Meet Rabbi Robin

What is limitless is the spirit. The heart. Possibility. Joy. Love and kindness. The magic of Creation. The mysteries and discoveries that invite and await us. No matter your background, observance level or if you are connected at all to Judaism, young or old, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, special needs… fill in the blank, you are welcome here. My hope is that you will find a place for yourself – whether on a solo journey or with others – here to question, to laugh, to share with others, to deepen your relationship with your embodied self, your place in the cosmos and feel fed by the earth that sustains us.

My background is eclectic. I began dancing at the age of three in Brooklyn, NY, at the Art Linkletter Totten Dance Studio. I still remember the practice recordings on our Victrola at 16RPM, “…and wash the windows, step kick, step kick, step kick wait…” I never dreamed I’d dance professionally, but that’s exactly what happened. A friend in college nudged me to audition for the dance department although I was there to study botany. Audition I did, and I began a career in modern dance choreographing, teaching and performing.

The botany, while out of the foreground, was always with me. I started growing plants in junior high, fueled by the love of nature nurtured in our home’s ecosystem. I grew up on the water on Long Island (after leaving Brooklyn) on a dead-end street. A sand lot with wildflowers and grasses were my best neighbors. The canal 150 yards from our house and the bay half a mile away were my spiritual guides and teachers. My sister taught me bladder campion and fleabane, chicory and mullein. My love of plants and earth was born, nourished and expanded through my years in the woods of summer camp.

These were my spiritual foods: movement and nature. My formal spiritual inquiry began through doing bodywork. I am licensed in Swedish, Shiatsu and Medical Massage. An absolute necessity for a dancer, especially one who didn’t want to wait tables! Years ago I worked with a woman who was told she’d never use her hands again. That prompted the question: What is healing? So began my journey into the world of the heart. I began to use the sefirot of Kabbalah’s Tree of Life to understand energies and emotions in the body and explore their place in well being.

I chose rabbinical school to honor my grandfather’s memory after his death. That closed the circle for me: embodiment – physical well being; spirit – work with breath and soul; and Gaia – cultivating a close relationship with the Earth Mother.

To fuel these interrelationships, I studied mindfulness meditation and became a teacher. This is where the three aspects of my approach to life fused. They really are one whole, inseparable one from the other.

So, perhaps like my background, my work is eclectic. My role is to facilitate you individually and in community in finding your best place and approach to your unfolding. What does my body need, you may be asking? How can I cultivate more breath and balance in my life? How can I bring this into our spiritual community? I struggle with God, or what names to use for the Ineffable. I crave deeper understanding of myself in relationship to my world. What is my purpose? How can I tend Creation more fully, more lovingly? How can I bring these opportunities to my partner? My family? My workplace? My community? Our congregation?

Judaism is a tradition of questions. And our questions are limitless. Our answers are as well. Let’s play together.

Blessings on the journey,

Rabbi Robin