Alysa Stanton's life changed when she chanted the Jewish scriptures in Hebrew in a Denver synagogue several years ago.
"The first time I chanted the Torah in front of the congregation, it's like my soul stirred, something deep within the recesses of my being," she said. "And I just got this thirst to live and grow and learn and teach Judaism. That was my path; that started it."
That path will lead her to becoming the first black female rabbi - anywhere in the world.
In her second of five years at seminary, Stanton's story has been getting around. She has been featured on CBS-TV's "Early Show," and on Black Entertainment Television, as well as by The Associated Press.
But this weekend Stanton has been in this part of the world, leading B'nai Israel synagogue in Grand Forks in observing Rosh Hashana.
It's the high holy days of the Jewish New Year - year 5764 just dawned by Judaism's calendar - that culminate Oct. 6 in Yom Kippur.
She's commuting from Reform Judaism's largest seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, about once a month to Grand Forks as a student rabbi.
Friday she began preparing at the synagogue, on Cottonwood Street, finding the passage in the Torah of Abraham binding his son Isaac to the altar. Stanton uses the metal "yad," to keep her place, going from right to left on the page of Hebrew and plays all the parts, giving different and dramatically expressive voices to God, to Abraham, to Isaac.
"It makes it interesting," she said. "Even if you don't understand Hebrew, you can kind of get the gist of the story. I try to make it come alive a little bit."
| Continue Stephen J. Lee's Grand Forks Herald article "First black female student rabbi leads congregation"
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