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A Message from the Co-Presidents Regarding Rabbinic Leadership

01/09/2025 11:00:23 AM

Jan9

Co-Presidents Barbara and Pamela on behalf of the CBI Board of Directors

Dear CBI Community:

We are writing to you with updates regarding our rabbinic leadership.  

As you may recall, Rabbi Ariella accepted the position of Interim Lead Rabbi for this year, through June, 2025, subject to renewal for an additional year.  The decision to renew was to be made by the end of this January.

After extensive reflection and conversations with board leadership, Rabbi Ariella has decided not to renew for another year as Interim Lead Rabbi. Instead, the Board has offered and she has accepted the permanent position of Education Director & Assistant Rabbi to begin on July 1, 2025. Please see Rabbi Ariella's note below for more on what informs her decision.

We are deeply grateful to Rabbi Ariella for her service as Interim Lead Rabbi and Co-Lead Rabbi before that and as Education Director - the initial job she was hired to do -  before that.  She has essentially inhabited every role CBI has needed her to inhabit with incredible skill, strength and commitment.  We are pleased to reach a landing spot that will serve both her passion and talents while meeting a deep need at CBI.  

With Rabbi Ariella's decision comes the need for a new interim lead rabbi for the coming year who will serve us as the community embarks upon a search for a permanent lead rabbi. That search will begin this summer, 2025. In consultation with Rabbi Ariella and Rabbi Jacob, the Board has decided to offer and Rabbi Jacob has accepted the position of Interim Lead Rabbi, beginning on July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 (with an invitation to apply for the permanent position).  Please see Rabbi Jacob's note below for more on what informs his decision.

We are deeply grateful to Rabbi Jacob for stepping into this interim role.  We look forward to experiencing his continuing and expanded leadership as a rabbi and teacher, built on over 13 years of visionary service to CBI.

The Board's decisions are driven above all by two factors:  (1) the desire for as much continuity as possible in general as we make our way through this time of transition, and in particular as we continue our search for an executive director; and (2) our continuing budgetary constraints that require us to create a senior leadership structure that is sustainable and best meets CBI's immediate and medium-term needs:  Lead Rabbi, Education Director & Assistant Rabbi, and Executive Director.

To be clear, we are committed to the farm's ongoing success as an integral and vital part of our community. We are making this decision now in order to make maximum use of the next 6 months to ensure thorough planning for farm management, the fundraising that supports it, and the clarity of roles and responsibilities between Rabbi Jacob and Rabbi Ariella.  We will keep you closely apprised of this planning process, with a first update scheduled at our next community meeting on Thursday, January 30, 7 pm - 8:30 (more information to come).

We greatly appreciate your partnership as we begin to plan for this next chapter (in advance of the next chapter after that!).  We recognize this is a long road, and we also want to celebrate one milestone of clarity as we go: Rabbi Ariella will be our permanent Education Director and Assistant Rabbi.  And we will get to share in this next year of exploration with Rabbi Jacob as our Interim Lead Rabbi. We are so grateful to them both. 

We look forward to being in touch soon.

B'shalom,

Barbara and Pamela
on behalf of the CBI Board of Directors

 

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From Rabbi Ariella:

Dear Friends,

It has been an absolute honor to serve as CBI’s Interim Lead Rabbi this year, as we continue to move through a period of leadership transition. I have learned and grown alongside you, and have only come to love this community more over this time. 

It has also become clear to me that my original reasons for coming to CBI (and some of the primary reasons I chose to become a rabbi)- experiential Jewish education, youth work, and supporting people of all ages in finding their places in Jewish community- remain where my passion and energy lie, and where rabbinic energy and attention is still needed.

I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to return to an education role that has expanded to include other forms of rabbinic work as well. As one of your rabbis, I’m not going anywhere. In fact, serving as Education Director and Assistant Rabbi will allow me to stay connected with the many different parts of our community that I so dearly love. I hope to serve the CBI community for a long time, and this role is a sustainable way for me to make the greatest possible impact. 

I’m grateful to the board for their confidence in me and for their support as I prepare to step into this role. And I’m incredibly grateful for Rabbi Jacob’s partnership as we have navigated different configurations of serving CBI together. I look forward to supporting him and continuing to collaborate with one another as he steps into the role of Interim Lead Rabbi. 

It is an honor and a privilege to be part of the leadership of our incredible community, and I look forward to sharing many more special moments with each of you in the years to come. 

Bivracha (with blessing), 

Rabbi Ariella

From Rabbi Jacob:

Dear CBI Community,

Over the past 18 years, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience many roles that I had imagined for myself, as a Hillel rabbi at the University of Washington, working with young professionals as Director of Jconnect Seattle, as Rabbi in Residence for the Jewish Farm School, and then as the Director of Jewish Life and Founder/Director of  Abundance Farm here at CBI.

More recently over the last few years, I have been grateful and gratified to have been part of the rabbinic team, together with Rabbi Ariella, during this extended period of transition at CBI. Stepping more deeply into traditional rabbinic roles has been profoundly meaningful and helped me grow in numerous ways. I have come to appreciate that many of the classical rabbinic duties are roles that, in fact, energize me and play to my strengths.  

Teaching Torah, aspiring to make Jewish tradition and ritual life personally relevant and spiritually meaningful for myself and for others, authentic relationship building --these are all experiences that genuinely excite and animate me.  Through serving as Co-Interim Lead Rabbi and then this year as Assistant Rabbi, I have been reminded of the core motivations that led me to become a rabbi nearly two decades ago.  

In my 13 years of working here at CBI, I have grown to care deeply about this community. CBI is unique and special, and I carry great confidence in our continued growth, innovation and success. I feel gratitude and excitement about the new challenge and opportunity to serve as Interim Lead Rabbi and to fully engage with the many, vibrant areas of spiritual life in our community.

I look forward to working closely with my extraordinary rabbinic partner Rabbi Ariella, our amazing staff, lay leaders and the entire community, to collectively nurture our holy project of sacred community building.  

With gratitude,

Rabbi Jacob

Tue, January 21 2025 21 Tevet 5785