About Rabbi Lori Shaller
I am a rabbi, teacher,
mashpiah ruchanit or spiritual director, spiritual care counselor (chaplain), and pray-er,
working on Martha’s Vineyard and in the cyber world
to bring the joy of Judaism to Jewish people.
I work to bring joyful Judaism to people who may have lost their desire for growing spiritually through their Jewish roots,
and to their other-than-Jewish partners
to learn and grow their appreciation for all things Jewish.
Photo courtesy of Susan Heilbron
Ordained by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
I was ordained by my teachers in ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal’s rabbinic and hashpa’ah, spiritual direction ordination programs. ALEPH is part of a worldwide effort to fully embrace a contemporary egalitarian Judaism as a profound spiritual practice and social transformer, reaching beyond religious boundaries and institutional structures.
Teacher
I earned an MA in American Jewish History and an M.A.T. in Social Studies Education and worked as a teacher of high school aged students in alternative schools before returning to school to become a rabbi.
I have published curriculum on Jews in the Labor Movement for the Jewish Women’s Archive and on environmental history for Teaching History for Us All.
Rabbi
I joyfully pray couples into marriage, babies into communities (baby namings), youth into adulthood (bar and bat mitzvahs), adults back into Judaism (adult bar and bat mitzvahs and learning), and people into the olam h’bah, the world to come (funerals). I pray and work with people of all religious backgrounds and no religious backgrounds.
Rabbis without Borders fellow, worked for Truah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights when it was Rabbis for Human Rights, North America, and I was a participant in a Muslim and Jewish women’s emerging leaders retreat.
I am passionate about issues of human rights and environmental and economic justice. I am aIn addition to loving being a Rabbi and joyously celebrating Shabbat and Jewish holidays, I love to travel, canoe on the ponds of Martha’s Vineyard, and walk the Island with friends.