KENNENLERNEN

Rabbi Rachael Pass

Rabbi Rachael is a queer, feminist rabbi based in Boston, MA. She grew up very involved in her Reform community in Louisville, KY and throughout the Midwest. She was a long-term camper, counselor, and staff member at URJ Goldman Union Camp Institute, where she developed her love of Jewish education. After attending Brandeis University to study Psychology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Rachael lived in Boston, MA for a few years doing youth engagement work in Reform and Conservative synagogues. It was then that she discovered that Jewish education is a lifelong project of integrating our full selves and our Jewish learning.

Rachael attended Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan and was ordained in 2021. While at HUC-JIR, Rachael was constantly engaged in feminist thought, theology, and ritual. She worked in different organizations promoting feminist Jewish leadership and thought throughout her time as a rabbinical student, and that has followed her into her rabbinate. After having an abortion while in rabbinical school, Rabbi Rachael came to believe that the deepest bonds and richest communities are built when we share our personal stories in sacred settings; therefore, Rachael tells her own story and invites others to tell theirs, whatever their sacred stories may be. She believes wholeheartedly that the world is better when we can show up as our full, sad, beautiful, holy, messy, spiritual, complicated selves, and bring caring and compassion into all that we do.