Rabbi Darby Leigh, 35, in June became the first deaf rabbi ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He began his tenure as assistant rabbi at Bnai Keshet, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Montclair, on July 14.
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
July 24, 2008
Bnai Keshet’s commitment to diversity is about to get personal: The Montclair synagogue has just hired an assistant rabbi who is deaf.
But deafness is not what you notice first about Rabbi Darby Leigh, 35. He has a quiet charisma, an affable chattiness, and a keen intellect. He can as easily discuss his children, three-year-old Rayna and 15-month-old Ariza, as quote Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Henry David Thoreau.
He is serving Bnai Keshet on a part-time basis and is splitting his time between New Jersey and Philadelphia, where his wife, Randi, is completing a year of medical research before beginning her residency.
Leigh is the first deaf person ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and one of three ordained this year, including a student at the Reform Hebrew Union College and another at the nondenominational Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Massachusetts. HUC was the first liberal seminary to ordain a deaf person in 1993.
Calling himself “a seeker,” Leigh readily shares his thoughts about being on a spiritual journey. A graduate of the University of Rochester, he holds a master’s degree in comparative religion from Columbia University.
He is also an experienced performer, a skill he picked up doing magic on the streets of New York City as a kid and honed during three years as a member of the National Theater for the Deaf.
“I can’t wait to juggle fire for the kids here,” he said casually, walking and talking with a visitor. Leigh speaks with the careful enunciation he learned after his parents, both deaf, bucked the conventional wisdom of the day. Not only did they have his hearing tested from infancy, but also, upon receiving the diagnosis that he was profoundly deaf, opted for intensive speech therapy for their son beginning at six months. It was this early start that enables him today to hear some speech.
That means, as long as his hearing aids are in, he can hear someone call his name from across the room. “I’ll turn around,” he said, “but I probably can’t have a conversation about nuclear physics.” For that, he must also read lips. He can detect whether someone is speaking in high or low pitch, fast or slow, even loudly or softly. He can even speak on the telephone — placing the receiver against the microphone of one aid, and turning off the other. “It’s a medical impossibility according to doctors,” he said with a smile.
“He’s just amazing,” said Ellen Kolba, cochair of the synagogue’s search committee. The Reconstructionist congregation’s Rabbi Elliott Tepperman has not had an assistant rabbi since the departure of Rabbi Rachel Gartner in 2006. When the committee met Leigh, Kolba said, “It was perfect chemistry. He’s just so intelligent and understands the congregation and its needs.”
She acknowledged that before meeting him, they had some concerns and questions about his deafness.
“When we spoke with him, all of our concerns evaporated,” she said. Their enthusiasm was borne out by a visit he made in April and the apparent ease with which he managed a large group of congregants.
Leigh, who began his new tenure July 14, seemed thrilled to have landed the position at Bnai Keshet. “It has a well-known, longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusivity. I relish the opportunity to be part of a community that holds diversity as a core value,” he said.
A 2008 graduate of the RRC, Leigh said he was impressed at the sensitivity shown him by the congregation. Although he didn’t need a sign language interpreter, he was pleased that he had been offered one from the get-go. The congregation has agreed to provide one for very large gatherings.
A broken world
Leigh grew up in a mainstream environment, the only deaf child among hearing peers.
He remembers one or two incidents of other children treating him cruelly — images “I wish I could erase from memory,” he said. He is grateful to his parents, however, for leading him to a life with so many options. In fact, he said, he chose to be at a hearing congregation because he felt it is one of his gifts to be able to move so seamlessly between the hearing and deaf communities.
As a child, he and his family were members of Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in New York City. They also belonged to Temple Beth Or for the Deaf in Queens.
But he never had any idea what went on during services at Central Synagogue.
“It was pre-diversity, pre-access, pre-inclusivity…,” he said. “I would stand up when everyone stood up, and I would sit down when everyone would sit down. By the time I went to college I did not even know the basics of a service.”
His road to the rabbinate began with his introduction to the beat poets in high school, particularly Kerouac and Ginsberg. He said they asked questions about “seeking truth and meaning, about whether the physical, temporal world we see, feel, touch represented the sum total.”
He said he also felt dissatisfied with the world “in all its brokenness.” In college, he felt he could seek the truth only by exploring other religions. “I studied every tradition but my own.”
It was the dreadlocks he grew while touring with the National Theater for the Deaf that eventually brought him back. “I realized I was wearing what was perceived as a religious symbol,” he said, referring to the hair style often associated with the Rastafari movement.
He learned the dreadlocks’ origin is in the Nazirite tradition, as described in the Torah. A member of the Nazirites, he explained, is on “a seeker’s path to dedicate himself or herself to God,” Leigh said.
It was an idea he embraced for a while, not cutting his hair. Today, his hair is short, but he sees dreadlocks as akin to daily recitations of blessings whose aim is to remind people of the divine energy around them. He likens them to a kipa that never comes off, to the tzitzit flowing at his waist.
Eventually, Leigh began to pursue a PhD in religion at Columbia University, but realized within two weeks that he wanted to be a rabbi. “We were studying a piece of obscure text when I looked out the window and saw a homeless man. What does this have to do with feeding him?” he said.
With that, he switched gears and goals.
He was aware of the obstacles on the way to the pulpit. Could he learn to chant trop? Could he learn Hebrew? Would a seminary work with him to figure out how he could learn what he needed to without having to lower standards for him?
Two seminaries were willing to work with him; he picked RRC and learned that though he’ll never be a hazan, he can chant from the Torah. He can’t handle conversational Hebrew but he’s fine with Hebrew texts for study purposes. And no one ever needed to lower their standards for him.
Although he is at a hearing congregation, he maintains his ties to the deaf Jewish community, and in August will serve as the liberal rabbi at the Jewish Deaf Congress’ National Convention, which will be held in Princeton.
Now his goal is “to do what we can to repair the brokenness in the world. As much pain or joy as there is in the world is not known. We can support each other and in doing so we can make our lives meaningful and rich.”
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