When she was growing up in the Northern California town of Mountain View, the rabbinate would not have been Miriam Green Potok’s first choice of career. The child of what she described as “Northern California hippies,” the future leader of Adat Shalom in West L.A. grew up in in a home that was “not religious at all.”
But after graduating from Brown University in 2010, she moved to New York and began to ask herself what she wanted to do with her life. She had studied computer science, chemistry and education, and was planning to follow a career in education. She returned to the West Coast to get her parents advice. They told her to “go forth and you figure it out and explore and be yourself.” (When she later told them she decided to enter the rabbinate, their response was “Whoa! Religion?!? That wasn’t our plan for you!”)
She wanted to do something that involved learning and teaching, but she didn’t think she wanted to work with kids fulltime, and wasn’t sure if she was to be a professor, what discipline she would study. Even though she loves teaching and learning, “the academy was not as good of a fit for me as the rabbinate, which would allow me to bring in my spiritual side.” Gradually, she said, “it came together for me. Entering the rabbinate was an opportunity to educate children and adults, to be engaged not only in learning and study, but also helping people through challenging and exciting times in their lives. That brought it all together for me.”
“When you are looking for work,” she wryly noted, “you have a lot of time to do things other than looking for work.” She found herself drawn toward Jewish learning, a vast universe she was determined to inhabit. “This was really pulling me,” she said.
It was while she was job hunting in New York, that joining the rabbinate seemed to be the right career choice. “When you are looking for work,” she wryly noted, “you have a lot of time to do things other than looking for work.” She found herself drawn toward Jewish learning, a vast universe she was determined to inhabit. “This was really pulling me,” she said. “I felt the pull, and the pull has not really stopped since then.”
“I am never going to run out of Torah, and I just love that. As I said, I am not going to learn it perfectly but I love learning.”
But entering the rabbinate without having a religious background is a daunting prospect, one that could be intimidating. Not to Rabbi Potok. The challenge “tapped into my curiosity.” Even today, she participates in Daf Yomi, where the Talmud is discussed, one page a day. She’s already completed one cycle and is now on her second. “I am never going to run out of Torah,” she said, “and I just love that. As I said, I am not going to learn it perfectly but I love learning.”
Her decision made, she met Rabbi Ted Feldman of Congregation B’nai Israel, Petaluma, a community founded in the 1850s. Rabbi Feldman spent a lot of time with her, “teaching me how to read Torah, leading High Holy Day services – but also giving me personal guidance to figure out what this life path means for me.” Even though Northern California is home, the next step in her career meant heading south, to L.A.’s American Jewish University and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.
Before her 2018 ordination, Rabbi Potok gained valuable experience as an intern at Beit T’Shuvah, the addiction treatment center. “When I came to Beit T’Shuvah, it was an excellent opportunity to learn as a student how to work with people one-on-one,” she said, “while doing pastoral counseling and Torah study as a spiritual practice. That was an amazing part of learning in my journey.”
When Rabbi Potok arrived at Adat Shalom as an intern in 2016, she was asked to layne the entire parsha of the week and the Haftorah. It was her first time. “I’m not sure I can do it,” she told herself, “but hey, I’m a student and I am going to try.”
It’s an attitude that has delivered years of success.
Fast Takes with Rabbi Potok
Jewish Journal: Who was your childhood hero?
Rabbi Potok: Two answers: My grandmother, my Mom’s mom, such a force of care and calm, and in fiction, as a Star Trek fan, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.
Jewish Journal: Best book you have read?
Rabbi Potok: “God Is a Verb,” by Rabbi David Cooper.
Jewish Journal: Your favorite pastime?
Rabbi Potok: The plant hobby sneaked up on me. What I love about plants is propagating them.
