The text messages started a few weeks ago, in the days leading up to High Holidays:
“Are you ok?”
“Do you miss it?”
“You’re a Jew in the pew?!”
“What is it like, your first High Holidays off the bimah?”
As Rosh Hashanah approached, friends, colleagues, congregants and even family members seemed worried about me. It made sense. After nearly two decades as a congregational rabbi, this year would look dramatically different, having recently accepted an exciting new, non-pulpit role.
But also, it wasn’t just about me. This change was proving hard on them, too. It seemed as if my friends and family had a static image of me wearing a white tallit and standing behind a lectern, leading services and giving sermons; and some of them couldn’t imagine me anywhere else. Maybe that’s because I did it for so long, or because I loved it so much, or because I was good at it. Whatever the reason, in their mind’s eye, a Diana off the bimah was no Diana at all.
How much did my professional role define me, and who was I off the bimah? Those were the questions on my mind when I sat down as host of my family’s Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner last month. In truth, in my adult life, I had never even attended my own family’s Rosh Hashanah dinner, let alone hosted it. As a congregational rabbi, I had been busy on the holidays — with all the logistical, spiritual and communal responsibilities required to shepherd hundreds of Jews into the new year. But this year, with a new job and a different type of Jewish leadership role, I found myself off the bimah and free for dinner.
So it was game on. If I wasn’t going to excel at leading holiday services, I was going to excel at hosting a holiday meal. Turns out, I nailed it. My holiday table featured a pomegranate table runner, two homemade round challahs, and bee-themed honey lollipops for each guest. I made the blessings, and I made the food (with the help of my mother — thanks, Mom!). I had reinvented myself as a maven of Jewish home life. But in my zeal, I wondered if I was overcompensating for what was no longer there. Maybe my loved ones were right to be worried. Was I simply trying to cover how much I missed congregational life with a festive tablecloth?
And I did miss the bimah, a lot. I missed standing almost inside the ark, surrounded by Torah scrolls, with my back turned to the congregation as we sang Avinu Malkeinu. That was a moment of relative privacy mixed with power: not my power but the power that lies just beyond human reach. I missed standing in front of a community where I knew almost everyone and sharing the words I had worked so hard to craft over weeks, even months. The bimah is magnificent, transcendent and holy. And the bimah had always been my vehicle to do what I’ve dedicated my life to doing: bring Jews closer to Jewishness.
And now what? I considered that question on my walk to synagogue. We decided to go to a synagogue where I’d worked many years ago. It was comfortable and familiar, and even though it had been quite some time since I’d sat with the congregation, it came naturally to me. Once there, I prayed a lot. I prayed loudly, and I prayed silently. I prayed off-key, and I prayed in harmony. I prayed with my machzor, and I prayed without it. I listened, and I tuned out (something that wouldn’t have been remotely possible a year earlier). I danced with my daughters during an energetic hakafah, and I held my husband’s hand in a quiet moment. Instead of giving a sermon about peoplehood or pride, I listened to one about the preciousness of family. I received rather than produced.
And somewhere between Unetaneh Tokef and the final blast of the shofar, I started to believe something new: it’s not my old job, or my new job, that makes me who I am; it’s the Judaism. The casings don’t define me; the content does: the prayers, the community, the mitzvot. Having children, visiting the sick, honoring my parents, doing acts of lovingkindness, seeking God’s blessings and praising God’s ways — these are the things that make me the Jew I’ve become. The positions and prestige are satisfying, but the Jewish actions are at the core.
At the end of Rosh Hashanah, we studied a Talmudic text about a magic maker named Honi. People come to Honi because they are unhappy with the weather. They need rain. So Honi draws a literal circle and puts himself at the center. He stands in that circle and asks God to make it rain. A few drops trickle from the sky. Not satisfied with the outcome, he again calls out to God. Torrential rain pours down. So much so that it forces Honi out of the circle — to be right where he should be, with the people. Finally, the flooding subsides, God answers his prayers and the rain returns at the right rate.
I never really loved Honi. He always struck me as a bit spoiled and self-centered. Who draws a circle, puts themselves at the center of it, after all? But this year, I connected with him and his story because, like Honi, I was no longer at the center of it all. Rather, I was one of thousands. And just like Honi, I was closer to God than ever before.
This essay initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on October 10, 2026. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
The post The Phantom Bimah appeared first on My Jewish Learning.
Source: My Jewish Learning
