“I never thought I would be in a pulpit,” Rabbi Gavriella Kornsgold said a year and a half after joining Sinai Temple, one of the community’s largest synagogues.
Given her background — growing up in what she called “a house of learning” — her friends would have predicted she would land at the bimah. But not Rabbi Kornsgold. She didn’t think that was in the cards.
She didn’t even make up her mind about the rabbinate until she was 23 and in the midst of pursuing her master’s degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary. To that point, “I wasn’t quite sure. I thought maybe psychology, social work. I went into college open and undecided.”
While in rabbinical school, she felt she should “do an internship that was not what I ultimately wanted to do.” Which is exactly what the young woman (who grew up attending Temple Beth Am’s Library Minyan) did. She intended to spend a year in a pulpit to see what it was like “while thinking this is not what I want.” Having lived in New York for 10 years, Rabbi Kornsgold was comfortable enough in the city to apply to the Upper East Side’s Park Avenue Synagogue. “I knew it was good experience to see how diverse rabbis’ jobs are, how they get to be there for every step of the way in someone’s life, how rabbis get to be with every age and stage.”
Her first impression was that Park Avenue Synagogue is “huge.” That appealed to her, along with being part of a clergy team. “I had colleagues who were in solo pulpits. But at Park Avenue I saw the beauty of a team. I wanted to be in a place where I could be part of a team.” At the time, Jewish education appealed to her. “I was thinking I might be happy at a day school or a summer camp or a Hillel,” she said. On another hand, “I liked what the rabbis were doing more than the educators. It’s more fluid. You get to teach, to be with people in their life cycles. You get to really be there in pastoral moments. You get to have the creative parts of being an educator.” Most other people knew she should be a rabbi before she did. What did they see in her?
“I have a lot of rabbis in my family,” she said. “I grew up in a house where my dad is a rabbi, my zayde is a rabbi, and now my husband Noam and his dad. My father is Rabbi Gordon Bernat-Kunin at Milken. My zayde, Rabbi Haskel Bernat, has been, among other places, at Temple Israel of Hollywood.” She not only grew up in a Conservative home but also “in a house where learning was a part of our Shabbat dinner table. It was part of having students over all the time. It was part of having young people over to meet each other.”
“I have a lot of rabbis in my family. I grew up in a house where my dad is a rabbi, my zayde is a rabbi, and now my husband Noam and his dad.”
In New York, Rabbi Kornsgold studied at List College, which dates its history back 115 years to the revered educator Solomon Schechter. Next, she attended the Joint Program of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. “That is where I met my husband,” she said, with a bright smile. “He knew he wanted to be a rabbi. I did not know yet. We met our first week at college at JTS. We were both in the Joint Program. We became friends early in our first year and started dating.”
What attracted her? “The biggest thing,” she said, “was learning. Noam was someone very serious about learning. He took Judaism seriously in a way that extended to the way he is in the world. The whole goal of Judaism and the Jewish people is so that we can learn to be good human beings.”
Did her husband influence Gavriella’s decision to choose the rabbinate? “He is incredibly supportive,” she said, “and I think he definitely saw it before I did. While I was thinking about it, he already was in rabbinical school. So I was watching already – what does this program look like? What are opportunities one might follow. And it was appealing. He said ‘I think you are going to like this!’” They married right out of college in 2017, and today are the parents of a son, Shemayah, and a daughter, Nessyah.
So what brought her back to Los Angeles and Sinai Temple? “I was looking for jobs,” she said, “my husband and I together, because this is a joint process. We were looking to be near one set of our parents – mine are here, his are in New Jersey. We are both very close with our families. We were looking for jobs in those two places. We both have good relationships with each other’s families. We saw the value in that.”
She said her favorite part of being at Sinai Temple is “having a chance to influence people across the generations, and there is a lot of diversity here, Jews from all over the world.” Another bonus is that “even though Noam doesn’t work here, he is here a lot because this is our home.”
Rabbi Noam is the director of Continuing Education at the Rabbinical Assembly. He works remotely and is also is working on a Ph.D. from Yeshiva University. He finished the course work when they were in New York, which allowed the couple to be flexible about where they could move. “So all the pieces fit together,” Rabbi Gavriella concluded. “I am loving what I am doing, loving the place where I am. And I am soaking it up.”
Fast Takes with Rabbi Kornsgold
Jewish Journal: What is your favorite moment of the week?
Rabbi Kornsgold: It’s hard not to say Shabbat. I am here on Shabbat. So I don’t mean Shabbat in the traditional sense. But Shabbat is so countercultural there is something magical about it.
J.J.: What makes Shabbat perfect?
RK: Often it is mistranslated as a day of rest. What makes it perfect is ceasing from creation, of being okay with whatever is at the present.
J.J. Favorite place you have traveled?
RK: The land of Israel. The streets of Baka, the streets of the German colony and all the streets of Jerusalem – because those feel like home. They are places I have lived.
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