Ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2003, Rabbi Maurice Harris is Associate Director for Thriving Communities at Reconstructing Judaism. Previously, Maurice served as Associate Rabbi and Head of School at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, OR. Maurice is the author of three books: Moses: A Stranger Among Us (2012), Leviticus: You Have No Idea (2013), and The Forgotten Sage: Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah and the Birth of Judaism as We Know It (2019), all from Cascade Books. He blogs at theaccidentalrabbi.substack.com.
He is married to Melissa Crabbe, and they have two children, Clarice Harris and Hunter Harris.
This is a short Passover reading that expresses appreciation for people of backgrounds and identities other than Judaism. It would work well in a community seder, as well as home seders.
An easily-accessible text study about the ethnic ambiguity that the Torah presents us with regarding the midwives who refused to obey Pharaoh’s orders.
In the first two chapters of the Torah, we find two different accounts of the creation of humanity. In this text study, Rabbi Maurice Harris explores the tension between these two stories, and presents a teaching from Midrash Bereishit Rabbah that presents food for thought about gender, essentialism, and the nature of humanity.
Rabbi Harris’s article focuses on the benefits that non-Jews, mostly with Jewish partners, bring to the community. Harris leads us away from the “framework of cost” to open up the conversation on intermarriage.
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
