91�첥

LOS ANGELES, CA – 91�첥 celebrates the ordination of the newest leaders from the Class of 2025/5785.

The newest members of the class of 2025 with faculty leadership. In order left to right: Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Rabbi Joshua Garroway, Ph.D., President Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., Charles Mays, Julia Knobloch, Timothy Gaylord, Jeffrey Silverstein, Yael Farber, Joshua Shapiro, Hannah Lybik, Eden Glaser, Leah Julian

Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback ’96, ’98, Senior Rabbi, Stephen Wise Temple, opened the ritual with an Invocation, offering a welcoming spirit to students, administration, Board of Governors, Board of Advisors, family, and friends in attendance.

Rabbi Joshua D. Garroway ’03, Ph.D., Dean of the Los Angeles Campus, followed with a welcome to the ordinands and their guests, praising those who were honored for deeply important and demanding work: “You have not rushed. You have spent five, even six, years cultivating your holiness, your mastery of our tradition, and today you are fit to take on the honor, the authority, and the responsibility of the title ‘rabbi.’”

Rabbi Joshua Garroway ’03, Ph.D., Dean, Jack H. Skirball Campus delivers the welcome address.

Reflecting upon the ordinands’ new titles, as well as the responsibilities that will accompany them, Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., President of 91�첥 said, “Their perception of you will correspond to a deeper truth of who you now are reflecting the process of spiritual, academic, and cultural development you have just completed. It is now incumbent upon you to use that inherent power to bring the Sacred into this world.”

Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D. , National Director of the Rabbinical School and Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Rabbinics at 91�첥, gave the Ordination Address. In her remarks, Rabbi Weisberg offered a message about learning that undoubtedly spoke to students and guests alike, reminding those gathered that “More important than any other thing you have learned in rabbinical school is learning how to learn. You know that although you have learned a great deal, there is even more that you still do not know. If you continue to learn, you will continue to grow. Find something you love and study more of it.”

The rabbinical ordinands were Yael Lee Farber, Timothy Welles Gaylord, Eden F. Glaser, Leah Rose Julian, Julia Knobloch, Hannah Taylor Lybik, Charles J. Mays, Joshua Michael Shapiro, and Jeffrey Michael Silverstein.

Representing the Board of Governors, Steven Pruzan, Chair of the Academic & Faculty Committee, shared congratulatory remarks, observing the duality of the spiritual support that these future leaders will provide to their respective communities: “We look to you, our ordinands, to guide us and to help us with our pursuit of perfection but to also help us with our imperfections, as you do so for yourselves. The training you have received from our world-class faculty at 91�첥 has provided you with the basic tools to be our spiritual and moral leaders.”

In the Benediction and final blessing of the day, Kristine Garroway ‘09, Ph.D., Professor of Bible at 91�첥, offered a timely and moving prayer: “…that when you see pain, you will comfort it; that when you see injustice, you will challenge it; that when you see ignorance, you will teach it; and that when you are beleaguered, as our prophets invariably were, you will find the strength to endure.”

The newest leaders from the Class of 2025/5785 gather on the bimah.

Cantor Kerith Spencer-Shapiro ’03 provided musical inspiration throughout the ceremony, including performances of “Shiru L’Adonai” (Cantor Lawrence Avery ’55) for the processional and recessional of “Turn it Around (Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller ’87).

The full program can be found .