To The Place Where the Streams Flow

By Rabbi Laura Sheinkopf

I spent my high school years at a New England boarding school called Northfield Mt. Hermon where I recently returned for my 25^th reunion.  Yes, it did make me feel old.  But it also made feel lucky – lucky to have attended such a beautiful and enlightened school.  Truthfully my landing in 9^th grade was more like a crash landing.  I was thoroughly consumed by my own adolescent drama when I came for my interview.  It was the morning after a heavy snowfall and I was sleeping in back of the car.  I woke up just as the campus came into view.  It looked like a postcard – impossibly picturesque, a cluster of buildings that included a big stone chapel and bold red barn huddled together on a blanket of thick new snow.  I fell in love with it instantly.  It looked like a place where there might be a place for me – whoever that turned out to be.  

I Became a Mother on Mother's Day

By Rabbi Laura Sheinkopf
 

I became a mother on a stormy Mother’s Day in the year 2000.  My labor may have been induced by an infection and accompanying fever.  And what a labor it was! The sun rose and set. Nurses came and went. By the time my son was born, I barely knew my name, let alone the day. But it was Mother’s Day, and everyone made quite a fuss about that. In my post-partum haze, I thought it was strange, if sweet, to focus on this seemingly superfluous detail. Nothing could have made me any happier or more relieved than I already was. In the hours just after my son was born, my thoughts centered on physical wellbeing, not the larger meaning of the moment.

“Mom, Who Killed Jesus?”

by Rabbi Laura Sheinkopf

 

Among the top ten things you do not want to hear coming out of your Jewish child’s mouth is, "Mom, who killed Jesus?"  I will always remember the moment I heard those words.  They came from my then five-year old son as he was sitting at the kitchen table in our home in Austin, TX.  It was the week of Passover, which coincides with Easter, and because we do not eat pasta or bread or anything with a grain that has risen, he was eating the staple of the Passover diet: a hard-boiled egg. It was actually the millionth hard-boiled egg of the day, and as I stood there at the sink, my back to him, peeling potatoes I was worrying about his cholesterol level and asking myself if that was something you should be concerned about in a five year.  And then, out of the blue I heard from behind me, "Mom, who killed Jesus?"

It's Not What You Say, It's Where You Stand

By Rabbi Laura Sheinkopf

As a rabbi I have done my fair share of invocations and benedictions for community events, interfaith gatherings and organizational meetings. I think of it as the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to interfaith relations.  Coming from the liberal east coast circles where I was raised, being a female rabbi is not all that interesting but it’s a different story down here.  There are a surprising number of people I meet who know very little about Judaism and even fewer who are aware that there are female rabbis.