What We Do Matters More: Some Closing Thoughts

Over more than a decade of listening to women rabbis, I have come to appreciate a deceptively simple truth: what we say matters, but what we do matters more.

As the rabbis taught, “It is not study that is most important, but action” (Pirkei Avot 1:17). And as Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

In many ways, the progress has been remarkable. Ideas that once seemed controversial—even fringe—have moved into the mainstream of Jewish communal life. Issues such as pay equity, paid family leave, workplace culture, sexual harassment, and rabbinic well-being are no longer peripheral concerns. They are now part of our communal conversation.

That progress is real. It deserves to be celebrated.

Yet in more than a decade of documenting the real lived experiences of women and others in the Jewish community, I have learned that agreement is not the same as implementation. Policies do not automatically become practices. Statements of values do not automatically become workplace cultures. And institutional commitments often fail to translate into lived experience.

Today’s challenge is no longer convincing people that equity matters. It is ensuring that our commitments are reflected in lived experience.

In this work, I have often found myself returning to a single Jewish imperative: Sh’ma (listen).

Over the years, I have come to appreciate how critical listening is. It is how we understand the experiences of others. It is how we learn whether our institutions are living their values. It is how we discover the gap between our intentions and their impact.

But listening is not an end in itself.

Sometimes listening is a gift. To be heard, believed, and understood can be profoundly important, especially for those whose experiences have too often been dismissed or ignored.

Yet listening also carries responsibility. What we learn through listening must shape how we lead, how we build institutions, and how we care for one another.

Listening matters most when it changes us—when it changes our thinking, our behavior, and the communities we create together.

What I have heard over these years is encouraging. And challenging.

I have also witnessed an important change within WRN itself. Increasingly, rabbis identify as nonbinary or genderfluid. Their experiences have enriched our community and expanded our understanding of gender, leadership, and belonging. They face the same challenges that women rabbis have long faced—and, in many cases, with the burden of additional barriers and biases.

I have heard stories of resilience, creativity, leadership, and extraordinary commitment. I have watched WRN rabbis serve in congregations, hospitals, schools, camps, and organizations. I have seen them teach Torah, comfort the bereaved, accompany people through moments of joy and grief, resolve conflicts, and sustain Jewish life in ways both visible and invisible.

I also appreciate just how hard it is to be a rabbi today.

The rabbinate has never been easy. Lately, it can seem just this side of impossible.

We ask our rabbis to be teachers, counselors, administrators, fundraisers, spiritual guides, crisis managers, and community builders. We ask them to lead through political polarization, rising antisemitism, institutional uncertainty, financial pressures, and profound changes in the ways people connect to Jewish life.

WRN rabbis have spoken candidly with me about their work and about its challenges. They have shared stories of fulfillment, purpose, and deep connection. They have also spoken about exhaustion, isolation, unrealistic expectations, and the difficulty of caring for others while also caring for themselves.

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that supporting rabbis is not a luxury. It is a necessity; healthy Jewish communities require healthy rabbis.

Congregations flourish when their leaders have the support, resources, respect, and flexibility they need to thrive. When rabbis are able to bring their full selves to their work—as leaders, partners, parents, caregivers, and human beings—our communities are stronger for it.

Again and again, I have seen how difficult it can be to translate policy into practice.

Take paid family leave. Today, few people question its importance. Yet policies remain uneven, and too many rabbis—especially women rabbis—continue to face wrenching choices between their professional and personal responsibilities.

Or pay equity. The principle is widely accepted. Yet gender-based pay gaps persist, both within Jewish life and in the broader society. Recent data suggest that some of those gaps are widening rather than narrowing.

Or sexual harassment and abuse. Here, too, important, historic progress has been made. Many organizations have adopted new policies, expanded training, and worked intentionally to create safer workplaces. Those changes matter. They should be celebrated.

Yet I worry that some have come to think of Me Too as a movement that has come and gone as though the issues it brought to light belong primarily to the past.

Sexual harassment and abuse are not problems we have solved. Too many people continue to experience them. Too many survivors continue to carry the consequences of experiences that were never fully addressed. Questions of power, accountability, culture, and safety remain with us.

#MeToo did not create these problems. It revealed them.

And revelation is not the same as resolution.

One of the enduring lessons of our history is how difficult it is to sustain change. Almost immediately after accepting the Torah at Sinai, the Israelites build the Golden Calf. This narrative is often understood as one of idolatry, but it is also a story about the challenge of turning a moment of transformation into lasting change.

We all face the same challenge. Policy is not practice. Declaring a value is not the same as living it. Progress requires ongoing attention, accountability, and persistence.

None of the issues that brought me to WRN leadership more than a decade ago have been fully resolved.

That’s not how life works. And it’s not how change works.

Building a more just and compassionate community is not a project we complete. It is a responsibility we inherit.

I leave this role deeply grateful. Grateful to the rabbis who entrusted WRN with their stories, their challenges, and their hopes. Grateful to the colleagues and partners who joined in this work. Grateful for the opportunity to help move important conversations from the margins toward the center of Jewish communal life.

It has been a blessing to be part of this work. And I have every confidence that the remarkable WRN rabbis who inspired this work will carry it farther still.