By Joey Barr
Rabbi Morris came to speak to the Nachshon fellows about his work as a pulpit rabbi, but in reality, what I got out of his presentation was so much more than that.
A little background about myself. I came into the Nachshon Project at a bit of a Jewish crossroads. Feeling unfulfilled in terms of knowledge and experiences, I was eager to experience the myriad of different ways the other Fellows in my cohort experienced Judaism. I went into this with tremendous optimism. Judaism is a never ending journey, and to question things and discover new things about Judaism are some of its greatest values. But oftentimes discussions would leave me feeling both discouraged and hungry for more. Discouraged because I felt that I hadn’t been given the tools to participate in conversations the way I truly wanted to, and hungry to learn more, to gain as much knowledge as I possibly could.
Additionally, another challenge surfaced that had mostly been bubbling quietly within me. I grew up staunchly rooted in the Reform Movement. So much of who I am today, I owe to my camp and my youth group for giving me warm, inviting, and passionately Jewish spaces to develop my own identity. But in college, I felt myself slowly drifting away from it in certain aspects, as I searched for new Jewish experiences. How could I reconcile my roots in the Reform Movement and the values I had gained from it, with the new experiences and practices and feelings I was having? It seemed a daunting task, and frankly it felt confusing at times to have a foot or hand in multiple places.
Enter the talk with Rabbi Morris. Rabbi Morris grew up as one of a handful of Jews in his community, and this led him to seek things out in order to be able to explain them to those around him. And involvement in NFTY nurtured this interest further. In his talk, he said that as he grew older, he began to become more observant and change his practice. In his own words, Rabbi Morris defined himself as a sort of “Reform Ba’al Tshuva”. This instantly pricked my interest. In front of me, I saw not an end goal, but a role model and a teacher. Here was someone who had seemed to reconcile those disparate parts of his identity: roots in the Reform Movement, but also a desire to seek out different ways of being Jewish, different levels of observance while still having a “home” somewhere. I found his talk exhilarating. Never had I taken such vigorous notes. I posed question upon question around the margins of my notebook. But it all came down to one thing in the end. How can I achieve this as well? How can I find a Judaism that is distinctly me while also not feeling alone?
Nachshon is giving me the tools to figure this out. Having access to figures such as Rabbi Morris helps me to not feel alone in this journey, but rather to know that I have people I can turn to for guidance. I am eternally grateful that Rabbi Morris shared his personal Jewish journey with us, because if he had, then I wouldn’t have been given new language and ways to talk and think about myself.
