By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Rabbi Leiah Moser, Temple Concord’s new spiritual leader, originally planned to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy and remain in academia. “Over time, however, I found myself growing increasingly disillusioned, not so much with the discipline of philosophy, but with academic philosophy as a field of endeavor,” Moser said in an e-mail interview. “I was concerned that philosophy as it is practiced in the modern world really has very few ways of connecting with or informing the lives of ordinary people. Coming to Judaism later in life as I did and connecting with a synagogue gave me a vision of something I had been lacking before: the kind of community in which our efforts to wrestle with life’s bigger questions connect naturally with the life and history of the community. As a philosopher, I spent a lot of time wrestling with ethics in the abstract; as a member of a synagogue, I found myself wrestling with many of those same problems in a more concrete form.”

Her increased involvement in her Jewish community is what led her to the rabbinate. “On a practical level, as I became more and more active in the synagogue – organizing the congregation’s library, helping lead prayer services, organizing a group for converts and prospective converts – I found that I was enjoying that work, which naturally led me to think about what it would be like to make that a bigger part of my life,” she said. “On an emotional level, I received so much from being part of a synagogue community that I wanted to repay some of that by helping make a community like that for others.” Although Moser noted that she still loves teaching, she finds teaching in a community setting one of the most rewarding parts of her rabbinate. 

Although the first synagogue Moser belonged to was a Conservative one, she realized that movement was not the best fit for her because, at the time, it didn’t openly welcome LGBTQ candidates. She also questioned some of its approach to halachah (Jewish law). After researching a variety of options, she decided to attend the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. “While I have never found Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s naturalist theology particularly inspiring on a personal level, Reconstructing Judaism’s communitarian approach to Jewish practice and its historical vision of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization have had a big impact on my thinking and continue to influence my approach to rabbinical work, even while serving in a Reform congregation,” Moser said.

Moser hopes to share her passion for Judaism and Jewish texts with her congregation. “There’s an immense wealth of material in our tradition that few progressive Jews get to engage with, either because it isn’t very accessible or because it tends to be presented in a way that obscures its relevance for progressive Judaism,” she noted. “I get a lot of pleasure out of opening a window to some of those obscure corners for my students and congregants, and showing how we can think about ‘traditional’ texts in different ways. Above all, I see Judaism as a tremendous source of joy and want to empower people of all sorts – more traditional and less traditional, people with all levels of Jewish education, those who have been Jewish all their lives and those who only came to Judaism recently, LGBTQ+ Jews, Jews of Color and others – to participate in the great conversation of Jewish civilization in a joyful way.” 

Her first task will be getting to know the community and its customs. That includes everything from the congregation’s approach to prayer and ritual, to learning who puts out the snacks for the oneg Shabbat. “Simple things like that make up the heartbeat of a congregation and you can’t really do this work effectively without listening closely to that heartbeat,” she said. 

She does have projects she hopes to offer once she gets the feel of Temple Concord. “I would very much like to start up some regular weekly classes,” Moser said. “Teaching is a big part of what I do and so I’m hoping to expand the range of our educational offerings here at Temple Concord. At some point, I would also like to see about introducing a musical Shabbat into our rotation of services. For almost eight years now I have been incorporating electronic music into prayer services and I’d love to be able to share that with the community.”