregation, and I design the art that goes with it. The writing comes first. The art follows, usually late. Both are how I think.

Away from the synagogue there is reading, time outdoors, music, a standing argument with a page of Talmud, and a kitchen where the challah sometimes comes out right.

Life-cycle moments

Weddings, funerals, baby namings, b’nai mitzvah, conversion — and all the conversations that come before and after them.

I don’t think these moments should feel prefabricated. The tradition is far too deep for that. I want to know who you are, what you are carrying, what matters to you, and what this moment actually means in your life. Then we can find the words, rituals, and pieces of our tradition that belong there.

My job isn’t to hand you a Jewish moment. It is to help you find yourself inside one.