My Long and Winding Road to Rabbinical School

Cul-de-sac in the outskirts of the city

Why one 40-something lawyer decided to change career paths in spite of the numerous obstacles before her.

by Rachel Putterman

Forty-eight years old, two kids, a mortgage, teacher/poet husband, no savings to speak of, and I’ve just started rabbinical school! How crazy is that? Half the time I’m terrified at what I’m doing, but the other half I know I’m doing EXACTLY what I’m meant to do.

As cliché as it sounds, I was a seeker from a very young age. In my third-grade Hebrew school class, I was intrigued by the concept of kavanah, or intention, in prayer. Then, at my bat mitzvah, I eagerly anticipated an experience of G-d while on the bimah, but that didn’t happen. On a trip to Israel when I was 16 years old, I was once again disappointed when G-d failed to show up at the Western Wall. Thereafter, I entered a period of spiritual dormancy that lasted for more than a decade. Although I spent my junior year of college in Israel and fell in love with the country, I avoided all things religious; I even ate on Yom Kippur!

After college, I worked for Friends of Peace Now, an American organization that supported the efforts of Israel’s largest grassroots movement for peace. Two of the local board members were Hillel rabbis, and I found their social justice activism inspiring. I briefly thought of going to rabbinical school, but I was dating a Japanese guy and didn’t feel ready to take on the mantle of being a religious leader. He was a public interest attorney, and that seemed like an ideal social justice career, so, I decided to go to law school instead! While in law school, every paper I wrote was about Israel or Jewish Law. I also underwent a feminist awakening, which led to my representing domestic violence survivors as a legal services attorney in New York City. Although I was very committed to my career as a public interest attorney, I spent all of my extracurricular time on spiritual pursuits. I became an avid practitioner of yoga and Buddhism. But it was in a class on Jewish meditation that I reconnected to Jewish practice. Through friends I met in the class, I started attending Shabbat dinners and a traditional egalitarian minyan.

A few years later, I met Matthew, who I would eventually marry. After I led a seder during our first Passover together, Matthew said, “You should be a rabbi.” Bingo! I thought, but I laughed him off. A few months later, in December of 2003, I was at a book club with a bunch of disgruntled legal services attorneys. We were discussing our dream jobs, and I said, “I’d really like to be a rabbi,” and a woman in the book club, who was raised modern Orthodox, said, “you’d be a great rabbi!” Her validation was all I needed; I came home from the book club and said to Matthew, “I want to go to rabbinical school.” While the clarity I had was profound, the reality of starting my professional life over when I had just gotten married and knew that I wanted to have children was daunting.

What followed was a 10-year journey to Hebrew College’s rabbinical school that included getting married, two long-distance moves, and giving birth to two daughters. I also had to work through some residual ambivalence I had both about the commitment to seven more years of school and to seeing myself as a Jewish leader. After a stint as a Hebrew school teacher, learning to chant Torah, and some breakthroughs in my prayer practice, I finally decided to apply to rabbinical school for the fall of 2013.

The transition to rabbinical school has not always been an easy one. On average, I’m about 20 years older than most of the other students. And, while I was busy being a public interest lawyer and mother, the world changed a lot. There are days I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I still use the language of feminism and women’s rights, but what is much more relevant today is trans rights. Moreover, on Israel, I consider myself solidly left wing; I support J Street and a two-state solution. But at rabbinical school, I am considered a moderate at best. Finally, I am one of the only current rabbinical students at Hebrew College with school-age children. A few students have babies during their last year, and a handful are parents to adult children, but no other student is balancing the care of young children and the demands of school throughout their rabbinical school career. And that creates some socially awkward moments, like when I couldn’t go on the orientation retreat because my daughter got lice. Or when I’m in the elevator with several bleary-eyed students at 9 a.m. and one of them says, “You seem awfully awake this morning,” and I say, “Yeah, well I’ve been up since 5:30 a.m. with my three-year-old,” and they have no idea how to respond.

Despite the challenges of going back to school mid-life, I feel incredibly lucky, both to know what I want to be when I grow up and to have the ability to make it happen. Though my path to becoming a rabbi has not always been a linear one, it has been authentic to who I am. I couldn’t have reached this point in my life any other way!

About the Author

rachel_puttermanRachel Putterman received her BA from the University of California–San Diego and her JD from American University. As a legal services attorney, she represented domestic violence survivors in their family law cases. She is currently a rabbinical student at Hebrew College and spent the summer as a graduate intern at HBI. When not studying, Rachel enjoys yoga, hiking, and spending time with her family.

One Comment

  1. ruth housman October 21, 2014 Reply

    I think there is a Storyteller in our midst taking us all on a profound journey of soul. I know my ife is so visibly non random and so when you are called to whatever ignites your passions honor that Story: Yours!

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