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Rabbi Eric Leiderman

@rabbi.eric

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Rabbi, educator, and community builder | Passionate about Israel & Jewish learning | Chicago-based, NY-raised. @jewish.imagination @keva.guru

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Three years after October 7, grief has changed shape, but it has not disappeared.

In his latest personal reflection, Rabbi Eric Leiderman writes about memory, trauma, and what it means to carry images you cannot unsee.

“I have started to think of trauma as a verb, not a noun. Trauma is something that happens to you, and then keeps happening in memory, in your body, in the unexpected moment when a photograph, a song, or a prayer returns you somewhere you did not intend to go.”

Read “I Cry More Than I Used To” at The Jewish Imagination. Link in bio.

#October7 #JewishGrief #JewishMemory #Israel #TheJewishImagination by @rabbi.eric

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9 days ago

What if Sukkot is best understood as the Jewish Hajj?

In his larest essay, Rabbi Eric Leiderman explores Sukkot as a festival of pilgrimage, peoplehood, memory, and sacred geography—from the arba minim (four species) and the sukkah itself to Jerusalem, the Simchat Beit HaShoeva, and the rains of the Land of Yisrael.

For centuries, Jews across the diaspora carried these rituals with them under foreign skies, preserving an ancient map of home.

Read “The Jewish Hajj” at the link in bio.

#Sukkot #JewishPeoplehood #Jerusalem #Israel #JewishImagination by @rabbi.eric

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14 days ago

The point is not that fasting doesn’t matter. It’s that Yom Kippur is much bigger than the fast.

When break fast becomes an event, when people leave early to prepare for guests, or when the day becomes a countdown to food, have we lost sight of what Yom Kippur is actually asking of us?

This is an essay about presence, teshuvah, sacred time, and why the fast should deepen the day—not become the day.

Read Rabbi Eric’s latest in The Jewish Imagination. Link in bio.

#YomKippur #Teshuvah #HighHolidays #JewishThought #JewishSpirituality by @rabbi.eric

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a month ago

A little taste of “Folksy Selichot” tonight at Base Andersonville: singing “Achat Sha’alti,” the yearning words of Psalm 27:4 that accompany us through Elul and the Days of Awe.

אַחַת שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת ה׳, אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ:
שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית ה׳ כָּל יְמֵי חַיַּי,
לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם ה׳ וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ.

“One thing I ask of the Holy One—this alone I seek: to dwell in God’s house all the days of my life, to behold divine beauty and visit God’s sanctuary.”

Josh Hare on guitar. Rav Jonathan on percussion. All of us lending our voices to the work of returning. 🎶

#Selichot #Elul #AchatShaalti #JewishMusic taken in Chicago, Illinois by @rabbi.eric

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a month ago

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2 months ago

Does God take the summer off? No.

In a thoughtful new essay, Rabbi Eric Leiderman explores what one childhood memory, Jewish summer camp, and the rhythms of the Jewish calendar reveal about faith, sacred time, and why Jewish life was never meant to be seasonal.

Read “God Doesn’t Take the Summer Off.” Link in bio.

#Judaism #JewishEducation #JewishLife #Spirituality TishaBA by @rabbi.eric

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3 months ago

An ancient king hires an acclaimed prophet to answer what seems like a simple question: “Who are the Israelites?”

But the more the prophet looks, the less capable he becomes of defining them.

What begins as political analysis evolves into poetry. Instead of a neat definition, the prophet offers images of tents, gardens, rivers, lions, and stars.

In his latest essay, Rabbi Eric Leiderman explores what Parashat Balak teaches about Jewish identity, peoplehood, and why the Jewish story has always resisted simple categories.

Read the full essay at the link in bio.

#Torah #Judaism #JewishThought #JewishIdentity #Bible by @rabbi.eric

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4 months ago

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Obama Presidential Center during its preview period. Visitors were asked not to share photos publicly until the Center officially opened, so I’ve been holding onto these images ever since.

With today’s opening celebrations on Juneteenth, I can finally share a few reflections.

Like President Obama, Chicago is my adopted home. That made it especially meaningful to experience this story in the city that shaped both his public life and so much of my own.

The architecture is striking, the storytelling is compelling, and the exhibits offer a fascinating window into a pivotal chapter of American history. Yet some of the artifacts that stayed with me were among the smallest. Hebrew-language campaign buttons, a model of the White House Family Dining Room set for a Passover seder, a White House seder plate, and a kippah worn by President Obama all reflected the ways Jewish life and tradition became part of the story being told.

Of course, I also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sit behind a recreation of the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

The exhibit that stayed with me most, however, was not the campaign memorabilia or even the Oval Office itself. It was a small sign on the desk that read:

“Hard things are hard.”

It immediately brought to mind a teaching from Pirkei Avot:

“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:16)

Leadership rarely offers perfect choices or final victories. Whether in government, education, communal life, or our own families, the work remains unfinished. Yet we are still called to engage in it—to take responsibility, make difficult decisions, and contribute what we can.

I left with a deeper appreciation for public service, civic responsibility, and the enduring challenge of leadership.

Congratulations to the Obama Presidential Center on its official opening. taken in Barack Obama Presidential Center by @rabbi.eric

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4 months ago

What happens when a community becomes so welcoming that it forgets how to define itself?

In a powerful new essay, Rabbi Eric Leiderman reflects on a scene that repeats itself every Shabbat: congregants quietly walking out during prayers for the welfare of the government and for peace in Israel.

The walkout raises a deeper question.

How does a Jewish community remain open to everyone while holding fast to the beliefs, traditions, and shared story that brought it together in the first place?

Drawing on Psalm 129, Pirkei Avot, and centuries of Jewish commentary, Rabbi Leiderman explores the tension between hospitality and identity, asking whether Jewish communities can survive if they become afraid to speak aloud the things previous generations simply assumed.

🔗 Link in bio

What are the assumptions that hold your community together?

#psalms #israel #zion #judaism #jewish by @rabbi.eric

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4 months ago

What if the hardest mitzvah is also the one holding us together?

A conversation led somewhere unexpect. Not into politics, not into ideology, but into a much more uncomfortable question: Are we actually obligated to love one another as Jews, even when we disagree, even when it feels impossible?

Rabbi Eric Leiderman went back to the sources of a tradition he thought he understood.

What he found is that Ahavat Yisrael is not a feeling we choose when it is easy. It is a demand placed on us precisely when it is not.

If that obligation disappears, then what we have left is not covenant. It is preference. And preference will not hold us together.

If you are thinking seriously about Jewish life, peoplehood, and what we owe one another in this moment, this essay will resonate with you.

👉 Read and subscribe: Link in bio!

#jewish #judaism #ahavatyisrael #spirituality #torah by @rabbi.eric

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5 months ago

What does it mean to be a Zionist today?

In this Yom HaAtzmaut reflection, Rabbi Eric Leiderman explores a question many are wrestling with right now: is our relationship with Israel one of fandom—or something deeper?

Through a conversation with a former student, a teaching from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and a passage in the siddur, this essay challenges readers to rethink Zionism not as passive support or political alignment, but as responsibility, engagement, and belonging.

If you are thinking seriously about Jewish identity, Israel, and what it means to show up in this moment—this one is for you.

🔗 Link in bio to read the full essay
💬 Save and share with someone who is still asking the hard questions by @rabbi.eric

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6 months ago

🔥 We scrub every crumb of chametz. But what about the words we throw around just as carefully?

In this latest essay, Rabbi Eric Leiderman wrestles with something that has been bothering him, especially this time of year. We have become extraordinarily careful Jews… but not always where it matters most.

Why are we quicker to call out than to build up? And what does it say about us when being right matters more than being kind?

If we can check every ingredient, we can check our words.

👉 Read the full essay. Link in bio.

#jewishlife #mussar #torah #passover #spirituality by @rabbi.eric

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6 months ago