July 1, 2026 / 16 Tammuz, 5786

The First Message from Rabbi Rachel Van Thyn, WRN’s New Executive Director

An Open Letter to The Women and Gender-Expansive Rabbis of the HUC Rabbinic Class of 2026

First and foremost, mazel tov.

Ordination is a remarkable achievement. It is the culmination of years of intense study, discernment, sacrifice, and growth. More than that, it reflects your willingness to pursue a profession that few people choose to embrace—the sacred responsibility of serving the Jewish people as rabbis.

As you begin your rabbinate, I begin a new chapter of my own, serving as Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network. While our journeys are different, we share something important: we are both stepping into an inheritance.

It feels especially meaningful that the Torah portion we will read this week, Parashat Pinchas, contains one of Torah’s most powerful stories about inheritance.

Five sisters—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, the daughters of Zelophehad—approach Moses with a question about inheritance.

Their father has died. They fear that their father’s name and legacy will disappear. Yet they do not reject the tradition they have inherited. Nor do they seek to stand apart from it. Instead, they ask whether there is room for them within it.

God affirms their claim.

And Torah itself expands.

I have always found that story remarkable. The daughters of Zelophehad honour what they have inherited while helping shape what it will become. They remind us that inheritance is never passive. It carries both privilege and responsibility.

As I think about your ordination and about the future of WRN, I find myself returning to that lesson.

None of us arrives at this moment alone.

Long before any of us entered rabbinical school, others were already doing the work of building the rabbinate we now inherit. Beginning with Rabbi Sally Priesand and our other cherished vatikot, and continuing through the founders of WRN and generations of women rabbis, they challenged assumptions, opened doors, built institutions, and helped make room for........

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