I was not raised Jewish. That single fact shapes everything about who I am as a rabbi and how I understand my purpose in this work. Thirteen years passed between my conversion and my receiving ordination. People sometimes ask what those years looked like. The honest answer is that they looked like a choice, made again and again, in the quiet and in the difficult moments, to build a life around Torah.
I want to write about that journey honestly, because I think it carries something useful for anyone who has chosen Judaism as an adult, anyone who leads a community, and anyone who simply wonders whether a life shaped by deliberate spiritual decision is possible in the world we live in now.
What Conversion Actually Involves
The Jewish understanding of conversion is serious and demanding by design. Halachic conversion requires genuine commitment to observance, study, and community. It is not a formality. Rabbinic authorities are traditionally cautious, not to be unwelcoming, but because the tradition takes the permanence of the commitment seriously. A person who converts is understood to become, in the fullest theological sense, a Jew. That is a remarkable and weighty claim.
For me, the years of learning before ordination were not a waiting room. They were the formation. I was not marking time until a credential arrived. I was becoming someone whose life was shaped by halacha, by the rhythms of Shabbat and the Jewish calendar, by the discipline of ongoing study, and by the practice of showing up for a community day after day.
That foundation matters now. When I sit with a congregant who is struggling, or when I work through a halachic question that requires careful reasoning, what I bring to that moment is not only academic knowledge. It is years of having lived inside the tradition rather than merely studying it from the outside.
The Biala Tradition and What It Taught Me About People
My rabbinic training and first ordination came through Yeshivas Ohr Kedoshim d’Biala, a school associated with the Biala Chasidim. The Biala tradition centers on a principle that has stayed with me as the foundation of my rabbinate: mevaser tov, which means seeking the good in every person.
That principle is not sentimental. It is a serious orientation toward how a rabbi encounters his community. It means entering each conversation with the assumption that the person in front of you is doing their best, that their questions come from genuine searching, and that your role is not to judge but to help them find their way. It means, in practice, that an open door is not just a slogan but a real commitment to receiving people wherever they are in their relationship with observance and tradition.
For someone who came to Judaism as an adult, mevaser tov is also deeply personal. My own journey required that other people see good in me before I had any credentials, before I had mastered the texts, before I had anything to show except a sincere desire to build a Jewish life. I received that generosity, and I understand that it is not something to take for granted. It is something to give forward.
Building Community at Clearview
When I arrived at the Clearview Jewish Center in Whitestone, Queens in August 2021, I found a congregation with a specific and precious history. The synagogue was founded in 1952 by Holocaust survivors. The founding generation built a community in the most literal sense, from nothing, in a new country, carrying grief and memory that most of us will never fully comprehend.
The challenge I inherited is one that many legacy synagogues face. Demographics shift. Membership ages. The traditions that were second nature to the founders require explanation for the next generation. How do you honor a community’s history while also making the space genuinely welcoming to people who arrive with less background?
My approach has been to hold both things without sacrificing either. We moved to full Orthodox observance, installing a mechitza and removing the microphone. Those were not casual decisions. They reflected a conviction that halachic integrity is not at odds with a warm and accessible community. But at the same time, I embraced tools that help us reach people: Zoom classes, recorded lectures on YouTube, and a teaching style that brings classical sources into conversation with the concerns of modern life.
I also serve as a nursing home chaplain, a role that consistently reminds me of what matters most in religious life. At the bedside of someone who is dying or suffering, the texts and the arguments fall away. What remains is presence, memory, and the quiet comfort of someone who shows up and stays. The kaddish initiative I run, arranging for the prayer to be recited daily on behalf of the deceased, grew from that same conviction that honoring memory is one of the most concrete expressions of faith.
The Ongoing Work of Study
Ordination is not the end of a rabbi’s education. It is a threshold. In September 2023, I completed a First Degree in Judaic Studies from Yeshivas Bircas haTorah in Jerusalem, following extensive learning and examination across Talmudic and theological subjects. A month later I received additional ordination through Machon Smicha in Jewish law, with particular focus on Shabbat observance and kashrut. In 2024 I completed certification as a Mesader Kiddushin, a qualified officiant for Jewish weddings under halacha.
That ongoing study is not merely credentialing. It reflects something I believe about the nature of the rabbinate: a rabbi who stops learning stops growing, and a rabbi who stops growing cannot honestly lead others toward growth. The Jewish Learning Institute Torah Studies curriculum, through which I teach ongoing classes, is designed precisely on this principle. It assumes that people who are intelligent and serious about their lives deserve rigorous, well-sourced learning, not a simplified version of the tradition.
What I Want People to Know
I write about Torah, ethics, and Jewish identity in my column at The Times of Israel, and people sometimes ask whether my background as a convert gives me a different angle on these topics. I think it does, though not in a way that separates me from the tradition. It gives me a particular kind of awareness that nothing about Jewish identity is accidental. Every person who is part of this community chose to be here, in one sense or another. Even those born into it choose to continue. That choice deserves to be taken seriously.
My story is not typical. But I have come to believe that most meaningful stories are not. What I hope people take from mine is simply this: a serious life of Torah is built one decision at a time, sustained by community, and made possible by the generosity of people who see good in you before you have fully become what you are trying to be.
That is what the Biala tradition gave me. It is what I try to give to Clearview. And it is what I believe Jewish community, at its best, offers to everyone who walks through the door.
More about my work, background, and published writing is available on my biography page and through my publications.