A conversation with Rabbi Eva Saxbolder, a career changer who left a 40 year profession as a speech pathologist to pursue her calling to become a Rabbi and spiritual leader.
Rabbi Eva serves as Rosh Hashpa’ah, head of Spiritual Direction for the ALEPH Ordination Program, supporting the spiritual development of the seminary students and faculty. She also received rabbinic ordination through ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She is a spiritual leader who designs transformative learning and ritual opportunities to provide seekers with joyful and creative approaches to Judaism.
Eva shared that she was the first generation of Americans in her family. Her parents were holocaust survivors who came to America with very little. She grew up with a sense of scarcity and a constant fear of not having enough. She started working when she was very young, and she was pretty much working full time until last year, when she turned 70!
"I'm taking this year to just breathe into Presence. I was also turning seventy. So I felt like that was a very monumental time for me, you know, to ask: how do I want to live the rest of my life? And it was very clear: it's through joy. It's through creativity. It's through being of service." - Rabbi Eva Saxbolder
Key Takeaways
- You don’t always need to be doing. Eva describes her life in the past: if it’s Monday, it must be Mussar (the study of Soul Traits), if it’s Tuesday, it must be spiritual direction.
She no longer feels the need to be filling her time in the same way, no longer needs to be doing so much, or having so much. Now, she does her projects in small chunks.
- Follow your pleasure. It’s okay to engage in things that are joyful without guilt. Eva is in the creative facilitator leadership program of the Jewish Studio Project, an organization that combines visual art creation with Jewish text study. She has established a gratitude practice, and asks herself “where’s my pleasure?” in order to recalibrate.
- Realize that it is possible to make the decision to change your life and then actually do it! Eva left her over 40 year profession of being a speech pathologist. She went to rabbinical school, while working full time and getting the kids ready for school, and ultimately became a Rabbi.
- Know that all the answers, all the wisdom, lies within ourselves. We need to deeply listen, to pay attention to our dreams. Eva encouraged us to tap into our creative sources. Allow ourselves to imagine. And know that along the way there are going to be digressions and bumps and disappointments, but that's not the end of the journey.
About the guest:
Rabbi Eva received rabbinic ordination through ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. An alumna of CLAL’s trans-denominational Rabbis Without Borders and the IJS Clergy Leadership Program, she is also a teacher of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation, Mussar and Wise Eldering. Drawing on her skills as a creative artist, she enjoys integrating the expressive arts into her rabbinate. As a spiritual leader she designs transformative learning and ritual opportunities to provide seekers with joyful and creative approaches to Judaism. Rabbi Eva serves as ‘Rosh Hashpa’ah, head of Spiritual Direction for the ALEPH Ordination Program, supporting the spiritual development of the seminary students and faculty. She maintains a practice as a Jewish spiritual director/companion serving individuals and groups. Rabbi Eva has recently moved to Colorado from Manhattan where she was the Rabbi of The Shul of New York serving Jews and non-Jews across the denominational spectrum in the East Village. As a Rabbi, she is firmly committed to supporting people of all identities and enhancing the spiritual lives of those whom she encounters with an open heart by making them feel welcomed, regardless of background, ability, knowledge, gender or sexual orientation. Her strengths as a rabbi, pastoral caregiver and spiritual director/companion are her abilities to listen deeply and create a sense of loving presence with those she serves. She meets people wherever they are on their spiritual paths to live with more purpose, joy and connection throughout every phase of life. Rabbi Eva's commitment to social justice is an integral aspect of her practices.
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Eva Saxbolder: I said, I'm just taking this year. To just breathe into presence. And I was also turning seventy. So I felt like that was a very monumental time for me, you know, to like, how do I wanna live the rest of my life? And it was very clear. It's through joy, it's through creativity. It's through being of service.
Welcome to Making Change with Your Money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition. And overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now, here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter: I am so excited to have as my guest today, Rabbi Eva. Rabbi Eva received rabbinic ordination through Aleph, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and she now serves as their head of spiritual direction for the Aleph Ordination Program, supporting the spiritual development of the seminary students and faculty. She's also a teacher of Jewish mindfulness meditation, Mussar and Wise Eldering.
She draws on her skills as a creative artist, and so she enjoys integrating the expressive arts into her rabbinate. As a spiritual leader, she designs transformative learning and ritual opportunities to provide seekers with joyful and creative approaches to Judaism.
And I'm so happy to say, I know Eva since our kids were in high school. I've seen her go through some transitions, including recently moving to Colorado from Manhattan. So, Rabbi Eva, thank you so much for agreeing to be my guest and welcome to the Making Change with Your Money Podcast.
Eva Saxbolder: Thank you, Laura. That was a very sweet introduction.
Laura Rotter: My pleasure. I'm going to start with the question that I've been starting all my interviews with, which is Eva, what was money like in your family growing up?
Eva Saxbolder: Hmm. That's a complicated question. I grew up as, um, first generation American. My parents had just come to this country, Holocaust survivors. My mother was in the camps. She grew up in a very comfortable environment before the war and was in camp when she was a young teenager and everything was confiscated.
My father also had a, a very comfortable upbringing, then ended up coming to this country with nothing. So, I grew up pretty scarce and in an assimilated community where people were already established, you know, everything it felt like to me was a choice about can we afford this, can we not? And so, it instilled in me this sense of scarcity, of fear that we might not have enough.
And indeed we did. But it was very, you know, starting off at lower middle class and kind of moving into middle class as I got older. But I had already started working when I was very young. You know, there was babysitting, there was making posters for my father. He, he became a stockbroker and making all of his presentations and, and then I started working in retail in high school and I was pretty much working full… teaching Hebrew school, but I was pretty much working full time from the time I was 16. Until last year when I was 70. So, there's been quite a transition and a lot of emotion around money for me, so I'm finally understanding. I have enough. I am enough. I will not be a bag lady.
Laura Rotter: Thank you for sharing that, Eva. We do get messages from our parents, whether they're overt or whether you receive the message through their behavior. And of course your, your parents came through quite a trauma and I'm sure that that was communicated to you. Were you an only child? Do you have siblings?
Eva Saxbolder: Yes, I have a younger sister. You know, treated differently. They had a little bit more means. So for myself, having to put myself through college, having to make certain kind of choices about not completing university where I wanted and coming back and then taking a a position, my career choices were also predicated on not outshining my parents who did not have college education.
It took me a while, you know, I mean, I went ahead and got two master's degrees, but never what I did. I, I feel like I led a very good life, you know, my twenties and thirties and, you know, got married in my thirties. And never deprived myself. But what it meant is I took extra jobs. So it was, in fact, I was just talking with a friend of mine the other day about this yesterday.
(A chavruta) to a study partner that it was not uncommon for me to like be doing three gigs, so I'd have my bread and butter job. I was a speech pathologist for 42 years. I. And then I would be teaching aerobics. I had a wearable art business for many, many years, but I was able to afford the things that I felt were kind of luxurious, like opera tickets and traveling a lot, and, you know, but it, it meant I had to work hard for it, you know?
It, it just didn't understand investing, even though that was my father's profession. So I didn't learn from them.
Laura Rotter: So I'm curious, just to understand as we set the background for. Your life's journey. Did your mother also work? You said you didn't wanna outshine either of them.
Eva Saxbolder: Yes. My mom always worked work that didn't require education. So she worked in a nursing home. She worked in a yarded shop in Europe after the war. She had trained to be a couture designer, so she had a lot of skills and you know, just fantasized, I think about. A fabric. My parents actually, when I was young, had a grocery store with my grandparents, my grandparents, both of my mother's parents survived, and they all settled in San Diego where I was born.
So they had a mom and pop store. So my mom worked very hard during that time, and my paternal grandmother helped raise us. So, she lived in our home. So there were. Five of us in a very small home, A lot of interesting messages about money. And my grandmother got a very small pension from Austria and you know, beginning of the school year would always make sure that I got one cool outfit because everything else was always negotiated.
Either my mother would have to sew it something for me, I could draw it out and she would make it. And that's why I ended up going into retail in a very hip store. So that I love fashion. So,
Laura Rotter: And it sounds like you had strong female role models that I, is that correct that your mom and, and your grandmothers were in the working world, were also responsible for earning money? Does that resonate?
Eva Saxbolder: My maternal grandmother. Who you know, was co-owner of the store? I believe so. I didn't look to my mom as a role model. Subsequently, you know, toward the end of her life, I see her as really stepping into herself and doing other things that were not monetarily productive. But you know, she was a Holocaust educator.
She had, for someone who didn't get a high school degree, ended up getting an honorary doctorate, becoming Woman of the year an (Eyshet Chayil – Woman of Valor) in a, you know, so she found her place in her space and had an adult bat mitzvah after her 90th birthday. You know, she might have been a late bloomer in some way because she really supported my father in his desires.
He was brilliant. Just a, a renaissance man who had so many gifts. You know, he used to late at night with that, with only a high school education, was one of the few who became a stockbroker, you know, had come from San Diego to New York to train a bit, you know, so she supported his passions. But I don't think she came into her own. So, you know, role model, role model as a human being. But in terms of finances now, I was totally on my own.
Laura Rotter: It's interesting, I think I, I hear stories of that generation where the women really come to know them themselves. It's almost after their husbands were older or past, or don't take center stage in the same way that you. That they have the ability to flourish and be more, I guess, get a little bit more attention. That particular generation, it was just very different times than now.
I'm curious, since you talked about with though you were the one who did the designing, but was your mother also creative and artistic in the same way you were?
Eva Saxbolder: Very much so much.
Laura Rotter: And probably not encouraged in that.
Eva Saxbolder: she would hijack my elementary school projects, you know?
Laura Rotter: Right. If you don't have the homework, hijack your kids' homework so you can be self-expressed. It sounds like though you knew you always wanted an education that you put yourself through college. What was that drive? Because I'm not sure I knew that at my, at at that age.
Eva Saxbolder: I understood. Within, I, I was, um, very active in forensic speaking when I was in high school, and my coach saw the gifts and really encouraged me, you know, to just really push myself because education was gonna be my ticket out of my community.
I grew up right at the border near Tijuana, south of San Diego. And I was just never, I never felt that that was my place. So I, I really put a premium on education and that that was also, I feel my legacy for my children, that I worked really hard in order to be able to give them an education to then discern what their future would be.
I had no expectations. If one wanted to be a graphic artist, I would be as proud as one, you know, being a doctor or a lawyer. But I felt like to give them that kind of foundation was really important. Without the stresses of having to work so hard during, you know, through undergraduate work.
Laura Rotter: I'm curious what, what you felt from your parents, cuz they both did not have an education.
Was there a sense from then that you were an extension of them? Um, Or, you know, were they cheering you on or was there more of a sense of competition? I'm curious, did they, were they eager to see you have a college education?
Eva Saxbolder: You are very wise in, in your questioning. Absolutely not. So almost a, a kind of covert betrayal for me to have such a drive.
And not only that, I went away to school, I left the community to went back east to Brandeis. And you know, I just, I wanted to be away and I wanted to soak up the world and, and it was very difficult. And I think that there had always been some kind of residual resentment, and I actually heard the words, why do you get to do that? I never got to do that. I won't even say mixed messages, but very clear that if I'm gonna do this, I've gotta do it in spite of them.
Laura Rotter: So Eva, clearly a very, you were very independent woman. I guess even starting at age 16, perhaps even earlier that you knew your own mind.
Eva Saxbolder: And I was also a good girl. You know, I wouldn't, um, do anything to agitate cuz I was, I was sensitive enough to understand without knowing the stories of my parents, you know, the hardships they had gone through. It wasn't until later that I got more details in terms of what they went through.
Laura Rotter: Oh, so they didn't share their stories with you?
Eva Saxbolder: No, not when I was young. In effect, um, I was, pretty protective. I had an intuitive sense. I would have awful dreams. I had nightmares about SS officers, and you know, try to share the horrible things that would happen to me, you know, about these perpetrators, like doing things to me that were unconceivable except in a dream, you know, it was not spoken about then. When I left, after high school, my mom started, you know, I'm speaking to her and I was already privy. My father was a little bit more open, but he hadn't gone through the same thing. He left Vienna when he was shy of 17, so he didn't go through the camps. And I knew my mother had gone through some very difficult times.
I mean, she was in three camps, always with her mother. Never separated, Five transports going from today's ENS to Auschwitz, to oon back to Auschwitz, then to today's ens. But she had been in, in Dr. Mengele’s line a few times. We know what that means, but it was never, um, specifically or overtly spoken about.
Laura Rotter: That's quite a legacy to be aware of and how brave of her to start to talk about it. You were older at that point, but that takes a lot of courage on her part. So again, when I met you, you had been a speech pathologist for quite a long time. How did, how did that come about?
Eva Saxbolder: To be a speech pathologist?
Laura Rotter: Yes.
Eva Saxbolder: You're asking fun questions today. I mean,
Laura Rotter: I know you to be such a spiritual, creative woman there. That would not be the box I would've put you into.
Eva Saxbolder: Well, so I had a fascination with neurology. I was fascinated by the brain, and I thought I would be a doctor. And as I said, you know, I. I just needed to finish school.
I came back to San Diego and speech pathology was an arena where I could study the brain, understand how, you know, speech and language are formulated, and get some grounding in neurology without having to go forward because I also fell. Just it. It has to, it's interesting speaking with you. It has to do with money.
Like I didn't wanna take out the loans because I came from a family didn't have credit cards, and if they did have any kind of credit, it was paid off immediately. So there was a very negative connotation to taking out money. And I think that was so ingrained in me, like, you don't borrow for something, you save it first and then you can do it.
So we would do very modest vacations, you know, because that was the extra money that my dad earned so that we could go to these little cabins a bit like Tahoe or something, but never the things that perhaps some of our neighbors would do, which were more extravagant and then, you know, or for the big holiday gifts so, I think that influenced me.
In terms of I can't take the risk to take out loans in order to complete the education that I needed, and then I had reconsidered when I was 30 and realized that's too much work for me.
Laura Rotter: It is a lot of work, as we both know from watching our kids.
Eva Saxbolder: Yeah, right. So living vicariously, you know?
Laura Rotter: So that was a decision pretty much out of college to pursue speech pathology.
Eva Saxbolder: Did it in, I did it in college. I went, yeah. To San Diego. I completed a bachelor's while I was starting master's classes. It's like, let's just finish school. So I never allowed myself that kind of college experience, you know, as my friends talk about their college friends and or sorority or the things that they would do.
It's like I worked full-time and I went to school full-time and I took a lot of units and just wanted it to be over with, you know, get out into the workforce.
Laura Rotter: Interesting. I'm wondering, as we continue this conversation, if that personality trait of holding a lot at once continues, I do feel like when we've spoken to each other, perhaps it makes you come alive. What? What's it that of doing many things at once? Is that, do you feel like that's been a pattern?
Eva Saxbolder: It certainly has until last year and it was, I don't know if this is appropriate to talk about this now, but I was, you know, you and I have both done a lot of work in mindfulness and, and all, and I think, what am I doing all this for?
And spinning my wheels and feeling, it's not like FOMO, you know, it's not like fear of missing out. It's just I am wired to do many things and to do it to the max. When we had made the decision to move to Colorado and I gave up a congregation, I was still working for the seminary. So there again, I had two positions. Plus I was teaching, you know, in community, I was like, I had an accident. We were hiking up in the Adirondacks and I shattered all the bones here on my left side. From my shoulder all the way down through my wrist, walking around moving like this, you know, and, and I decided to align with the cycle in our Jewish calendar that I would take a shmita (sabbatical) year.
And Larry was totally in support of this because he too, during this year, had decided to retire. It was a really interesting proposition. Because for me, I had not really known that sense of, for me it was rehabbing. I also had major back surgery a few months after we moved here, which I had postponed from New York, but
Laura Rotter: So that's 2022, just to situate.
Eva Saxbolder: Yep. And it was incredible. My experience was so beautiful because we were so conscientious. We were living in a furnished rental. Many of the things we had, um, given away, you know, and we still had plenty in storage. There was, but I practiced this sense of non-scarcity. You don't have to work so hard in order to feel like you know that you deserve it or can have it, and Wow. We didn't purchase, we weren't consumers. We, you know, really lived very low keyed. I wasn't about joining things. We didn't join a synagogue. I didn't join the rabbinical council here, or you know, groups. I said, I'm just taking this year. To just breathe into presence.
And I was also turning seventy. So I felt like that was a very monumental time for me, you know, to like, how do I wanna live the rest of my life? And it was very clear. It's through joy, it's through creativity, it's through being of service, you know, in those realms. And you know, this, this notion of overdoing it, it was a practice for a full year.
And I would catch myself, you know, of course it's seductive, you're new in town. There are invitations to participate, to lead, to belong and, and this idea, we were also looking for a house. So, and we subsequently moved into this home, and now we're total full out consumers because we had no rakes and brooms and furniture.
But there is a different consciousness about how we consume and what matters to us at the stage in our life. Um, you know, I still work for the seminary. I do some lifecycle work. I like teaching in community. I do it in small chunks instead of committing myself the way I used to. You know? Yes, let's do this two year class every week.
I'll meet you, you know, and if it's Monday, it must be Mussar. If it's Tuesday, it must be spiritual direction. You know, it's like, Those days are over, and I love it.
Laura Rotter: It's very counter-cultural, what you are describing, because of course we're in a consumer society that goes without saying, but it's not only financial consumerism or material consumerism, but this sense that.
And I do it as well, that every moment has to be towards a purpose and spoken for. And if I have some time that I'm alone walking my dog, well I've gotta listen to that podcast or I have to read that novel and this, you know, that's why you and I have been involved in meditation communities of just being, is really a revolutionary idea for us. And knowing you Eva, and how you have done so much in your life, I'm, I'm amazed that you, that you're able to say that it felt good and it feels good. Cuz as you describe it intellectually, it sounds amazing and it sounds a little scary to me.
Eva Saxbolder: Well, it's like, as you say that, I think, yeah, there's a lot of joy in dayeinu (enough).
And you know, it doesn't mean I'm around as a vegetable. I'm involved right now in something that is so joyful for me. It's a cohort through the Jewish Studio Process and I'm in their creative facilitator leadership program and that is exactly what I wanna be doing. And I just digressed, you know, on my rabbinic path for five years.
So I'm finding that I can engage in things. That are joyful without guilt. You know that they bring pleasure. I mean, one of the mottoes in, um, in the Jewish studio process is follow your pleasure. There are many times throughout the day, you know that, first of all, I do have a gratitude practice. I love to get up, you know, kiss my mezuzzah. You know, just do a little prayer. I look outside this beautiful view. We, we have amazing skies and a lot of sunshine here. And at the same time, you know, there are periods. I mean, I have a lot of bumps and obstacles and, you know, Still doing rehab and all part of my body, but to say, wow, so where's my pleasure?
You know, and it helps me recalibrate. So it, it's not a pollyannaish, but it's a very true way of living for myself that I'm finally able to not just say it and teach it, but to be it.
Laura Rotter: Thank you so much for sharing that. So I'm gonna, Move past the digression. I always knew you since we met as a very spiritual person, still sort of seeking the right path.
So how did that come about? The decision to leave a career of over 40 years to do something that, um, I'm sure a lot of people thought you were a little crazy. To do
Eva Saxbolder: Well, I always have a couple answers when people ask me that question because they're curious. One is that it sparked a lot of people who were in their fifties and sixties, like, you mean you can really change your life like that?
And said you could do anything you want. You know, these are choice points. But I think it started off by my being, getting trained of 20 years ago as a Jewish spiritual director. I've been very attentive to like, where is God present in my life and where isn't God present in my life? You know, it's not just this concept and I know myself as a spiritual human being, but I was also a bit of a lost soul in Westchester.
You know, hadn't quite found my right place and you know, started off in spiritual direction with an Ursuline nun down in near Rochelle until finally I found this training program, which changed the course of my life and it was Renewal Judaism. It was up at Eilat Chayim. I had already had some engagement with renewal Judaism and Zalman out in Berkeley when I was younger.
You know, it's just I wanted to go from one two year program to another. A lot of my, um, peers in the spiritual direction program were already clergy. They were serving as rabbis and cantors and would say, you know, you should consider this. And I thought, I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. How am I ever gonna take this on?
I can't afford it. It's very expensive proposition as we know. And you know, I have my kids in school and
Laura Rotter: And of time a as well as money.
Eva Saxbolder: Oh yeah. Yeah, you know, then it came to a point, I had a epiphany experience. It was during Shavuot and I was up at Isabella Freeman and Reb Soloman, who's was very important, well presence but not physical presence.
So much for me because I wasn't in the inner sanctum, but certainly it had engagement. He had canceled. I had, um, experience the night before with his wife who does this imaginal work and imagine Shavuot and you, oh, you're lying there, you're at the base of a mountain. And it was like, oh, I guess it's Sinai, you know, and you get a message.
And this heavy tablets plopped down in front of me. And there are three directives. One: you can have it all. Two: be a rabbi. Three: Now go girl. But there was something in that message that, you know, really penetrated me that was something different than, and I had done a lot of dream work for, you know, 30, 40 years already, but this was different.
It helps move through shame, it helps move through secrets. It helps get us into real reality in this world that is so cracked and unreal at times. And he went back to her. So I tell her my story, I tell her my dream and she says, I've been wondering, you know, cuz again, so many of my peers in that program were already clergy or in rabbinical school.
So she invited me to come out to Ohio where they were having, you know, two weeks where I immersed myself in classes. The teachers, you know, the rabbis, they assess me, I assess the program, yada yada. And it just felt like really natural at that point. Like why fight it? I'm tired of two year programs. It worked until a point where I just couldn't do it anymore and I needed to do classes and take a deep breath and retire, you know?
Laura Rotter: That must have been scary or was it that at that point, You just knew it was the right thing to do. I mean, I, I think we all question ourselves where, when we're at those tipping points in our transitions, so what helped you sort of know that it was the right decision to make?
Eva Saxbolder: It was enough already. You know, I found myself. Doing things that I, I didn't really want to be doing. You know, systems change, educational systems change and you know, there was more administrative work than actually working with kids and I felt like if this is what it would mean to get a real retirement sticking in five years, I didn't wanna do it.
So it was a a point where I was like, next out and, yeah. You know, again, coming back to that financial lack of security. Are we gonna be? And we were fine. You know, we're better than fine. But it's, it comes back to how I was raised. And be careful, you know, save 10%, 20%, because you never know who could come take everything away. You've gotta be able to escape. And it's taken me years to work through that.
Laura Rotter: That's true, right? Having grown up with a message of scarcity, no matter what the numbers tell you, it's often hard to actually take it into your body to really understand it and to know it. I'm also curious, Eva, what other supports did you have while you went through that transition? I'm wondering if. You know, I'm imagining maybe it was helpful that you had a new identity to move into. Was that, you know, like…
Eva Saxbolder: I actually didn't speak about being in rabbinic school in the beginning. Part of me that felt, who's going to judge me, you know, and I didn't want that. I was very protective. So my support system were really, my dear, my dear friend, my husband. He was behind me a hundred percent.
Laura Rotter: But you can't always take for granted that that's the case. So thank you for that.
Eva Saxbolder: That's correct. No, he was, he was there. He wasn't gonna participate in any of this. But you know, it was beautiful to just know that I had his support and my friends had always encouraged me like, you know, you should go for this.
And so I feel like that was, Held me. I didn't even tell my parents I was in rabbinical school until my father was close to his passing. He had Alzheimer's at the time. And, you know, I just felt like I could say it to him, and he smiled, you know, because I, I did receive a lot of transmission in terms of my Jewish connection, my neshamah (Jewish soul) from him.
He was very devotional, so we had this very interesting bifurcated relationship, you know, in terms of the competition on one side and my being very sensitive and the other where I knew that we were very aligned.
Laura Rotter: That's beautiful. Thank you. What did your daughter say?
Eva Saxbolder: The older one said, that's cool, mom and the younger one who was in junior high at the time said, don't tell anybody.
Laura Rotter: Right. Exactly.
Eva Saxbolder: She was mortified. Um, but they were both at my ordination and they were very, yeah, I felt their pride. You know, we all have very different styles and how we relate to religion and our own sense of spirituality and God, and that's all part of the package of growing as a family. I mean, they gave me the space to be who I want and I feel it's important for me not as a tit for tat, but to just support them in their process, whatever that might look like.
Laura Rotter: So, Eva, what, what skills do you feel. You honed over the 40 years again of, of working with children in the school system. Do you see how some of those skills came with you into this next part of your life? I'm just curious.
Eva Saxbolder: Well, I think about presence. I think about connection. I think about looking at each little being or their parents through the eyes of tzelem Elohim, that we are all divinely created in the image of God and that, you know, my task was to offer them whatever I could to, whether it was remediation or to elevate them, you know, to be the best they could. And sometimes it was a bigger struggle than other times. You know, one has to be willing and ready to receive and you know, it's very complicated when you're with children.
I love children though, and you know, so that was always a given that, you know, spirit came through me in terms of my love for who I was with, you know, I think. The spiritual direction really changed also how I listened to people that I could be more present without being more frontal in my teaching, to really be a presence to give, you know, children, I did work with adult at Phasics, also just a place to, to express themselves in the way they needed.
And that there wasn't always one way to do that.
Laura Rotter: That's interesting. I hadn't thought that you were trained in spiritual direction again while you still were in the school system, so that that also informed, so it sort of back and forth. Both your spiritual life and training informed your, your work in the school system and your work in the school system then now informs who you are in the broader, more spiritual world.
So I like that. So I wanna follow on that line of creativity. It's come up now in your work as a rabbi. I'd, you know, frankly, because I've only heard it mentioned once before, I'd love to learn more about the Jewish studio. Is it the project process? What, um, process?
Eva Saxbolder: Yeah, it's the Jewish Studio Project that teaches the process.
Okay. So when I was, I dunno if I said this already. When I was in rabbinical school, we had a, um, a student, a rabbi intern at Rammemu, and I was involved in, you know, aspects of the community there. This was Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer, and we're sitting together one day having tea and talking about, well, what will it be like when we both, you know, are ordained as rabbis?
And I shared with her my dream, which was through the expressive arts. You know, she, she immediately caught on. She says, you've gotta speak to my friend Adina. They were both still in school in Boston. So, I reached out to Adina and learned about what she had been doing, her mother being an art therapist, and she integrating that with Jewish text.
And I thought, wow, that's like some of the stuff I wanna do when I grow up. You know, I had taken a few workshops with them over the course of the pandemic. I always didn't have a lot of time to do it, but I'd been following them and then I applied. They have, um, this is the third cohort of their creative facilitator training.
And as I knew that I was leaving New York, I said, I can have make time for this now if I can get in, I'm in. I got in and I'm in. And it's a beautiful cohort and we have, it's about engaging us in the creative process to look at our own text. So there's, there is a process, you know, that's grounded in text study with chavruta (study partner). There's always a spiritual grounding we work in, in chavruta. Then we go back,
Laura Rotter: Chavruta is like with a study partner. A study partner, right?
Eva Saxbolder: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. And um, I have an ongoing one also in addition to just these weekly experiences. We then do some reflection, and then we do art, and then we do what's called witness writing.
So what was that process like? Or what is it that we see? And then we debrief it. And that's kind of like what these sessions are like. And it's so resonates for me because it's not, I'm not an artist per se, and I'm not an art teacher and I'm not an art therapist, but I truly believe in the creative process.
I believe we are all creative spirits and how we manifest that, whether it's in the kitchen or in the garden, in the way that we converse with people writing poetry or making fine art. You know, there is something in each of us that has the potential for blossoming creatively here. I'm actually, I'm so excited In a couple weeks during the counting of the Omer which begins on the second night of Passover on, we do this process. So I'm going to teach something called Mosart and made up right, which is combining mussar, which is taking a soul quality, which will align with the energy of the week, right? And then making art.
About it. So I'm gonna be doing that at the JCC and I'm very excited to launch it cause that was a little dream of mine.
Laura Rotter: It sounds wonderful. Is the Jewish Studio Project accessible to laypeople? Do they,
Eva Saxbolder: Everybody, everybody. I can send you a link. Yes, please.
Laura Rotter: And I, I'll put it in the show notes for anyone interested.
So you are still on a journey, it seems to still find.
Eva Saxbolder: My best friend on the journey.
Laura Rotter: Hopefully, again, always looking to align your your souls skills and interests with where your most needed. So it sounds like, I know last time we spoke, you talked about. Integrating the arts more so is, is there, I guess I'm wondering, as our listeners are also women, perhaps going through a life transition, as you look back on how your path has come out, are there any, any anything you can recommend, either resources or just orientation?
Eva Saxbolder: I believe that all the answers, all the wisdom lies within ourselves. It's about. Deeply listening, paying attention to our dreams. As you had asked before, you know about role models, like what are other people's stories, and knowing that along the way there are going to be digressions and bumps and disappointments, but that's not the end of the journey.
That's just a stop. In the moment, I think, you know, having a, an ongoing positive attitude, which is not always so easy, you know, and I, I appreciate, you know, I know that I was, I've been gifted with more of the positive than the negative, even though I can get pretty salty, but, Yeah, it just, um, to really, it's gratitude would be the foundation for me.
Blessings, you know, to really appreciate all the, the gifts we've been given even during hard times. And for those who aren't as, as fortunate, you know, as we are, you know, that there's, it's amazing. Some of the, the most spiritually oriented people I've met are people who have nothing. Like materialistically, you know, when I was in India a few years ago, I'm looking at the spirit and the colors of the, the people there who are just so connected to some realm greater than themselves, you know?
And knowing that they still held this foundation of gratitude. I think that's really important. And you can do all the reading in the world, all the text study in the world to be able to just take in. And in silence, um, like you had said before, in our society, we're so consumed with feeling every moment that how do we listen if there's no space to listen?
Laura Rotter: So what I'm hearing you say also, Eva, is to have the practices in place where you can take time to be silent even for a short period of time. I've personally found that it does take a practice or some kind of practice in order to step away from whatever fear or shame comes up as we go through big life transitions.
If you inherently tend to look on the bright side, and even with that, we both know how, as you go through the ups and downs of life, we need to cultivate the ability to be grateful and to recognize. What we have, rather than what we're programmed for, is to always recognize what we don't have.
Eva Saxbolder: You know, I'm also thinking that. For people who are in that place of discernment or wanting a change on their journey to tap into their creative sources, you know, to allow themselves, all of us to dream. I still think one day I'm gonna be a homeopathist and a real artist, you know, just, I need to put in a time, you know, the places I wanna go, and maybe it won't happen and I, I will be satisfied enough.
You know, the, the imagination is really the key to not block ourselves from imagining how it might be if we've always wanted to be a ballroom dancer and we don't even know how to put on our shoes yet. You know, I think imagination important.
Laura Rotter: Yes. Allowing ourselves to dream. I am. I'm smiling. I have in the corner of my office magic markers and stickies and paint, and I was never a visual person.
I'm still not, it's not a talent, but I now wake up every day and time myself. I give myself five minutes. To just, you know, maybe with some watercolor and a paintbrush, just paint something and, which is again, my interest in learning more about the Jewish Studio Project. So, thank you telling us about that.
So, Eva, as we come towards the end of our conversation, curious, has your definition of success and perhaps even financial success shifted for you? Over time. And if it has how has it success?
Eva Saxbolder: Because my kids are off leading lives that bring them gratification. You know, I was never a hovering mom or a worrying mom in that wor worry, yes, but not on top of them. That feels so grateful for the life I live. It's not, you know, we have, we have a good life and. You know, living here makes me feel, oh, this is success. You know, having choices is success to me and financial success. You know, I've never gone for the big, like rockstar dreams of fame and fortune.
That wasn't my, my path in life, but we're, we're good. I feel more confident now on a very small pension than I ever did when I was earning okay dollars. So I think it's a matter of perception. You know, could we have more? Could I be like, so andSo, you know, and it all comes down to choices. Knowing that anything beyond the basics is success.
Laura Rotter: Thank you for that. And sharing that. I, I can see it in your face. How you feel like, how you're living your life now is. How you were meant to live your life, whatever that means. And also, I'm thinking of a quote, I think it was from John Vogel, who the founder of, of Vanguard, and he, he was at a party of some, you know, very wealthy hedge fund manager and commented to the person he was with.
I have something he will never have. I have enough. Such a pleasure to talk to Eva and learn a little bit more about your life. Thank you so much for sharing with me and my listeners. It was a pleasure.
Eva Saxbolder: Oh, well it was really beautiful to be able to spend this hour with you, Laura, and I wish you every success in the world, your imagination, and make those little paints and, and provide such guidance from, from your big heart, um, to the people that you serve.
Laura Rotter: I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rabbi Eva Saxbolder, and I'd like to share some takeaways from the podcast. First takeaway is you don't always need to be doing. Eva describes her life in the past. If it's Monday, it must be Mussa, the study of soul traits. If it's Tuesday, it must be spiritual direction. She no longer feels the need to be filling her time in the same way. No longer needs to be doing so much or having so much. Now she does her projects in small chunks.
Second takeaway, follow your pleasure. It's okay to engage in things that are joyful with without guilt. Eva is in the Creative Facilitator Leadership Program of the Jewish Studio Project which is an organization that combines visual art creation with Jewish text study. She has established a gratitude practice and asks herself, where's my pleasure, when she needs to recalibrate.
Third takeaway. Realize that it is possible to make the decision to change your life and then actually do it if you want to.
Eva left her over 40 year profession of being a speech pathologist. She went to rabbinical school while working full-time and getting the kids ready for school and ultimately became a rabbi, and finally, trust that all the answers. All the wisdom lies within ourselves. We need to deeply listen to pay attention to our dreams.
Eva encouraged us to tap into our creative sources and allow ourselves to imagine and know that along the way there are going to be digressions and bumps and disappointments, but that's not the end of the journey. Are you enjoying this podcast? Please don't forget to subscribe, so you won't miss next week's episode.
And if you're enjoying the show, I'd greatly appreciate a rating and a review. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to Making Change with your Money certified financial planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money. In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
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