Rabbi Josh Greenberg joined Andover as the Jewish Chaplain in 2023. He works with the Jewish Student Union (JSU) to plan activities surrounding Jewish student life and with other chaplains to strengthen the interfaith community on campus. In his free time, Greenberg enjoys cooking for friends and family and learning about American history.
After you finished rabbinical school, what initially drew you to come to Andover?
I really thought, when I started rabbinical school back in 2017, that I really wanted to be a pulpit rabbi, which means to work in a synagogue. My program was six years, [and] as I got through those six years, I wanted to do that less and less and be an educational rabbi and work in an educational environment… With my passion for interfaith work, religious studies, academics, in general, and school environments, the longer I was in my program the more I realized that, actually, I don’t have to work in a synagogue to lead a Jewish communal life.
You’ve spoken about valuing community. How did that value become instilled in you as you grew up?
I grew up in a pretty small community in northern Pennsylvania. I had the great privilege and benefit of growing up with a lot of extended family around and a lot of cousins. We lived with my grandmother for a long time… Knowing that there were more people, in my town or in the greater area we lived in, looking out for me than just my parents, even if I didn’t know it when I was a kid, really resonated with me as I got older. [It] resonates with me now as a way to understand community. It’s not necessarily family by blood, although it could be, but it’s family by choice. People who you are both committed to and you know are committed to you in loving, open, honest ways.
How did your journey with your faith change throughout your childhood?
I went to a very small Jewish day school. It was essentially a parochial school but was run by a very traditional, orthodox, stream of Jewish practices. My family is not orthodox, by any stretch of the imagination. I am not orthodox by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not a traditionalist nor is my family when it comes to both our beliefs and practices… Coming from an orthodox school, going to my progressive, liberal, Reform synagogue, in my 13-year-old brain, was very difficult to reconcile. I was really confused about what is the “right thing.” As I got older I really leaned into that discomfort; not just leaned into it, I embraced it.
After you graduated from college, you worked in a professional kitchen. What was that experience like?
My family used to own restaurants in Pennsylvania, where I grew up, before my time. I grew up hearing about these restaurants and the stories that they had in them. My parents actually met in one of my uncle’s restaurants, [when] my dad was a DJ and my mom was a bartender… In family get-togethers [there was] a lot of food and a lot of recipes from these restaurants, so I’ve always wanted to try and work in one. When I moved back home after I graduated college in 2016, there was this new restaurant and brewery opening up just down the street from where I lived. I applied for a job, and with no experience, they gave it to me. I was a prep cook, and then I did some cooking on the line for a little while, just for one year.
What’s your favorite food to eat and your favorite food to cook?
I feel like I’m a very seasonal cook. In fact, tonight I’m making sweet potato oven tacos. It has a sweet, seasonal sweet potato filling and they crisp up in the oven and come out real nice and golden and crispy. I love to cook based on what the season is. What I love to cook, though, is for family and friends. My wife and I…like to host Shabbat dinner[s] at our apartment as much as we can. I love to just make food for people both to nourish my body and also as a religious practice around the holidays, around Shabbat. That is something that gives me a great amount of pleasure recreationally, but to no small extent, spiritual fulfillment as well.
At Hebrew College, you received the Professor J.K. Mikliszanski Award for Jewish Education for conducting research in Rabbinic literature. Could you expand on that?
I wrote my [project] on, broadly speaking, interfaith education, but I did so by examining Jewish and Christian educational opportunities. For my capstone, I thought that in order to effectively teach a tradition, you need to know something about the tradition your students are coming from. So, I created four classes that I taught through my synagogue to a group of congregants from various churches in the greater Boston area. I tried to present Judaism by using Christian themes [in order] to paint a more accessible picture of it. I taught about ideas I think are in both traditions, but for one reason or another, people tend to associate more with Christianity.
Is there anything new you hope to do in the future to bring people together in interfaith dialogue?
I would love to do more learning opportunities, like exploring ideas and themes within our various traditions. For example, I’ve heard Dr. [Mary Kantor, Roman Catholic Chaplain,] talk about a text study around Mary as she appears in Catholicism and Christianity and as she appears in the Quran. I’d love to explore how [the religions] intersect and differ. Learning about our neighbors’ spiritual practices and religious traditions can deepen our own beliefs. As a Jew, I can learn a lot about my own Judaism from my Christian and Muslim neighbors. Similarly, I think I can offer a lot about Judaism to them that can deepen their spiritual practice and identity.
Do you have any new projects you want to start on campus?
Strengthen the interfaith work between the JSU and the other groups on campus. Specifically for the JSU, I would love to offer some sort of B’nai mitzvah class for students who have not had the opportunity to have one in their home communities growing up. Or, if they did, to offer within the same program an affirmation cohort class along with the b’nai mitzvah class, in order for them to continue learning [about] Jewish [practices] in an intentionally defined space, which would culminate in a Shabbat service. We have a Torah scroll in Kemper Chapel. I would love to use it, and in fact, what I’m saying is not new or unique. Rabbi Everett Gendler, who we’ve been talking a little bit about on campus in the last couple of weeks with the Gendler Peace Circle, was the first Jewish Chaplain, and he officiated at least one bat mitzvah on campus. I would love to be able to follow in his footsteps and reinvigorate that or create some program based on his example. I would also love to partner with other independent schools or other Jewish groups at other independent schools.
You’re a fan of American History. What interests you about the Civil War Era?
The Civil War Era is particularly interesting, considering what drew the country to tear itself apart back then. I’m not trying to be an alarmist because I don’t think we’re on the same crash course as we were 150 years ago, but a lot of the rhetoric is the same. Situationally, it’s totally different, but the animosity is real and palpable.
What has been your favorite moment as Andover’s Rabbi?
Being able to share moments with students and some faculty too. I might be organizing events or services for a holiday, but at the end of the day, we’re doing it together. To share moments and build community within the PA community is meaningful. It feels good to have the opportunity to do that, and it feels like it contributes something. Similarly, doing interfaith events with other affinity groups, my colleagues, and the other chaplains is extremely rewarding for much of the same reason. We’re all just trying to get through the day, the month, the term. When we can take a moment to step back, take a breath together, and do things with intention, like when we carved pumpkins a couple of weeks ago or when the JSU and the [Muslim Student Association] hosted the Hummus-Off, it’s important.
