Suzie doesn’t have a deep booming voice.
Suzie doesn’t stand imposingly tall on the pulpit.
Suzie doesn’t do daf yomi, and she doesn’t recite Talmud from memory.But I don’t think we need another rabbi like that. I think we need a rabbi like Suzie.
I think we need rabbis who giggle.
I think we need rabbis who will play dress-up with four year olds as they enact the weekly parsha, and then say something profound enough to keep the parents thinking all week.
I think we need rabbis who laugh with the teenagers.
I think we need rabbis who wear bow ties and patiently explain gender to elderly congregants. Again. Because it’s confusing sometimes, and that’s okay.
We need rabbis who listen. We need rabbis who are passionate. We need rabbis who are vulnerable.
We need rabbis who are like us, but not like us. We need rabbis who know more than we do about certain things. We need rabbis who ask us what we know, who inspire us to learn, who bring their wisdom at just the right moment to make us think.
We need rabbis who are flawed and human, but who own their humanity to such an extent that they inspire us even more; who remind us with their very presence that we are all deserving of gentleness and we are all capable of beautiful things.
We need rabbis who can shrug, and we need rabbis who can smile.
Suzie may not be the tallest rabbi or the sagest rabbi, but she is the Suziest rabbi. And I think she is the kind of rabbi we need.