By Rabbi Dr. Kari Tuling
This issue of the Vine marks the end of Rabbi Dr. Kari Tuling’s time as Temple Micah’s Interim Rabbi. Rather than ask her to write a final column, we opted to pose a few questions to her to take stock of her thoughts at the end of her rich and rewarding year at Temple Micah.
The biggest surprise? How seriously cool it is to live in DC. It really does feel like we’re in “The Room Where it Happens” (to quote Hamilton). It’s still a thrill to see national monuments when traveling in DC, to suddenly catch sight of the Capitol Dome or the Washington Monument. I have joked with friends that it feels like most of the congregation here is either working for the government, working for an organization with a contract with the government, writing about the government, or suing the government. I’ve really enjoyed having erudite, informed conversations about national and international politics with congregants. I’m not sure why I didn’t expect that, but it has been a surprise. Granted, this year has been a particularly gut-wrenching time in our national history, but I have felt like it’s exciting to be in the DMV nonetheless.
The people! I have had so much fun getting to know my fellow clergy, staff, and congregants. This congregation is populated with smart, engaged people who are interested in the world. I have made some really great friendships here.
The biggest challenge was mastering the High Holiday services quickly, in a compressed timeframe, in a space new to me, with a team I did not know. Given that it was a fraught moment in our national experience, due to the destruction of the DOGE project, and also given that the congregation was grieving the departure of a beloved senior rabbi, it was critically important for those services to be familiar in feel, meaningful in message, and transformative in experience. That’s a tall order, but I think we did an amazing job. I’m proud of the work we’ve done here together.
Starting July 1, I will be the Interim Rabbi at Temple Beth David in Commack, New York, on Long Island. TBD had once been 700 families in size, but has shrunk to fewer than 300 families, a common outcome in recent years on Long Island. With the rabbi and cantor retiring this year, the congregation’s leadership had thought they might close or merge; however, the congregation gained a new lease on life when the private school next door wanted to buy their building and make shared use of it.
My role there will be to help them re-envision their future. We’ll be looking at restructuring the clergy role. Rather than two full-time positions, they’ll have a full-time rabbi and a part-time cantor/soloist, and we’ll need to make sure that the expectations for the clergy role are tailored to a single person rather than two. I will help them craft an attractive position for their new rabbi.
If you know me, you know that I really enjoy thinking holistically about congregations, so it’s a particularly interesting position to me. I also know the retiring rabbi from my work with the Women’s Rabbinic Network— Rabbi Beth Klafter is a former president of the WRN—so it has been enjoyable to reconnect with her as we work on transition.
I’ve sketched out a series of chapters on what it means to believe in God in a liberal Jewish setting, organized around the theme of loving the stranger. I’ve started writing the book proposal, which I hope to finish this summer. I don’t want to say a whole lot more until the book is under contract, but it’s expressly a book about my own theology (as opposed to an academic work about other peoples’ theology).
We’ve spent a lot of time this year discussing “what makes Micah, Micah.” I’d encourage you to continue that conversation, and to keep discussing it in depth. This congregation is unusual in its commitment to political activism for liberal causes, in its deep engagement in discussion of the nuances of Jewish identity, in its willingness to have hard conversations, and its openness to breaking things in the hopes of finding new forms of expression. That set of differences has created a vital, energetic, and vibrant congregation: the services and the programs that Micah offers are often a form of playful seriousness or serious play. I hope that you hold on to that quality, as that’s made it truly enjoyable to be here and be a part of the Micah story.
This article was originally featured in the June/July/Aug 2026 issue of the Vine.