What is a maggid (as sarah?)

BS"D



Serving the Eugene Jewish Community informally as a maggid since January 2003, I recently received maggidic smicha (ordination) from Reb Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, authorizing me to teach and preach in Jewish communities. While the role of the maggid goes back into Jewish history as far as the Jews do, it is the Chasidic model of the maggid as teacher, preacher, and storyteller that most appeals to me. When working in the field I find myself leading prayer services, teaching classes, tutoring adults and children in Hebrew, trope, and Judaism 101, leading song nights, telling stories and playing music, facilitating torah study, giving d’vrei torah (preaching), speaking on behalf of the community at interfaith events, offering peer counseling, grief support, and crisis management, mentoring B’nei Mitzvah students, participating in family education, designing liturgy and life cycle ritual… and anything else that helps people relate Judaism to the reality of their everyday lives.

Born in the sleepy Deep South town of Gainesville, FL, I enjoyed a Tom Sawyer/ Huck Finn childhood until moving to Malibu and the California life when I was 12. Los Angeles was a great place to be a teenager, it had every kind of person, every piece of humanity you could imagine, and it taught me to be present with people, and to honor that the place where they are standing is holy ground. Bored with high school, I left early to attend UCLA and Santa Monica College, where I majored in American History and Astronomy until transferring to a combined BA/MA program at American University in Washington, DC. While studying at American University I discovered peace and conflict resolution studies, added that to my major, and went to work as the student coordinator of peace and justice ministries at our interfaith chapel on campus. This was an extraordinary time for me, as I became immersed in the progressive spiritual worker community—working and learning from the heart of the Latin American liberation theology and literacy movements. The value systems of these movements heavily influenced me and show up in my teaching today as I stress democratic processes on the pulpit and in the classroom. The more people that are empowered in their humanness, in their yiddishkeit, the happier I am.


Since leaving my University studies I have held a lot of jobs, in every kind of trade a person can have. I’ve managed construction sites for Habitat for Humanity, worked on a marine research vessel, trained service animals for people with disabilities, wrangled cactuses, taught classes for the Red Cross, gone on search and rescue missions, and managed horse barns. I’ve also held tedious jobs as a retail clerk, restaurant manager, sporting goods department manager, record store buyer, and clerk on Capital Hill. Like my teenage years in L.A., the decade in between my university and maggidic life exposed me to all manner of humanity, lending me a richness of experience from which I draw constantly in my role of spiritual teacher. Beyond that, this great sea of humanity I’ve been swimming in has taught me to be patient and forgiving with people. So very, very important.

At the end of 2002 I decided that I needed to make some changes in my life. After many years of floating through the world I settled down in Eugene and engaged my Jewish studies with commitment and purpose. Since then I have been immersed completely in the life of the Jewish Community in Eugene, and in Klal Yisroel. I find myself voraciously studying anything Jewish I can get my hands on with particular emphasis on liturgy, hazzinut, midrash, aggadah, trope, music, storytelling, chumash, halacha, and chassidus. I love working with community and teaching torah. I love it. I’ve worked in a lot of professions, but this being a maggid is the first career I could see myself doing for the rest of my life—in fact, I love this work so much, I can’t imagine not doing it. (I’m totally sold, can you tell?) Meanwhile, over the past several years I have become an enthusiastic and competent leader of shabbat and holiday prayer services, can mentor b’nei mitzvah students, teach in religious school, tutor adults, teach Judaic classes, counsel those who are ill or in mourning, offer spiritual guidance, participate (and facilitate participation in) community events, work with the kids, and generally uplift the life of the community. In addition, I’ve become an increasingly skilled liturgist and crafter of life cycle ritual, with experience in naming ceremonies for babies/teenagers/adults, mikvot, and shiva minyanim. I feel confident that I could officiate a brit milah or a funeral, should need arise. Like my work experience, my Jewish upbringing and learning comes from all over the Jewish spectrum, a fact I try to utilize as I draw on these many traditions to create a ritual experience that fits the spiritual needs of those present. Sometimes this looks more traditional, sometimes more liberal, but always I am aiming for awesomely Jewish. Ultimately, if the community is healthy and people have joy in their jewishness, then I feel pretty good in my life as a maggid.