I was pretty active in the Reform Jewish congregation of my childhood in New Jersey. Back then, I occasionally thought I might enter rabbinical school after college. But I didn’t.

After majoring in English at Brandeis University, I found work writing for a magazine that focused on the legal field in Manhattan. That experience sharpened my writing. I considered a career in publishing, but reporting about the legal field led me to law school. (Before law school, I spent several months on a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee. It was like the Garden of Eden up there, but unlike Adam and Eve, I had to toil to make anything grow on the kibbutz.)

During law school, I found myself continually listing toward Jewish activities, from the Jewish Law Students Association to legal internships with Jewish non-profits. Upon graduation, I followed that momentum and worked for a decade with Jewish organizations in Washington, DC, New York, and Chicago.

Back in New Jersey, I decided to try a little teaching at the synagogue to which my wife and I (and our then-toddler) belonged. I had never taught anyone anything and felt utterly unprepared. I remember the first day. I heard a stampede of fourth graders’ approaching the classroom and fretted, “What am I supposed to say first?”

I figured it out. My years teaching those fourth graders taught me that I am much more interested in teaching our tradition than in doing anything else.

A couple of years later I matriculated at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institue of Religion. The five years of rabbinical school were productive. In addition to taking lots of Jewish content into my head, my wife and I welcomed two more children into our family, including our third, born during my year of study in Jerusalem.

I was ordained in 2007 and have served Ezra-Habonim, the Niles Township Jewish Congregation since 2012. I love being a congregational rabbi, pretty much every aspect of it. What I learned in front of those fourth graders remains true: I love teaching Jewish tradition, in all its great, dazzling, creative wonder.