Rabbi SaraLeya Schley was ordained in 2005 by the ALEPH Rabbinical Program of the Jewish Renewal Movement. From 2001-2021 she served many communities throughout the West as spiritual leader: Renewal, unaffiliated, and Conservative. Between 2008-2014 she was Rabbi to Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, CA. In 2019 she was designated a Senior Rabbinic Fellow by the Shalom Hartman Institute. Having moved back to Northern Nevada in 2018 to live closer to family, she leads prayer and leyns Torah regularly. She continues to be involved with various Renewal communities, including Wilderness Torah, Torah of Awakening and Chochmat HaLev, as an adjunct leader, teacher and elder.
In 2017, she received a special ordination from the Integral Halachah Institute as a placeholder within the Jewish Renewal movement for a dynamic and responsive relationship to the halakhic process.
She leads ritual and prayer and teaches across the spectrum of Jewish practice, bringing a spiritual and ethical perspective to her love of traditional text study. Facilitating vibrant, individualized life-cycle rituals brings great joy to her work as a Rabbi, particularly working with multi-faith and non-traditional families.
She is mother to three married adult children and savta to her four beloved grandchildren.
