Greenwich Post
Dream not denied
Cantor Vicki Axe was ordained as rabbi last weekend

May 22, 2008

When Vicki Axe was a teenager, she was so inspired by studying Judaism at religious school that just being part of a congregation wasn’t enough. She wanted to lead a congregation and become a rabbi, an idea that, at the time, could easily be dismissed as a crazy dream.

Newly ordained Rabbi Vicki Axe wore her robes for the first time Tuesday. %u2014 Ken Borsuk photo

“I can picture it as though I was right there now,” Rabbi Axe told the Post this week, just days after her official ordination. “I was in seventh grade and I came home one Sunday morning and told my parents that I wanted to be a rabbi. Without a heartbeat they told me not to be ridiculous because women don’t do that.”

Last Saturday, Rabbi Axe, the former cantor at Greenwich Reform Synagogue, proved she could beat the odds as she was ordained in Cos Cob before her husband, her four children and members of Congregation Shir Ami, the Reform Judaism congregation she formed five years ago.

Rabbi Axe said she loved being a cantor and being able to bring the prayers that inspire her to life through her singing, but she considers herself first an educator, a role she will take on even more as a rabbi. She said she considers it a great honor to be able to teach her congregation but she’s quick to remind herself that she must remain a student too.

“Everybody is an educator and a student,” Rabbi Axe said.

Rabbi Axe has been a cantor for 25 years, focused mainly on music but also responsible for all bar and bat mitzvah training and education of the congregates. And, in a rabbi’s absence, it’s up to the cantor to take a more pastoral role if the need arrives. While being a cantor was a fulfilling role for her, Rabbi Axe never gave up her dream of something more.

That dream grew more powerful when she left her position at Greenwich Reform Synagogue five years ago and formed Congregation Shir Ami with some families who left with her. As the spiritual leader, she took on the role as unofficial rabbi while also serving as cantor, educator, administrator and custodian.

“I’ve had such wonderful experiences in 25 years as a cantor and to my bone I will always be a cantor. I wanted to become a rabbi and learn and study and know more,” Rabbi Axe said. “Usually the cantor will sit on one side of the altar and the rabbi on the other and I found myself relating more and more to the other side. It just seemed like the natural next step in my own personal calling and journey.”

She attended the Mesifta Adath Wolkowisk Rabbinical Academy of America, which takes on only mature candidates, who “find their calling later in life.”

The course of study was extensive but Rabbi Axe, as a cantor, already had a five-year master’s course in music education that was applied to her rabbinic studies, and years of weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and baby namings under her belt. Two years of Hebrew and philosophy completed her task.

Congregation Shir Ami isn’t officially associated with reform Judaism, but Rabbi Axe said it has a liberal approach in education and social action through volunteer efforts.

“One of the values that we aspire to and teach and live by is that there’s one God for all people,” Rabbi Axe said. “Judaism is a religion of action and one very bound to the laws of the Torah and the commandments and the rabbinic writings of the Talmud. The more traditional approaches to Judaism are bound by those laws and the reform approach is to look at those laws and determine how to maintain the integrity of Judaism while, at the same time, express our Judaism in a way that’s relevant today.”

In its five years, the congregation has grown from 10 families to 65. Housed at 30 Myano Lane in Stamford, 70% of congregants come from Greenwich and a search is underway for a bigger home. Rabbi Axe said a unique trait of the congregation is more than 40% are interfaith couples or people who have converted to Judaism.

The congregation celebrates its fifth year, with a “gala event” at the Rich Forum in Stamford on June 7. For information, visit Congregationshirami.org.

A woman becoming a rabbi isn’t the novelty it once was and Rabbi Axe is quick to credit all the women trailblazers before her who worked so hard to allow her to achieve her dream as a person, not just as a woman.

“It was very powerful and very profound,” Rabbi Axe said of her Saturday ordination. “It was like my wedding day in that the ceremony of a wedding and the ceremony of ordination are both very transformative moments surrounded by the people you love.”