Rabbi Emily Segal is the Rabbi of Aspen Jewish Congregation, serving the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado.  Previously she served as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Jeremiah in Northfield, Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago, and as a rabbinic student she served congregations in Ohio, Florida, and Louisiana.  Rabbi Segal grew up in a small, tight-knit Jewish community in Virginia, nurtured by one of the first woman rabbis, and she is the proud product of an interfaith home.  Seeing her father grow in love for Judaism and passion for Jewish learning and eventually become a Jew-By-Choice was formative in her development and her path in the rabbinate.  After graduating from the University of Virginia (Wahoowa!), her studies continued at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion where she was ordained in Cincinnati in 2010.  Rabbi Segal’s rabbinic thesis was entitled “Telling and Retelling: The Women’s Seder and Ritual Innovation.”  

Rabbi Segal’s rabbinic interests include Jewish environmental and food justice, liturgical development, ritual innovation, biblical Hebrew, Jewish feminism, Mussar (Jewish mindfulness practice) and scriptural and halakhic study.  Her non-rabbinic interests include strong coffee, dark chocolate, good books, escapist baking, cross-country skiing, and live music.  She is married to Rabbi Scott Segal, who is the rabbi of Har Mishpacha in Steamboat Springs.  You can find them cooking together, dragging their young children (Samantha, 9, and Ezra, 6) on character-building hiking expeditions, and having family dance parties.

To learn more about Rabbi Segal, her path to the rabbinate, and her family:

Rabbi Segal’s rabbinic vision:

I serve and foster Jewish community in these ways: 

I speak truths from Torah, Jewish teaching, and modern wisdom, in an intellectually and theologically honest way.  I create meaningful and relevant inroads to open-hearted engagement with Jewish living.  I speak prophetic truths about justice and humanity, emphasizing our obligation to align both process and results with our values.  I enable others to deepen their prayer through accessible and personable scholarship and mindful, prayerful presence.   I model constructing meaningful Jewish practice and joyful Jewish identity based on aspirational positivity rather than obligatory continuity.  I respond with love and humility and compassion, remembering my rabbinate is lived in service to others.