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Aaron was my introduction to Judaism. Little did I know he would become my husband. Although the picture is NOT from 1998, it's from fairly early in our relationship. -
I don't recall exact date, but year is correct.
First exposure to Judaism and when I realized I needed to be Jewish. -
Met eventual in-laws, attended congregational seder
Month and year accurate, not sure about exact day -
In addition to starting my first job post-undergrad, I met the local rabbi (a friend of my husband's family!) and began study for conversion. Racine is a smidge south of Milwaukee. -
Date was chosen so that I would be official just before Shavuot.
Mikveh and Beit Din in Milwaukee. The following Shabbat I led a few prayers in the morning liturgy. -
Move primarily was for professional reasons, but we hoped to find a more robust Jewish community. Not sure exact date, but month is approximately correct. -
Nothing particularly Jewish about the engagement, but we started to think more about Jewish ritual for our lives at this point. -
Another move for professional reasons. We had not found a Jewish community in Chicago, largely due to our work schedules. When we settled in the Boston area, we joined a young couples' chavurah (purely social) and discovered both the Progressive Chavurah and Am Tikva (lay led ritual communities). The start of my learning how to lead services happened in these communities. -
A goal I had set at my conversion was to learn Hebrew. The process of learning Hebrew led to my deciding to pursue a graduate degree. -
In planning our wedding and events around it, we combined American traditions like a rehearsal dinner with an unconventional auf ruf on Friday night. On Saturday, we gathered with friends and some family for havdallah. Havdallah had become a major part of our home practice by this time. We planned most of the ceremony ourselves and created a booklet to explain ritual elements. -
Although we had affixed mezuzot at our apartment, it felt noticeably different to do this in a home we owned. Note the ketubah in the picture! :) -
Working at HC was a pragmatic choice for financing my MAJS. I helped to create the online degree programs which have long since evolved substantially. That said, I had the great blessing of getting to know faculty much better. Through the work I did, I saw a lot of course material which triggered my interest to learn yet more.
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This was the very beginning of my love of leyning. It was parashat Pinchas. -
I had a hunch that I needed to know how to teach in a synagogue setting for my longer term career aspirations. I had fantastic mentorship from someone who would become my closest friend, and I discovered that I loved teaching beyond words. -
My thesis looked at rare te'amim (trope) and I had the experience of teaching my teachers (yikes!)
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Congregation now known as Kol Tikvah. I worked here for 5 years.
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I continued to explore my new love of Jewish education.
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My first time leading High Holidays services. I was testing out the waters for pursuing a clergy path.
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Caleb's birth threw us into Jewish ritual almost immediately with planning for his brit milah. As with our wedding, we crafted much of the ceremony. -
At Prozdor, I found and developed my role as an educator. I began to think more deeply about what Jewish education can or "should" look like. -
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Despite having a wonderful Jewish community in Watertown, we needed more space. Other than Friday night dinners and holidays, we put a lot of Jewish practice on hold. -
Now we had the opportunity to create a welcoming ceremony for a girl. -
As Caleb approached kindergarten, it felt important to find a Jewish community where we could raise our kids and grow as a family. The exact year of our joining is unclear to me. In some ways, it feels like we always have been there. Over the years, I've served on the board, the ritual committee, the rabbinic search committee, the leadership transition team, and have served as a gabbai. Beth El has been a place of spiritual healing and sanctuary for me. -
Jacob was born on Yom Kippur. With the birth of each child, we had the opportunity to express our Jewish identity as a family and to renew our commitment to raising our children in a Jewish home. -
This was not the path I expected, and a lot led up to it and went into the process. The date is an estimate based on the picture date. -
This was a major returning to pulpit work. I had led services at Beth El any number of times, but now I was acting in a rabbinic intern function.
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Too much to say. It was wonderful. A lot of introspection, a lot of thinking about what I wanted to tell my kid -
This was long overdue. I wish we had gone sooner and for a longer time. Hopefully we will be able to return soon. -
My first internship as a rabbinical student. I did not plan to have an internship during my second year as a student, but this must have been beshert. I started to see the possibility of being a spiritual leader for myself. https://jewishjournal.org/2019/07/25/haverhill-temple-welcomes-rabbinic-intern-jennifer-stevens/
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I returned to classroom teaching after a long hiatus to discern whether I still could do it, whether I still enjoyed it, whether I found it meaningful. -
A very different experience. Due to the pandemic, I spent more time than at Caleb's bar mitzvah (surprising given all of that planning!) thinking about what felt essential and what would be most meaningful.