As a community leader I create relationships between human beings, the contexts of our times, the expansive container of Judaism and the lenses and languages through which we engage the world. I strive to translate meaning between actual lived experiences and the wellspring of support and creativity of Jewish traditions. In engaging diverse communities and needs, I hope to cross-pollinate varied life experiences to create communal transformation. I celebrate opportunities to make the implicit explicit – using ritual to mark transitional moments, so that our Judaism grows and moves with us as a source of comfort, inspiration, transformation, and joy. Rabbi Weiss is known for her commitment to Jewish life that is creative, connective, and deep. She brings her warmth and energy to life cycle officiation and pastoral counseling, is an innovative teacher of Torah and a passionate spiritual leader. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rabbi Weiss was an Aaron and Marjorie Ziegelman scholar, and the recipient of the Berger Prize in Practical Rabbinics. She holds a certificate in Congregational Life and has taken leadership roles within the Reconstructionist movement. Rabbi Weiss was a member of the Clergy Leadership Incubator cohort 4, in which she integrated adaptive leadership, design thinking and innovation into the congregation. She regularly speaks in the Chicagoland community in Interfaith programming, at community social justice actions, and at trainings and communal observances within Jewish and secular spaces. Rabbi Weiss previously served Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, New York City’s LGBTQS synagogue, as their associate rabbi. In 2014, she was named one of the New York Pride Guide’s “45 Under 45” for her leadership. As a rabbinic fellow at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, she developed a multi-denominational rabbinic fellowship to bring rabbinical students from all backgrounds to study social justice and community organizing. She is a member of the faculty of Camp Havaya, the Reconstructionist Summer Camp in the Poconos. A lover of language, Rabbi Weiss is fluent in English and Spanish, and proficient in Hebrew and American Sign Language.