Dear Lab/Shul,

How do you sum up a two year rabbinic residency in two paragraphs? You don’t. But maybe, if you’re lucky, you can link to a movie that does it for you. It’s an honor to present “Jew/Too: Stories of the Lab/Shul Community.” This is an imperfect and incomplete work – a snapshot of who some of us are today – culminating my project of delving into Lab/Shul’s everybody-friendly mission. We have work ahead of us to bring Lab/Shul Into even deeper alignment with our 21st century, multiracial, multifaith, multicultural Jewish community, but y’know what? I believe that we are up for this sacred challenge.

Change is hard for me, as it is for many of us. So I’m grateful that while my role at Lab/Shul is shifting, the end of my residency is not a full departure. For those who haven’t heard, I’ll be staying right here in NYC (and even in my apartment in Brooklyn!) as I become the rabbi of West End Synagogue on the UWS. I look forward to opportunities to continue to celebrate, connect, learn, and be with Lab/Shul after my professional life shifts uptown.

For now, here are my last words to you as your rabbinic resident:

Thank you.

Thank you for welcoming me into my rabbinate.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your family’s transitions from childhood to teenagedom, from pregnant to parent, from single to partnered and partnered to single, from life to death.

Thank you for sitting with me at Shabbat dinner, for sharing l’chaims, and for dancing with me at House of Yes.

Thank you for joining on Zoom and engaging in deep experiments of community ritual these last few months.

Thank you for letting me mess up and try again.

Thank you for being a significant part of why I fell in love with New York and with Jewish life in this city.

Thank you for trusting me with your stories, your worries, your questions, your fullest selves.

This isn’t the farewell I imagined, but this is the world we have at this exact halfway mark between 2020 and 2021. We are here now. I am grateful for today, I am grateful for this journey, and I am grateful for you.

Blessings, and be in touch – rabbiemilycohen@gmail.com

Rabbi Emily