Welcome to the Hive Mind

I’m stepping forward to reclaim my title of Rebbitzen, but this time on my own terms, rather than as a title I never sought but got assigned as a young woman uncertain about everything except that I was in love and marrying a rabbinical student, now more than 29 years ago.

For all this time, we’ve been co-creating Jewish ritual life—sometimes in public, often behind the scenes. When I design a ketubah or write a text, or explain a wedding tradition, it’s shaped by conversations with him. When he leads a service, lifecycle event, or gives a sermon, it reflects language or ideas we’ve honed together over years. Clients who come to either of us are being held by both our hands even if our names are never mentioned (although knowing Jonathan, my name is usually mentioned).

The public separation of our work was a way to navigate risk, judgment, patriarchy, community politics, or just contain exhaustion. But now it’s become a false divide that limits both of us. We are two separate entities with adjacent practices and we are also a joint project of care, thought, art, and radical integrity.

We’re not merging practices. He’s not about to start designing ketubot. I’m not leading mourners’ minyan. But if you’ve worked with one of us, you’ve been supported by both. And it’s time we name that truth, not just for accuracy, but for power. Because it’s not only that our work overlaps; it multiplies when it’s fully visible as shared.

Our kids are familiar with our overlapping thoughts shaped by decades of discussions and shared values. Often we give the same answer to the same question via text without consulting each other. The kids call it “the hive mind.”

So now, we are publicly embracing the hive mind and I am stepping forward as a contributor for Jewish &.