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Philly Faces: Faryn Borella
P H I LLY FACES
ERIC SCHUCHT | JE FEATURE
FARYN BORELLA, 29, of
Philadelphia is looking to eff ect
change on a systemic level.

The rabbinical student
grew up in Londonderry,
Vermont, and studies at the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College in Wyncote. In August,
she’ll start work as the eco-Ju-
daism rabbinic intern at
Oseh Shalom Synagogue, a
Reconstructionist congregation
in Laurel, Maryland.

In this new role, over the
next 10 months Borella will
assist with Shabbat services,
lead the children’s Sukkot
and Tu B’Shevat activities and
organize a congregational
camping trip. Th e goal is to
off er more outdoor program-
ming and opportunities for
ecological Jewish education at
the synagogue.

So why did you want to do this
internship? Rabbi Daria [Jacobs-Velde]
and Rabbi Josh [Jacobs-Velde]
had a vision that came out of
their previous involvement
in Wilderness Torah in the
Bay Area in California. I was
involved in diff erent Jewish
farms and Jewish outdoor
education programs and came
from a similar world and just
really value both reclaiming
more ancient Jewish practices
that are rooted in natural
cycles of time and in paying
attention to the outdoors.

And I also just generally
fi nd the outdoors to be a
place where I get my spiritual
resource and want to share
that resource with other people
as well.

What are you looking to
accomplish in this internship?
I’ve done
work in
synagogues, and I’ve done work
doing Jewish outdoor educa-
tion, but that’s never been the
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM held close in my Jewish
upbringing. So why do you want to
become a rabbi?
I started tossing around
the idea in my early 20s when
I was getting really involved
in activism from a Jewish
perspective. And I was in the
process of discerning and
ultimately decided no, but
simultaneously became a
Jewish educator, and started
leading a lot of Jewish rituals,
both in movements, and
also in synagogues, and also
outside of institutions. And I
Faryn Borella
Courtesy of Faryn Borella was falling into a lot of spiri-
tual care type of roles.

And I was just noticing
same work. And when I was
interviewing, what everyone all the work that I’m already
on the committee and I felt starting to do, community
really excited about was, what organizing, emotional support
does it look like to bring the and spiritual care, ritual
leadership — those are all roles
outdoors into the synagogue?
Th is is something where I could hold as a rabbi. And to
you’re introducing outdoor be a rabbi is to be trained to
Jewish programming to an hold that and so much more.

existing community that might
not be asking for it or looking How do you see yourself as
for it. And what does it look like a Jewish person, and how do
to bring that with a humility you express that?
I feel like I’ve been getting a
and a reverence, to what the
community has already built lot of refl ections lately, that I feel
like a bit of a paradox, because
together? there’s a lot of parts of me that
What was it like growing up are very interested in stringency
and obligation and that notion
Jewish in rural Vermont?
Th ere was a synagogue, of being really bound. But then I
fortunately, that was about 20 also am very politically progres-
minutes away from the town sive and really also embrace
I grew up in. It served a pretty cultic practices of ancient Israel
wide geographical area, and it that might not fi t within the
just really felt like home to me. stringency of Judaism as we see
We were just integrated into this it today. But I love praying the
really small Jewish community full liturgy but doing it lying
and it was so central to our down or dancing and really
lives, but I didn’t really know pulling what’s traditional with
that there was more to Judaism what’s really innovative and new.

And so I feel like I embody
than that, like I didn’t know
about Jewish summer camps this, this paradox of being in
or Jewish Federation or these love with what’s old, but also
wanting to bring my whole self
larger Jewish networks.

Judaism is this beautiful and my whole body to it and all
small community that I get to of its complexity. ●
be a part of. And I’m grateful
for that. I’m grateful for being Eric Schucht is a staff writer at the
really empowered, but also Washington Jewish Week.

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