Recognizing the Blessings of Transition
Rabbi Laura Geller’s Selichot visit dovetails with our Jewish season of reflection and change, as well as Temple’s season of transition in rabbinic leadership. Before her Dallas visit as the Dolores and Walter Neustadt Lecture Series scholar in early September, Rabbi Geller spoke with The Window about life’s in-between moments, the rituals that help us navigate change and the possibilities contained in every new beginning.
You chose the theme “All Endings Are Beginnings” for your visit to Temple. What does that phrase mean to you?
Endings and beginnings aren’t really separate moments. The space between them, what anthropologists call liminality, can be lled with uncertainty and vulnerability.
Abraham and Sarah leave home without knowing exactly where they are going. Jacob runs toward an unknown future and encounters God along the way. Moses hears a call from the burning bush toward a future he isn’t sure he can trust. Ruth leaves home to accompany her motherin-law, uncertain of what awaits her as an immigrant in a foreign land.
We, too, are poised at a liminal moment as one year ends and another begins. We look back and ask, “Who have I been?” Then we look forward and ask, “Who do I want to become?”
What role does Jewish ritual play in moments of uncertainty and change?
Rituals help us navigate transitions: a brit or covenant ceremony, b’nai mitzvah, confirmation, graduation, marriage or divorce. But other transitions, particularly as we age, may call for new rituals: retirement, leaving a longtime home, moving to a new community or acknowledging changes in our bodies. These are the focus of my new book, “Moments That Matter.”
Our calendar also gives us rituals for marking time, from Shabbat and Havdalah to Passover, Shavuot and Tisha B’Av. Then comes Elul. The shofar wakes us up like a spiritual alarm clock, and on Selichot, changing the Torah mantles to white signals that something is shifting.
Temple Emanu-El is preparing for the upcoming retirements of Rabbi David Stern and Rabbi Debra Robbins after decades of leadership. What advice would you offer a congregation preparing for a transition of this magnitude?
Do exactly what your congregation is doing: acknowledge the enormous impact of these changes and the gratitude you feel for beloved leaders, teachers and rabbis, while also making room for anticipation and excitement about what comes next.
I find William Bridges’ Transition Model helpful. Bridges describes three stages: letting go of what was, the uncertain “neutral zone” and new beginnings.
Your congregation is preparing to celebrate the leadership of Rabbi Stern and, later, Rabbi Robbins, while also discerning the community’s future. You’re entering that “messy middle,” where you honor what has been while beginning to imagine what comes next. Ritual can help us move through that uncertainty and eventually embrace new beginnings.
After spending your career accompanying people through life’s most important moments, what have you learned about our capacity for change?
People actually can change. No one needs to remain stuck in the way things are. That gives me hope. The alternative to despair is gratitude and building community. We have the capacity to begin again, especially when we recognize that we don’t have to do it alone.
Register for Selichot events with Rabbi Geller here
Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, became the third woman ordained as a Reform rabbi in 1976. Throughout her career, she has helped individuals and communities navigate life’s transitions. She is the co-author of “Getting Good at Getting Older” and “Moments That Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond.”
Originally published in the September/October 2026 edition of The Window