The Shape of Faith

Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, writer, and educator who grew up in an art studio where she learned firsthand the power of creativity for connecting to self and to the Sacred. She is cofounder and creative director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), an organization that is seeding a future in which every person is connected to their creativity as a force for healing, liberation and social transformation. Based on the work of her mother, renowned art therapist Pat B. Allen, Adina developed the Jewish Studio Process, a methodology for unlocking creativity, which she has brought to thousands of activists, educators, artists, and clergy across the country. A national media contributor, popular speaker, and workshop leader, Adina’s writing can be found in scholarly as well as mainstream publications, and her first book, The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom is forthcoming this spring (via Ayin Press). Adina was ordained by Hebrew College in 2014 where she was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Adina is the recipient of the Covenant Foundation’s 2018 Pomegranate Prize for emerging educational leaders. She and her family live in Berkeley, California.

To read more about Adina’s forthcoming book, place your order or peruse book tour dates, please visit theplaceofallpossibilitybook.com

Rabbi Sivan Rotholz joined Central Synagogue full-time in 2024 after a year serving as a teacher with Central's Center for Exploring Judaism. Born in Haifa, Israel, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sivan earned her B.A. in Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law, her M.F.A. in poetry from Brooklyn College CUNY, and her Master's in Nonprofit Management from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A recovering attorney, before being called to the rabbinate, Sivan was a professor of gynocentric Torah (Torah that is centered on the stories and experiences of women) and creative writing. Called to serve others by making Judaism more joyous and accessible, Sivan began rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College in 2018 and has served as a student rabbi at Congregation Brith Sholem in Ogden, Utah; Brandeis Hillel; and for the JDC. A passionate Jewish educator, Sivan has taught at Brooklyn College; Tel Aviv University; Hebrew Union College; Columbia/Barnard & Brandeis Hillels; Temple Emanu-El (NYC); Temple Israel of the City of New York; Congregation Beth Israel (Portland); Camp Ramah; Wexner Institutes; Moishe House; At the Well; Pardes; the URJ; Melton; and Ritualwell. Her areas of expertise include adult education, creative midrash, work with conversion students, exploring Judaism, feminist Torah, and poetry. She always opts for discussion facilitation rather than frontal lecturing, believes in the power of hevrutah — studying in pairs or small groups — and learns most when teaching. Sivan is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship; the Froman Fellowship with the New Israel Fund; the year-long Hartman Institute Rabbinic Seminar; and Atra: The Center for Rabbinic Innovation. Sivan lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her two children, Aidan Avishai and Elsie Dani.

To read some of Sivan’s writing, visit her website at sivanrotholz.com.

Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene

Music by Yakov Fleischmann

Brother Thomas Buttrick was born in Phoenix in 1981, to a family with secular Jewish roots on his mother’s side and Protestant New England– though unchurched and fairly disconnected– roots on his father’s side.

Thomas is one of three, having two older siblings, and, after his parents divorced when he was an infant, he, his mom and siblings moved out East, where he gained a stepfather and grew up in suburban New Jersey, loving the arts, music, and, as he says, arguing.

After high school, Thomas studied history at Brown University, where, through the Bible and an influential friend, he also got interested in the academic study of religion, as well as in its teachings and promises for the believer.  

By his graduation, Thomas considered himself a Christian, though still unbaptized. After college, he traveled to Israel, becoming more religiously committed there and experimenting with his sense of belonging in different Christian groups and churches.  

In 2007, he was baptized by a friend in a private ceremony, and, around that time, he also started working on organic farms out west and becoming interested in teaching.

After a confusing and illuminating journey, Thomas chose to join the Catholic Church in 2014. He continued teaching for some time, but longed for more structure and purpose in his life, as well as more space for prayer. He began visiting Mount Angel Abbey, a home and seminary for Benedictine Monks, and found in it a balanced-feeling existence, with, as he says, “good spaces for listening.”

Thomas joined the Abbey, going through the typical stages of monastic initiation, in 2017, and he received the religious name Thomas, in honor of St. Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus, who initially doubted his master's resurrection and was later convinced of it.

Thomas made the traditional vows of obedience, stability, and monastic conversion very recently on September 11, 2021

Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene

Music by Yakov Fleischmann

A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Grant McCandless taught ethics and philosophy in community college before enrolling at Harvard to study American religious history as well as nonprofit management. While there he became an advisor to Habitat for Humanity International on their new interfaith inclusion initiative and withdrew from Harvard to do strategic planning for the nonprofit at their headquarters. He earned an MBA at Emory University in Atlanta and is now a consultant to the housing industry in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene 

Music by Yakov Fleischmann

Abby Brockman (she/her) is a Jewish trauma chaplain and spiritual caregiver who understands her role as facilitating transformative healing through increasing (re)connection at all levels of living: body, self, family, community, and something greater than ourselves. She received her MDiv from Boston University, trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and completed her clinical residency at the VA Medical Center in her hometown of Seattle. She now serves as a staff chaplain at Seattle Children’s Hospital where the kiddos have stolen her heart. She brings an anti-racist and anti-oppressive lens to her work and specializes in moral injury, suicidality, grief/loss, end-of-life, meaning making, and unlearning. She's a community organizer for racial justice, shamelessly laughs at the same jokes over and over, and believes there are gateways to holiness everywhere.

To have access to her brilliant writing and her inspiring posts, you can follow Abby on Facebook and Instagram.

Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene

Music by Yakov Fleischmann

The Rev. Charles (Chaz) Lattimore Howard, PhD is The University Chaplain and The Vice President for Social Equity and Community at the University of Pennsylvania - his alma mater.

He has served in both hospital and hospice chaplaincies, and as a street outreach worker to individuals experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. His writing has been featured in such publications as Black Theology: An International Journal, Daily Good, Sojourners Magazine, Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Huffington Post, The Christian Century, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Forward, and Slate. He is the author of five books including most recentlyPond River Ocean Rain,  a collection of brief essays about going deeper with God, and the forthcomingThe Bottom: A Theopoetic of the Streets. 

A Son of Baltimore and a Godson of Philadelphia, he shares life with his beloved wife, Dr. Lia C. Howard and their three daughters.

Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene Music by Yakov Fleischmann

• "It was when I got to college that things started to seem a lot less shiny when it came to the faith."
• "I was disengaged, unaware, aloof- all those things with regards to other faiths. Maybe privileged is the right word. I was privileged to be in an environment where faith wasn't a discussion point."
• "Growing up, you could only access Islam through Arabic...We've chosen to look beyond the Arabic and look into the English so that we can actually understand what's in the faith and try to bring it home a little more."
• "The pull has always been strong to God."
• "We do not preoccupy ourselves with material things because that means you're worshipping material things...We only worship God."
• "One thing that I really like is the coherence and the harmony of faith and science."
• Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene 
• Music by Yakov Fleischmann

• "So, maybe I do think about God sometimes." 
• "The desire to master something, I think, is a fear response." 
• "Inspiration feels a little bit like a seed gets planted in the soil of the mind...do I have the right conditions present to really let this thing grow?" 
• Art Direction and Design by Molly Keene
• Music by Yakov Fleischmann
• To learn more about Adam's work, visit http://www.adamgrossi.com/