Message from Our Rabbi-in-Residence
To the KH Community,
Greetings from Jerusalem. My work at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America brings me here each summer, and I have had the privilege this past month of watching a parade of lay leaders, rabbis and Jewish educators came through our Jerusalem campus to learn, to share ideas, and to process the events of the past year.
And what a difficult year it has been.
But amidst the challenges and disruptions that have struck the Jewish people in Israel and in the United States, one theme continually appeared in the discussions of the learners this summer: the critical importance of community. Classroom teachers, pulpit rabbis, adult Jewish learners, Hillel professionals—wherever one was situated in these trying times, the primary antidote to feelings of loneliness and despair was the possibility of community.
Our tradition speaks of kibbutz galuyot, the ingathering of the exiles, as a feature of the messianic time; a vision of a Jewish community drawn together from the ends of the earth to be together in the land of Israel. We are far from that vision—a complete coming together of the Jewish people seems far over the horizon whether we are speaking in geographic or more metaphysical terms—but this summer what I heard from our participants was about the ways in which local communities experienced a sort of mini-kibbutz galuyot, a school or Hillel or shul community which found strength and resilience in the simple act of drawing nearer to each other.
I experienced a small taste of that when I joined the Kol HaNeshamah for Shabbat this past spring. I am part of my own community in Riverdale of course, but it was exciting to see the commitment and drive of the folks in this shul. I am thrilled to be beginning as Rabbi in Residence at KH, and I look forward to seeing what is possible in this role that is new for me, and new for you as well. I am sure there will be learning on both sides, but the core commitments of prayer, of learning, and of that ingathering of strong community that I saw on my first weekend at KH will be my guide as I get to know this new position and this new place. I look forward to being with you very soon.
Kol Tuv,
Ethan
Our Rabbi-in-Residence
Rabbi Ethan Linden is currently Director of Educational Operations and Design for the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Prior to joining Hartman, he was Director of Ramah Berkshires. His previous pulpit experience was as Rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in Metairie, Louisiana from 2009 to 2016. While serving that congregation, he was an adjunct professor of Bible at Tulane University. He received rabbinic ordination from JTS in 2007, where he was the recipient of the Rabbi Sidney Greenberg Prize for Homiletics, and also the David Scharps Memorial Prize in Talmud. He received a B.A. degree from Cornell University in 1999, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
