Rabbi Rochelle Kamins has not always felt Jewish . enough. No youth group or summer camp. She never did all of the things that young Jewish people were "alleged" to do. But she always wanted to look like she fit, and that she could belong - tattoos, motorcycles and all. Sitting in her office, Rabbi Rochelle talks candidly about her non-traditional route to the rabbinate and why she doesn't plan on conforming anytime soon.
"I suppose everyone has an icon of a rabbi," says Rabbi Rochelle laughing. "They consider old white man with a beard and big hat. Just like when you ask most kids what God looks like, he is still the man on the cloudy throne in the sky."
Rabbi Rochelle is a bit of an anomaly. Adorned with tattoos, albeit inconspicuously, she drives her Honda CBR F4i motorcycle through Los Angeles traffic en route to do one of her rabbinic duties. Ordained in 2009 as a Reform rabbi, she has built an icon on being different and welcoming people into Judaism who might not fit the mold.
Her end is to create change in the Jewish community - change in the way Jews look at other Jews. She has a warmth that stems from a life of feeling like people were looking at her as if she could not be a division of the community, because she didn't participate in all of the things that constituted being a "good" Jew. As a rabbi, she aims to assist people foster connections within the community while being a manifestation of what she believes are different, yet acceptable routes to Judaism.
She tells the level of a mate who asked her to do their marriage on a Saturday, the day of relaxation in Judaism where working or getting married is against tradition. The couple grew up Jewish and were concerned in maintaining a Jewish household, however were not currently connected to a synagogue. They divided with her horror stories of other rabbis who had refused to perform the ceremony and told the match that they were not Jewish because of their determination to get married on Shabbat.
"I had a conversation with them and explained the tradition," recalls Rabbi Rochelle. "The escort and the range for their marriage was already set. Is it the worse thing in the man? No. The worst thing in the man would be if the next rabbi said no. And the next rabbi said no, and the next. Then they would be lost. Why would anyone fall into a community if they look alike the door keeps getting slammed in their face?"
Raised in San Francisco by her mother, a more traditional Jew from the Bronx, and her father, an L.A. socialist Jew, Rabbi Rochelle's experience was anything but traditional. "How the two of them came together and created a rabbi is anyone's guess," chuckles Rabbi Rochelle.
Her upbringing, however, cultivated a predisposition for Jewish people whose lives did not fit perfectly within the boundaries of traditional Jewish practice or thought. "My dad's parents were basically communists," says Rabbi Rochelle. "You know L.A. Socialists had meetings in their house. One of my grandparents' good friends was a lawyer who was defending people at the Supreme Court during the Red Scare and all of that. My dad's father was very anti-organized religion. He was all about science and reason. My grandfather was like, 'Oh sure you can take a bar mitzvah, if you think in that.'"
Her father, who is in his 60s, never had a bar mitzvah until she performed it last November. "We had a deal," says Rabbi Rochelle with a smile. "He said he would possess a bar mitzvah when I could be the rabbi. It was pretty cool."
Her mother shares that her daughter's decision to get a rabbi came as a huge surprise: "I knew after she went to college that she would do something with kids and Judaism, but had no idea that she would ask this route."
Veering from the beaten path has become one of Rabbi Rochelle's hallmarks. She successfully petitioned UC San Diego to let her to make her own undergraduate major in Modern Israeli Society and Israeli Culture. And in rabbinical school she wrote her thesis on the head of tattoos in Judaism, "The Illustrated Jew: A New Jewish View on Tattoos," hoping to establish a reference to people like herself that were trying to see a correspondence between the temporal world and their Judaism.
"I did a ton of research before I got my tattoos," she says. "And I eventually came to the determination that body art did not hold God angry with me or draw me a bad Jew. I am not a bad person and I know my spirit with integrity."
Rabbi Rochelle's body is decorated with two tattoos, although the instant one can just be considered a single tattoo. It initially started off as a tattoo on her game that spelled the word "love" in the work of a heart. It has since morphed into an olive tree, which makes the eye appear more like a sculpture in the tree. The olive tree has particular meaning in Judaism.
The word emet, meaning "truth" in Hebrew, is tattooed on her hip and was designed to feel like it was written on her body with a black Sharpie. The tattoo's placement was carefully chosen, as she wanted it to be a bit hidden, just for her, and to function as a monitor to ever walk in accuracy and integrity.
Walking in accuracy and unity for Rabbi Rochelle has not ever been an easy route to travel. Adopting the unpopular position that someone's sexual preference, body art or piercings has nothing to do with his or her spirituality has presented its just portion of challenges. She is aware that she might be looked at as a bit of an outsider and is sometimes referred for jobs that quite possibly nobody else will take. Weddings on a Saturday. An interfaith wedding with a minister. She gets the picture at times that people refer these jobs to her because they think, "Oh, it's Rochelle, she'll do anything." That simply because she is exposed in some ways, she has no boundaries or rules. That there is no method to her madness.
"So many people go through the motions," says Rabbi Rochelle. "They go to religious school. They do the things, but there is no material connection. I wish people to remain connected and to let people experience that yet if they feel different, like they don't fit or they don't belong, there is even room here. You know, they say that Abraham's tent was opened on all 4 sides, so that visitors or people coming from any direction - he could recognise them. I actually believe that is what the temple should be and that is what a rabbi should be. A rabbi is like Abraham, open on all sides and set to welcome anyone in when they are quick and from whichever way they come."
A revised edition of this clause was originally published at onBeing.
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