PRESENTING REBECCA VAN WAGNER AS RABBI AND TEACHER IN ISRAEL
Presented by Rabbi Menachem Creditor
It is a profound honor to share with Rebecca Van Wagner at this moment of ordination and to testify to the rabbinic voice that has already emerged: steady, searching, compassionate, and brave.
During our shared learning over the course of years, I have witnessed Rebecca again and again refuse the false separation between sacred and ordinary. Hers is a full and textured theology of life. Torah and kitchen table, ritual and memory, God and daily life exist in living relationship. Her rabbinate emerges from within that weave.
Rebecca does not deny doubt. She names it, inhabits it, and then seeks ways to ride its waves toward renewed covenant. Her clarity about sacred text reflects this maturity. As she wrote once,“ The acceptance of sacred status does not equate acceptance of the contents of the text itself.” She stands within our holy tradition while engaging it with intellectual and moral integrity.
When confronted with communal trauma, her instinct is presence. After Charlottesville, she wrote that“ only the hand of love and cooperation, the hand of action rather than thought, could make a difference.” That is pastoral wisdom. She acknowledges the limits of theodicy and embodies the power of solidarity.
In responding to her work, I once commented that her approach offers“ a model of rabbinic presence that is clear, gentle, rooted in tradition, and profoundly human.” I believe her devotional posture toward Torah is increasingly rare and profoundly needed in Jewish contexts and in the wider world.
Rebecca, you are emerging as a rabbi who will sustain communities, elevate conversations, and widen belonging. May the Torah you teach continue to be overflowing with compassion, depth, and peace. Bless you, my friend, my student, my teacher, my colleague.
BEIT DIN
Rabbi Matthew Goldstone, PhD- Somekh Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD Rabbi Beth Kramer-Mazer
22 AJR 2026