In her interview on the “Choice Between Activism and Learning,” Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld tells the story of being asked, during her rabbinical school interview, how it felt to be giving up an activist’s life to pursue a several-year course of learning.

On January 29, 2017, a lone gunman entered the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City during the evening prayer and opened fire. He injured nineteen people and killed six. Less than a month later, the windows of Al-Tawuba Mosque in Montreal were vandalized. These two incidents are just a few of the many that have been on the rise in recent months. One young Muslim woman, Mona Abdullah, took the feelings of frustration and anger that this violence caused and channeled them towards rebuilding the Muslim community in Canada.

Even now, I find myself having trouble writing this post. Even now, after giving up dieting over 25 years ago, after writing songs about loving my bathing-suited body exactly the way it is, after years of asking doctors to treat me using the evidence of blood tests and blood pressure cuffs instead of only the numbers on the scale, after previous––largely positive––experiences writing on Torah and fat activism, there is still something in me that wishes I could somehow slip away from, or obscure, this stigmatized aspect of myself: my fatness.

Let's be clear: I did not make it to the application process for rabbinical school. I didn't even request an application. I came close, but luckily, before I did anything, I managed to figure out the difference between a calling and an impulse. In this case, I probably should have felt a little more called to actually engage with the Torah, instead of hoping that my ambivalence would resolve itself. (Update: it has not.)

As an assistant rabbi, I'd found a rhythm: simple Friday night meals with friends; long, lazy Saturday afternoons to myself. Someday, I hoped to be partnered, and develop a new system, similar to my senior rabbi and his wife.

In the rabbinate, success is a loaded word. As Sally Priesand describes in her video interview, a generation ago everyone could describe a successful rabbi. He would be the senior rabbi of a large synagogue in a large city, and he would have a long-term contract. Ideally the synagogue would be growing. That was success.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not feminist enough.

I clean the house, and I bake challah, and I complain to my spouse about coming home too late in the evenings. I’m a great rebbetzin––but isn’t a rebbetzin a bizarre and archaic role that enables the patriarchy?

If you want to ask your (future) rabbi a personal question, it should be: “How can we best support you?”

My rabbinical association recently asked me to join their mentoring program. This request felt surreal to me. Eight years after ordination is practically nothing in terms of rabbinical experience, and, at 34, I’m still younger than some new ordinees. For much of my career, I’ve been told that I couldn’t possibly have enough “life experience” to be a rabbi myself. What could I possibly teach a colleague?