For Rabbi Ariel Tovlev, Judaism is human-centered and involves active participation.
That’s the model he strives to maintain as the spiritual leader and education director of Kehila Chadasha, a member-run egalitarian community in Montgomery County, Maryland. The community’s 100 members bond, learn and actively “create their own Jewish experiences” in various locations across the Washington, D.C., area.
Tovlev, who lives in Silver Spring, holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in creative writing, a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s degree in poetry. He was a freelance writer, editor and proofreader before pursuing rabbinical school.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in the Reform movement in southern California. I was what I like to call an observant Reform Jew in that we went to synagogue most weeks growing up, always lit the Shabbat candles and celebrated all the holidays. Judaism was a very big part of my life growing up.
I kind of fell away from Judaism a little bit when I was in college. I had some bad experiences with people questioning my Jewishness, questioning whether Reform Jews were really Jews, [conducting] litmus tests of Judaism, that really turned me off from Jewish community. So, I stepped away for a bit, then I came back to Judaism after I got my master’s degree. I really felt like there was something missing and I wanted to get involved again.
At the time I was living in Minneapolis, I joined the Jewish community there and saw that there is a wide variety of Judaism; people can be Jewish in a lot of different ways. [In] the community that I joined, people expressed their Judaism through tikkun olam, through social action, making the world better [and] environmentalism. That brought me back because I really resonated with that; that’s when I decided I wanted to become a rabbi and help grow alternative Jewish communities where people can express their Judaism in ways that maybe are not aligned with either mainstream or organizational Judaism.
Have you always wanted to be a rabbi?
I didn’t always want to be a rabbi. Growing up, I didn’t think it was a possibility for me. I knew I was queer from a young age, and at that time, the Jewish community was still discussing what LGBTQ involvement and Jewish leadership would look like. Hearing that there were people who didn’t feel like people like me could be leaders turned me away; I didn’t even think of [the rabbinate] as a possibility.
When I was in my mid-20s, I revisited it and thought, “Well, we are in a different world now. We’ve changed our perspectives; there are a lot of LGBTQ Jewish leaders.” I was the third openly trans student to be accepted to my rabbinical school, so that was a bit of a challenge. I was the first trans person a lot of people had ever met, so I had to do a lot of educating. But that was also something I was passionate about: growing knowledge about trans inclusion and trans involvement in Judaism and Jewish tradition, and that’s what I focused my rabbinical thesis on.
What are your responsibilities with Kehila Chadasha?
I’m the sole rabbi at the community, so I fill the role that rabbis fill at most communities. I’m in charge of education; I’m in charge of rituals and holidays, worship, pastoral care and community building. Community building is probably one of our biggest priorities. We consider ourselves to be a chavurah, which means social group. Although we fit in the synagogue structure in that we are a Jewish community, we deviate from the synagogue structure in that, one, we don’t have a building and two, ritual and religious aspects are not our top priority. Of course, that’s included in what we do, but we are much more focused on building community and creating connections between our members. We’re much more likely to have organized Shabbat dinners than to have a Shabbat service.
We’re really big on education. We have adult education and children’s education simultaneously, so we go against this model that Jewish education stops at 13. We say Jewish education is lifelong learning and adults learn every week alongside the children. We bring in experts in various fields and learn from them. For instance, [we provide] classes on environmentalism and immigrant rights. I introduce the topic by sharing a little bit about Jewish connections and we link [the topic] to Judaism through various texts or Psalms.
How do you incorporate your writing into your rabbinic role?
I write regularly for the position. We have newsletters and weekly emails that we all contribute to, but also I really like to share my poetry with the community. I write poetry. Some of it is Jewish-focused and what we consider to be alternative prayers, and some of it is secular.
What’s an important message you hope to convey to others?
There are as many different ways to conceive of God and spirituality as there are people on Earth. One of the things that I love about being an independent community, not affiliated with a particular movement or denomination, is [that] we are really free to lean into that and to explore spirituality in whatever way is resonant and meaningful to us.
