Rabbi Raysh Weiss

Rabbi Dr. Raysh Weiss’ rabbinate is driven by a commitment to celebrating the strengths and stories of all the people in the community; bringing people together through prayer, ritual, art, music, food, and shared learning; and forging deep and meaningful relationships across lines of race, class, religion, and geography. Rabbi Weiss has previously served as Senior Rabbi at Shaar Shalom Synagogue in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and at Congregation Beth El of Bucks County in Pennsylvania. Her work and writings have been featured in MyJewishLearning.com, Tablet Magazine, The Canadian Jewish News, The Jewish Exponent, and the Center for Rabbinic Innovation.

Rabbi Weiss majored in Comparative Literary Studies, Radio/Television/Film, and Philosophy at Northwestern University, and received a Bronfman Fellowship in Israel and a J. William Fulbright Research Scholarship in Ethnomusicology in Germany. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and was ordained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary. While in Minnesota, she founded the Uptown Havurah, a vibrant trans-denominational spiritual community, and joined the National Havurah Committee board, on which she continues to serve; while in Seminary she also joined the board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. In 2015, Rabbi Weiss was named one of New York City’s “36 Under 36” by The Jewish Week.

Rabbi Weiss is a vocalist, saxophone player, and composer/bandleader who enjoys bringing music into all facets of her life, community, and rabbinate. Other artistic and cultural pursuits, in shul and out, include cartooning, cooking, filmmaking, cycling, and learning as many languages as possible.

Rabbi Weiss lives in Natick with her spouse–Rabbi Jonah Rank, the President and Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary: A Rabbinical School for Deaf and Hearing–their children, and an alarming number of notebooks and dying plants. The Weiss-Rank family is delighted to join the vibrant, intentional, and inclusive community that is Temple Israel of Natick.

Click HERE to email Rabbi Weiss

Select recent publications:

“Medical and Recreational Cannabis Usage,”[ HM 427:8.2023a] for the Committee On Jewish Laws and Standards
https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/medical-and-recreational-cannabis_weiss.pdf

“The Eternal Ambient Light,” in Honey from the Rock: a Pandemic-Era Rabbinic Anthology. Ed. Rabbi Menachem Creditor, self-published by author, 2022.

“Coming Closer to Pride,” in Chaver Up! 49 Rabbis Explore What it Means to be an Ally through a Jewish Lens. Eds. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, 2021.

“The Good Enough Sermon,” in Who by Plague: High Holy Days Sermons from COVID19 Times. Ed. Rabbi Oren Z Steinitz, 2021.

“Epstein Tainted My Wexner-Funded Rabbinical Studies: Here is What I’m Doing About It,”

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/epstein-tainted-my-wexner-funded-rabbinical-studies-heres-what-im-doing-about-it/ Oct. 2, 2019, Times of Israel.

“A League of Their Own: The Untold Story of the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism,” in Zeramim: an Online Journal of Applied Jewish Thought, Vol. ii: Issue 1 (2017). Eds. Joshua Cahan and Richard L.Claman.

“Klezmer in the New Germany: A Musical Mirror of History, Identity, and Memory,” in Three-Way Street: Jews, Germans, and the Transnational. Eds. Jay Geller and Leslie Morris, University of Michigan Press, 2016.

אינטערוויו מיט מײַן פֿאָטער, דר איראַ ווייס, (“Interview with my Father, Dr. Ira Weiss”) in Afn Shvel (Yiddish language journal), Ed. Sheva Zucker, League of Yiddish,

Issue 368-369 Summer-Autumn 2015.

“Seeing the Sounds: Exceeding the Frame through the Acoustical Sublime in the Revelation at Sinai,” in In-Visible Culture, 18 (2013). Eds. Alicia Guzmann and Alexander Marr, University of Rochester Press.