Welcome Rabbi Amalia Mark to our team! She’ll be joining us in-person here in DC in early September, and we are so excited to have her with us for the High Holidays and beyond. Until then, read our conversation below to learn more about her, including why she became a rabbi, the Jewish wisdom she holds closest, what she’s most looking forward to at Gather, and how she’s “taking something ancient and making it alive for today.”
Samuel: What put you on the path to becoming a rabbi?
Rabbi Amalia: I grew up in a very Orthodox family in Silver Spring, Maryland, and I only knew rabbis as men. Women rabbis were the butt of a joke in my community growing up, and I didn’t see myself becoming a rabbi until I was in my mid-20s, working for the University of Arizona Hillel. I had just led a High Holiday experience with a Hebrew Union College student rabbi and Israel fellow. That night, as we’re leaving, he turns to me and says: Amalia, you’d make a great rabbi. And no one had ever said that to me before!
That planted the seed for me. I was also, at that moment, going through a time where I was like: I don’t think I’m Orthodox anymore, but I’m definitely still observant, so what am I? Who am I? A classic, I think, mid-20s crisis. I knew I loved being a Jewish educator, and I love working with people to help them access their Jewish identity and life. I had to restructure and relearn what it could mean to be a rabbi, because I hadn’t had those models. And so, I had this moment when I went to Israel in 2016 when I decided to take the running leap and do it. I wanted to help Jews figure out their place, and becoming a rabbi was the best way to do that – even though I am not a man with a beard and a black hat, I, too, could do it.
Samuel: You’re coming to GatherDC from Mayyim Hayyim. What are you carrying forward from that experience into this next one?
Rabbi Amalia: This is connected to your last question, actually, because when people asked me what kind of rabbi I wanted to be, I would say – first of all, a good rabbi, because that is not always a given – but I would say that I wanted to work at a place like Mayyim Hayyim, a place that is for all Jewish people, a place that is beautiful and welcoming and accessible, taking an ancient tradition and reinventing it for the 21st century.
I love Judaism because it is in the body, and mikvah is a full body ritual. This tradition of the mikvah, which was so limited to either women’s spaces or very specific types of men’s practice, all of a sudden is for all genders, and egalitarian, and just incredibly accessible and present in people’s lives. That’s the rabbinate I want: taking something ancient and making it alive for today.
Samuel: What feels particularly alive for you in your own Jewish practice?
Rabbi Amalia: Two things. Number one is living deeply in Jewish time. I feel really lucky to have grown up in a family and community in which I only felt Jewish time. The rest of the world practices time in this way, but the time that I am in, that I live in and experience, is Jewish. I experience it in my bones. Every single Shabbat is Friday to Saturday, and the whole week is leading up to that. I remember really experiencing the month of Elul, waking up to my dad blowing shofar in my bedroom – which is a really annoying way to wake up. Again, though: it’s in your body. You’re hearing it. I had a teacher once who said we live in cycles of holy time, and I really believe and feel that still today.
The other piece is: “It’s not in heaven.” That’s a verse from Deuteronomy. It is one of the core pieces of Judaism for me that I bring into my rabbinate – [Judaism] is close to us. It is for us to take, to hold, to mold and to play with, to get messy with, to step away from and then to reconstruct all over again. It is not far away, and we have that baked into our understanding.
Samuel: You mentioned Judaism as something “in the body” a few times now. What does that signify for you?
Rabbi Amalia: Coming from a mikvah background, we use our body to do the ritual. We can build a beautiful mikvah and stare at it as long as we want, but the ritual doesn’t happen until we use our bodies. Same thing with hearing shofar for Rosh Hashanah, we have to hear it – though there’s lots to think about that [regarding] disability. But on the whole, Judaism is really trying to get us to have ritual happen through our bodies, so that it is not apart or removed from us. It might be the experience of smelling the spices, seeing the fire, being in the presence of other people at havdalah, to release the Shabbat that was and prepare for the week that is to come.
For me, the most successful moments of Jewish life are when I’m experiencing them in my body. At Passover, sitting around a Seder table isn’t just reading the words; it’s also being 100% present with these people around the table. Crumbs are flying and wine is pouring and these foods are a way of us connecting together. It becomes a bodily experience that is elevated and incredibly holy.
Samuel: What are you most excited about as you join GatherDC?
Rabbi Amalia: That’s a really hard question to answer. Nine years ago, I applied to work at Gather…and I didn’t get the job. But I have admired Gather from afar. So it’s sort of like…what am I not excited about? This is the kind of Jewish life I want to help people access, and I don’t know how I got to be so lucky.
Samuel: You’re hosting Shabbat dinner and can invite any three people. Who are you bringing and why?
Rabbi Amalia: The first one is my father-in-law, who passed away a couple months before I started dating my spouse. I have heard so many incredible things about this man, and my husband looks so much like him. The great sadness that I knew from the moment my spouse and I started dating was that this person who was so formative is just not going to be someone I will ever be able to meet. My child’s middle name is for him. We got married the day after my father-in-law’s yahrzeit, so our lives have sort of been structured around this loss. I’ll never know him, but I would love to have him at a Shabbat meal. He was an avowed atheist who didn’t really understand observance, but that actually would have been really lovely to say: We can still have a Shabbat meal together. I would have loved to have that time.
The second person is Mary Oliver. I love reading. I love poetry. She’s an honorary rabbi – not really, but sort of. Her words are the shape of the prayers I don’t even know I have. She’s not a liturgist, but she totally is, and I would love to have her remarking around the table, answering the icebreaker.
For the third person, I would want one of my best friends there. Until recently, I have not lived in the same city as any of my best friends – I have one in California, one in DC, and one in Israel. So I would want one of them there at the table, as a person who has seen me change in all my iterations. And because we just have so much fun together.
Samuel: Do you have a go-to icebreaker?
Rabbi Amalia: I usually have a three part icebreaker. You share your name. You share where you call home, or how you spend your time – which is not the same thing as what you do for work, though people can respond to it that way if they choose to. Then I’ll decide from there what the third question is. Sometimes, it’ll relate to the weekly Torah portion. Recently, I had people over and asked them to share a moment where they spoke up for something or took a stand.
Samuel: Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Rabbi Amalia: New ideas well up, community is created, and connections are deepened.
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