Rabbi Jericho Vincent

BiSiyata DiShmaya
with the aid of the cosmos

I grew up with a lot of pride in the rabbinic luminaries of my ultra-Orthodox family tree and a fervent hope that when I was eighteen I’d merit, through my modesty and subservience, a match with a young yeshiva student who would one day, through my support and sacrifice, become a great rabbi himself.

Well, I was excellent at modesty and subservience until I wasn’t and then, soon enough, I was sent spiraling out of my family into the unknown.

Thank Goddexx.

Dear beautiful Goddexx.

Sometimes the move that saves you is a hard kick in the pants.

I’d always had a close relationship with the Divine and as I tumbled out of the closed world I’d grown up in, I searched for a new spiritual home, learning from Zen Buddhists and then joining a Sufi community, before leaving all that behind for a mystical kind of atheism. For a long time I was like a lot of people: spiritual but not religious.

Then, about fifteen years ago, while working as an organizer in the ex-ultra-Orthodox community I began to learn that so many of the things that I thought were facts of Judaism were actually fabrications. Intrigued, I dove into new and ancient Jewish texts. A whole new picture of Judaism, God, and religion began to emerge as I discovered the contours of great chunks of paralytic trauma obscuring the radiant living wisdom of our ancestors.

Some years into this work Goddexx arranged for me to meet my soulmate, the writer and healer Ash Blum. Calling on the strange journeys both of us had taken through our lives, we began to excavate a new/ancient way of being in the world, with ourselves, and with each other that we now call the Ivri path.

I’m now a practitioner, guide, and teacher of the Ivri path through my Brooklyn-based community Temple of the Stranger, as a guest of communities around the country, and through my instagram ministry. This work is the work of my heart, the work of my life.

I am deeply grateful to my rebbeim (teachers) and my colleagues in the Aleph Ordination Program who have healed me, nurtured me, stretched me, and inspired me. I’m particularly grateful to Reb Elliot Ginsburg am”osh, Reb Phyllis Ocean Berman am”osh, Reb Marcia Prager am”osh, and Reb Aubrey Glazer, amo”sh; to my teachers HaRav Kohenet Reb Jill Hammer am”osh and Reb Arthur Green am”osh; to Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi zt”l.

I am deeply grateful to my beloved Ash, my children, North and Theo, and my in-laws, Jude and Ozi, and Al and Sari, for their encouragement, wisdom, love, and support.

I am deeply grateful to El Rachem, the cosmic womb, that has nurtured me every step of my journey.

Looking ahead, I imagine a world in which religion is no longer monopolized by oppression.

I imagine a world shaped by the living truth of our wise ancestors, and the values they held dear: healing, passion, and love.

I imagine a world that we can create not in some far distant time but right now, moment to moment, tiny choice by tiny choice, allowing in more and more of the liberatory energy called Moshiach by our wise ancestors.

Ken teheye ritzona

May it be Her will

Isaiah 58:9