About

I was three years old, asleep in the back seat of my parents’ car at the drive-in. I was too young to remember the plot. Even so, I remember the sense of awe as Star Wars unfolded before me. I felt that the universe was vast and strange and filled with more wonder than I could possibly imagine.

I’ve been collecting stories like that one ever since.

I treasure many aspects of my Jewish heritage. I love the wild improbability of a people who keep exploring the same texts for thousands of years and finding something new in them with each reading. Most of all, I love our stories.

I’ve found Jewish stories in more places than I can count. In Judaism’s ancient texts. In the teachers who handed them down. Some of the ones I treasure most are in books and films and graphic novels – strange worlds with stranger inhabitants, explorers and dreamers refusing to give up, no matter the odds.

My favorite stories, I’ve found, are where Judaism and speculative fiction overlap.

I’m Rabbi Josh Breindel. I share what I love so you can love it too – and what I love is Jewish wisdom, speculative fiction, and the places where they teach each other something new.

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Jewish tradition has always been a speculative tradition. Our imagination lifts us to the stars.

— Rabbi Josh Breindel

What I’m Doing

I serve as rabbi at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Massachusetts, where I teach, lead, and learn alongside a community I love. I offer monthly sessions at Lehrhaus in Somerville on Jewish speculative fiction – exploring the intersection of classic midrash (rabbinic commentary) with science fiction and fantasy. I’m “the Rabbi on the Radio” for a segment on Chagigah, WERS’s weekly radio program of Jewish music. I also co-host a Jewish science fiction and fantasy book club with my wife, Stephanie. And I enjoy sharing my writing – sermons, essays, and the occasional review of something I’ve just read.

Underneath all of it is my conviction that the rabbinic tradition has always been a speculative tradition. Midrash imagines the gaps in the text. Aggadah (rabbinic lore) unpacks what scripture leaves unsaid. Reading science fiction and fantasy from a Jewish perspective – or reading Torah through the lens of speculative fiction – isn’t a stretch. It’s coming home.

Want to talk?

I’d love to hear from you – about a class, a book, a speaking engagement, or something you found here you’d like to argue about. Drop me a note below.