Monthly Musings: A Conversation on Compassion, Leadership & Jewish Values
By:
November 5, 2024
For our Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan blog, OLAM caught up with individual member and Head of US Philanthropy at Food 4 Education Ariel Rosen Ingber, and her husband, Rabbi David Ingber, Founder and Senior Rabbi of NY-based Romemu and Senior Director for Jewish Life at the 92nd Street Y. We are honored to share this heartfelt conversation with them, about spirituality, connection, and action.
Leading from faith, the heart, and the mind
Rabbi Ingber, your work is centered in spiritual leadership within the Jewish community, while Ariel, you focus on supporting vulnerable non-Jewish populations. What similarities and differences do you see in terms of leadership and compassion in your roles?
Moses and other great biblical persona showed us a Jewish leader’s role is to care for those they are privileged to serve. For me this means listening deeply and inspiring people to lead more engaged Jewish lives. I see this as a path toward greater humanity, toward acting with greater compassion and concern for God's children. Ultimately, Jewish leadership is not only about greater Jewish engagement, but also about expanding people's circles of care and concern to include a greater human need, which is what my wife, Ariel, does so well.
For me, it’s less about listening than about encouraging people to care about issues they might not focus on daily. My role involves telling stories to get people to care about others and take action. It’s a Jewishly informed mission by virtue of my being raised Jewish and living a Jewish life. But it wasn’t really a choice I actively made – it just kind of found me and came naturally.
That’s true. Ariel’s heart has always been hardwired toward compassion. She’s unable to go on with her life knowing there are things she can be doing to help others. We both are oriented toward coaching, but my style is to inspire them both Jewishly and in a broader sense. You [Ariel] are naturally empathetic to feel other people's pain and to act on that, because you are also very action-oriented.
Also, David will tune into the current moment, the vibe in the room... He uses all of his senses to do what he does. I think much more from my head.
And what is the current vibe in this post-October 7th reality?
Right now, we’re in a moment of vulnerability. While my message has always been that being Jewish is a privilege, I’ve had to shift it somewhat, as people might feel cautious about expressing their Jewish identity in the face of increasing antisemitism. So we have to inspire that type of expression in a different way. Both Ariel and I have to speak to people in this moment; to encourage them to uphold their values. I think that when it comes to Ariel's [humanitarian aid] work, some people might be thinking: What's happening over there is not really our concern. But we both have to inspire people to look outside and take a courageous stance and courageous actions; to figure out how to motivate people. A good leader has to have various tools in their toolkit to motivate people out of our inertia and complacency. Would you agree with that?
Definitely. Fundraising is 90% framing; the ask is really only about 10% of the job. So it’s often about showing donors their own human connection with a child in Africa who's hungry.
Finding their callings: From inspiration to action
Rabbi Ingber, what inspired you to pursue a rabbinic role? And Ariel, what drew you to support vulnerable people globally?
Even from a young age, I was drawn to spirituality. Ultimately, had I not become a rabbi, I think I would have been some kind of motivational speaker. I always wanted to motivate people, and I happen to love God, Judaism, and spirituality, so those things came together for me.
After college, I felt very connected to Israel and wanted to support it. I ended up working in San Francisco with the New Israel Fund, which introduced me to the nonprofit world and the world of serving others. Later, Texas Governor Ann Richards inspired me to make philanthropy my career, when she said at a speech: 'Don’t just volunteer your time. Make it your work.' And I thought, ‘I’m going to do that!’
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who founded the Jewish Renewal Movement. I didn’t find myself in the Orthodox world in which I grew up, and I wasn’t really familiar with liberal Jewish movements. Had I not met this great rabbi, I would never have become a rabbi myself.
Guided by compassion
How do each of you define compassion in relation to your work?
Compassion is obvious in my work. When you see kids who are hungry, you can't help but extend your heart and feel that you need to do something, if you can, to change that. When working with donors, you also have to have compassion, about where they are in their journeys. And in humanitarian work, you need compassion for yourself. Ultimately, compassion is a necessity all around.
In pastoral work, compassion is everything. When sitting with families during hardship, you feel their pain and share in their struggles. Compassion also means giving others the benefit of the doubt, putting oneself in another person's position, and understanding that they are doing the best they can... Compassion is the underlying emotional tenor of a leader's worldview and posture vis-a-vis the community.
Where spirituality meets humanitarian work
Do both of you see a connection between spiritual leadership and humanitarian work?
The most fundamental principle in the Jewish tradition is that each of us is created in the image of God. Ultimately Judaism puts the human being at the center of everything. It's not actually a God-centered religion as much as it's a human-centered religion. And humanism, I think, is a spiritual practice. I think that there's a deep connection between spiritual leadership and a willingness to extend oneself for the sake of someone else, to go beyond the self. If we lived in a world where everyone was only worried about their own family, or getting food on their own table, that would be a world that would be lacking, I think, in humanitarianism. So I think that's where I see a connection.
Absolutely. Over the course of my career, I've worked on a lot of different issues. So whether it's me sitting with someone who has just gotten out of prison, or a child who's being served in an after-school program, or a homeless youth in a skate park in New York City, or a kid who's hungry in Kenya... Any time I am simply connecting on a human level is when I feel the most spiritual connection. It’s all about the one-on-one, nothing else matters.
And in many ways, I would argue that part of the job of Judaism and other spiritual traditions, is to offer pathways for human beings to begin to cultivate that capacity to be empathetic. We, as a country and as a religious tradition, are poorer for our own inward looking, when everything in us, as we would imagine God saying as well, is pointing us to take care of our community and then have care and concern for others as well.
Two paths, one purpose
Do you find that your careers and experiences overlap? Do they complement and inform each other?
I really feel we overlap when I get an aliyah at shul. David blesses me and speaks about what I'm doing. I'm thrilled because there are thousands of people listening, and I want them to know all about Food for Education. Also, we're both in the nonprofit space. So at the end of the day, we're always thinking about fundraising because that's what nonprofit professionals think about.
It's common for us to talk about our work, which is not for-profit, but for-purpose. But Ariel’s work is bigger context-wise than mine. The Jewish world is still parochial and Ariel is aiming to feed a million kids each day. Ariel is a deeply for-purpose person, and is working for a deeply for-purpose organization in Food for Education. But synagogue life, and Jewish life in general, is all for-purpose. Everything we're doing is trying to underscore the meaning behind why people are giving and what they're giving toward, and how their support really is for a really higher purpose.
And Ariel is still, the “rebbetizin” of the synagogue. People know her and love her. She's the heart of the shul. People know that when she’s there, they are going to get a smile. So Ariel is always holding all of the interpersonal connections and storylines, which is one of her great strengths. So we wind up tag-teaming a lot on the various things we're doing. And at the end of the day, it’s a privilege for both of us to be doing the work that we do.
Thank you so much for sharing your reflections with such openness and wisdom. Your commitment to both deepening Jewish life and serving the broader global community is inspiring, and thoughtfulness you each bring to your work is a reminder of the profound impact that purpose-driven leadership can have on the lives of others.
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