Seder Telling
Rabbanit Leah Sarna
Rabbanit Leah Sarna is the Associate Director of Education and Director of High School Programs at Drisha. She previously served as Director of Religious Engagement at Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in Chicago, a leading urban Orthodox congregation.
She was ordained at Yeshivat Maharat in 2018, holds a BA from Yale University in Philosophy & Psychology, and also trained at the SKA Beit Midrash for Women at Migdal Oz, Drisha and the Center for Modern Torah Leadership. Rabbanit Sarna’s published works have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Lehrhaus and MyJewishLearning.
She has lectured in Orthodox synagogues and Jewish communal settings around the world and loves spreading her warm, energetic love for Torah and Mitzvot with Jews in all stages of life.
Rabbi David Silber
David Silber is the founder and dean of Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York and Israel. Rabbi Silber received ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He is a recipient of the Covenant Award, for excellence in innovative Jewish education, and is the author of A Passover Haggadah: Go Forth and Learn (Jewish Publication Society 2011), For Such a Time as This: Biblical Reflections in the Book of Esther (Koren Publishers 2017), and Malkhut Adam: Iyunim Bsefer Shmuel (Maggid 2021). He is also a nationally acclaimed lecturer on the Bible. Rabbi Silber is married to Dr. Devora Steinmetz. They have eight children and live in New York City.
Click here to access other recorded classes by David Silber.
Darshanit Dr. Miriam Udel
Darshanit Dr. Miriam Udel is associate professor of German Studies and Jewish Studies at Emory University, where her teaching focuses on Yiddish language, literature, and culture. She holds an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, as well as a PhD in Comparative Literature from the same institution. She was ordained in 2019 as part of the first cohort of the Executive Ordination Track at Yeshivat Maharat, a program designed to bring qualified mid-career women into the Orthodox rabbinate.
Udel’s academic research interests include 20th-century Yiddish literature and culture, Jewish children’s literature, and American-Jewish literature. She is the author of Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque (University of Michigan Press), winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience. Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature appeared in October with New York University Press.
Click here to access podcasts recorded by Miriam Udel.
Dr. Tammy Jacobowitz
Dr. Tammy Jacobowitz is the chair of the Bible department at the SAR High School, and is the founding director of Makom B’Siach at SAR, an immersive adult education program for parents. She has taught Bible for the Wexner Heritage program, and she is also an adjunct faculty member of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, where she teaches the Pedagogy of Tanakh. She is a graduate of the Drisha Institute’s Scholars Circle, and completed her PhD in Midrash at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 as a Wexner Graduate fellow. Dr. Jacobowitz is currently at work on a parsha book, geared towards parents reading to young children. She lives in Teaneck, NJ with her husband, Prof. Ronnie Perelis, and their four children.
Click here to access podcasts recorded by Tammy Jacobowitz.
Rabbi David Ingber
Rabbi David A. Ingber is the Founder and Senior Rabbi at Romemu, NYC, a community he founded in 2008 that today has over 700 households. A disciple of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, famed founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, Rabbi Ingber was ordained by “Reb Zalman” in 2004. Rabbi Ingber serves on faculty for the Wexner Heritage Program, The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and Israel, The 92nd Street Y’s program for Rabbinic Entrepreneurship, and other institutions. He was an AJWS Global Justice Fellow, as well as a Rabbinic Fellow in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Leadership Initiative. Rabbi Ingber has lectured extensively on the topics of spirituality, theology, Jewish mysticism, prayer and meditation. He lives in Manhattan with his amazing wife Ariel and their three children, Baer, Tal, and Or.
Today our seder nights are guided by the liturgical prompts of the Haggadah, but it wasn’t always this way. Our tradition records that in the times of the Mishnah, Rabbis gathered in Lod and Bnai Brak on the Seder night to tell the story of the Exodus. Unscripted, in their own words. Join us and listen in as a gathering of scholars and rabbis re-enact this seder, at our event: Seder Telling.
Presented in partnership with: Brandeis Hillel, Congregation Darchei Noam, Congregation Ohr Hatorah, Netivot Shalom, Romemu, Torat Chayim, Valley Beit Midrash, and Yeshivat Maharat.