Ariel Hendelman

Ariel Hendelman is the Spiritual Leader of B’nai Or Boston and calls Newton, MA home. She loves gathering in sacred circles for chant and meditation, and teaches Torah with a mythological lens both online and in person. 

When Ariel was young and asked what she wanted to be when she “grew up,” she responded, “a builder and a fixer, or a Rabbi.” While growing up is still happening, Ariel has found that answering the call of becoming a Rabbi is also the call to build and repair.

Ariel’s written words appear in Ayin Press, Double Blind Magazine, and most recently, on her Substack. She is in the process of adapting her Capstone manuscript, a new midrash about a brave young girl’s return to Eden, into a book. While living in Jerusalem until 2020, Ariel co-founded Shabbat Shelach, an LGBTQ+ community, hosting monthly Shabbat meals and the largest post-Pride-March Shabbat ever, with speakers such as Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie.

Ariel’s debut album, Prayers for Fire & Water is a soulful blend of folk and niggunim, and can be found wherever you get your music. Her current live musical project, Devotional Dialogue, is a weaving of Kabbalah and Sufism through  original chants from Sefer Yetzirah and Sufi Qawalis with fellow musician, Umer Piracha. In her free time, Ariel loves singing around the bonfire, pulling oracle cards, and eating cornbread, possibly all at the same time. 

Ariel is deeply grateful to her teachers, who guide and support her with their wisdom and vision — in particular, Rabbi Shefa Gold, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Rav Ebn Leader, Reb Elliot Ginsburg, Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman, and those of blessed memory — Hazzan Jack Kessler and Rabbi Ellen Bernstein. Ariel feels honored to be inducted into the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, whose paradigm-shifting Judaism is truly a Beit HaMikdash. Ariel is also grateful to her family for supporting her in myriad ways during the journey through Rabbinical school, and to her dad Jay Hendelman, who is smiling and dancing with the rest of the ancestors in Shamayim.

Photo by Nechama Jacobson