Ariel Stone, a native of Orlando, Florida, has been with Congregation Shir Tikvah since shortly after its establishment ten years ago. She serves as adjunct faculty in the Religious Studies departments of Portland State University and Willamette University of Salem, and teaches at Portland’s Melton Mini-School.

Ariel Stone served as President of the Oregon Board of  Rabbis from 2007-2009. Awarded a fellowship at the Mandel School for Educational and Social Leadership, she spent 2001-2003 in Israel as a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow.  From 1996-2001 she was Associate Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel of Portland, Oregon, and also traveled nationally as scholar in residence for the United Jewish Communities.

Rabbi Ariel has a Master’s degree in Hebrew Letters. In early 2010 she was awarded a Doctor of Jewish Studies degree from Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago for her work bringing insights from medieval Jewish mysticism to modern issues of community, under the direction of Dr. Byron Sherwin. She was ordained a rabbi by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform) in 1991.

Rabbi Ariel Stone of Congregation Shir Tikvah in Portland, Oregon

Her publications include:

• “The Challenge of the Persistent Vegetative State” in Reform Jewish Ethics and the Halakhah ed. Eugene Borowitz, (1988).
• “Marriage with Sectarians: the Case of the Karaites” in Marriage and its Obstacles in Jewish Law, ed. Walter Jacob and Moshe Zemer, (1999)
• Several original religious rituals featured at www.ritualwell.org

Her latest work, Because All is One, is available as an e-book and in paperback. In her new book, Rabbi Ariel  introduces readers to the world of Jewish mysticism and Torah study. Read more about it, including the preface, here:   http://www.becauseallisone.com/

The Kindle edition of Because All is One is available here.

A few examples of Rabbi Stone’s community work:

• “We All Worship Something”
• Death with Dignity
• Documentary: Conversation is Interruption.
• High Holy Days 5771 Rosh HaShanah drashot
• Yom Kippur 5771 drasha_-_Transitions
• High Holy Days 5772 Rosh HaShanah d’var Torah

You can also see more of her work at her website: Torah for the 21st Century

Rabbi Stone appears in the film 2005 “Conversation Is Interruption”, by Rebecca Shine of Graham Street Productions, and in the forthcoming “Wandering in the Woods” by Ken Klein.

To read her erev Shabbat message from December 14, click Erev Shabbat Message 12.14.12.