Rabbi Jamie Korngold

It was March 2001. We backpacked in with a group of students from Williams College to do an adoption and baby naming service for a 1-year-old named Mariah Colorado Lewis whose parents, Bernice and Scott, had adopted from Romania. They wanted to do her conversion and her baby naming in the “Holy of Holies,” the base of the Grand Canyon. So we hiked down. 

Scott was the director of the outdoor program at Williams so he brought 12 kids with him. Down at the base of the Canyon, I met a group of students who were Jewish—most of them. When I asked them what their religion was, they gave answers like, “I’m a BuJew,” or, “I used to be really religious but, you know, it doesn’t speak to me anymore; it’s not accessible," or, "Running is my religion." All those answers. 

We were down in the base of the Canyon and I took traditional Jewish words: יברכך ה' וישמרך or, “May God bless you and keep you,” and combined them with the wisdom of the Canyon: “May you have the wisdom of the rocks. May you have the wisdom of the Colorado River that knows which rocks to flow around, which rocks to flow over, which rocks to patiently work its way through.”  

The whole service was combining those two things. You should have seen the faces of the students when I was finished. Mariah was being held by her mom and then her dad as they were dunking her in the Colorado River for the mikvah. And then they came out and were surrounded by all the red rocks. The students came up to me afterwards and said things like, “I had no idea Judaism could be like this,” and, “tell me more.” 

We spent the whole week hiking around the Canyon, talking about Judaism as I know it, which is totally different from the Judaism they were brought up with. For example, “Avinu Malkeinu” or “Our Father, our King! Have mercy on us. Pardon us.” I was talking about a totally different God. I was talking about Judaism that enhances my life and helps me become a better person and have a more meaningful existence. 

I had been a congregational rabbi for a few years at that point, and really struggled with it. I felt I just couldn’t reach the people. There was so much protocol in the way. Things had to be done this way—not that way. And the board had to approve this and not that. And I could do this but not the other. And suddenly, I was in the base of the Grand Canyon with 12 kids, just doing my thing and they got jazzed about Judaism in a way that never would have gotten them jazzed in a synagogue.

I had been so pessimistic about the survival of Judaism in America. I just couldn’t see how it was possibly going to work. When I came out of that Canyon I was like…you know what? This is how it’s going to work. This is one of the ways in which it’s going to work. I came out and  drove all the way back to Canada. I resigned from my position a couple of months later and moved back down to the States, to Boulder, Colorado. And in November of that same year, 2001, I started being the Adventure Rabbi.

 It’s amazing because since then, I have brought hundreds, if not thousands of people back. And, because of my book, probably tens of thousands of people, back to a joyful relationship with Judaism. They are now walking around for the first time in their lives being joyful about their Jewish identity. Not dissing it, not hiding it, not being angry at it, but just embracing it and being jazzed about being Jewish.