Dr. Rabbi Sarah Tauber, z”l
Photo: Janice Rubin
Dr. Rabbi Sarah Tauber was our friend and classmate, and we fully expected to receive our smichah with her this January. She was a lifelong educator. She received her BA from Yale and a teaching credential from UC Berkeley before getting her doctorate in education from Jewish Theological Seminary, where she was an assistant professor from 2011-2020. Her deep knowledge and innovations in Jewish education, however, did not arise as an academic pursuit. It was her years as an on-the-ground Jewish educator in Geneva, Switzerland and New York that informed her commitment and enlivened her imagination.
In the ALEPH Ordination Program, Sarah was always engaged, curious, provocative, funny, and intellectually expansive. She carried out her rabbinic journey joyously, and with the support of her parents, her brother, and her children, Benjamin and Hannah Billingsley.
Rabbi Sarah had completed all her AOP courses by the end of last year and finished her CPE requirements last May. Her senior teshuvah was on the topic of when mourners very much want to sit shivah but the intervention of the holiday of Sukkot forbids the sitting of shivah. It was important to Reb Sarah to find the way for mourners to have the meaningful public experience of being held in community if they wanted it.
Although done with her requirements, she was glad to wait to take part in our collective ceremony. Yet due to the advance of the disease, she received her smichah from our teachers before her death in August.
We, her fellow ordinees, are still reeling from her being taken from us and from all her loved ones by cancer so suddenly. But she remains the beating heart of our cohort and her spirit will be present with us for every moment of our smichah ceremony and beyond into our life as rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors.
You are invited to share your stories and memories of Rabbi Sarah in the comments section below. (Note: you will not be able to “like” or respond to other people’s comments if you are using Chrome or Safari.)