“Just ask your rabbi.”
Sometimes that’s genuinely the correct answer. But is it the right answer?
If you’re converting to Judaism, exploring Judaism, living far from a Jewish community, or simply don’t have a rabbi yet, it can feel less like guidance and more like a dead end.
If they had a rabbi to ask, don’t you think they would have?
In this video, I talk about why this common response can be so frustrating, when it really is appropriate, and how we can help people find their next step without pretending to be the final authority. We’ll also look at the difference between answering a question and helping someone learn how to ask better ones.
Because while rabbis matter, Judaism has always involved learning from teachers, friends, family members, study partners, and community. Not every question needs a rabbinic ruling. Sometimes people just need a place to start.
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Transcript below.
Transcript:
 Sometimes the advice, “Just ask your rabbi,” is good advice, and sometimes it’s the Jewish version of, “Thoughts and prayers.” If you’ve ever asked a Jewish question and got hit with, “Just ask your local rabbi,” this video’s for you. It is so annoying because it assumes everybody has a rabbi. Newsflash, most people don’t.
And if that’s your situation, I’ll link up here and down below to what you can do when you’re living far away from a Jewish community. Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, buildingajewishlife.com. If you’re nervous about contacting a rabbi, I made a free rabbi meeting prep sheet.
It’ll help you feel more grounded and prepared going into these conversations. You can get it by joining my mailing list down below, and you’ll get access to the free resource library that has a bunch of different guides like that.
For converts, seekers, isolated Jews, and anyone building a Jewish life from scratch, “Just ask your rabbi” can sound a lot less like guidance and more like a locked door.
Judaism values questions, so why do so many people use, “Just ask your rabbi” to shut questions down?
I’m a lawyer, so of course, I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer. I’m not saying rabbis are bad. I’m not saying asking your rabbi is bad. Those are great, actually. But not everyone has one, and that’s my point.
It would be awesome if everyone had access to a rabbi to ask their question. But even those people who have a rabbi, that rabbi may not have the free time for questions. In my case, I had a bully rabbi, a real jerk, who told me I wasn’t allowed to ask questions because I didn’t pay him money because I was not a member of the synagogue because I was converting and therefore was ineligible for membership.
And yeah, that guy was a jerk and an exception to the rule, but there are people in that situation, and I was in that situation, you know, back in 2010 or so and trying to ask people questions on Twitter, and people were like, “Just ask your rabbi.” And I’m like, “I did. He won’t let me. So where does that leave me now?”
It was so frustrating. It made me so mad how everyone acted like if I continued to ask questions after, “Just ask your rabbi,” that I was the one being unreasonable, that I was somehow trying to subvert the process and get answers in a way I wasn’t supposed to.
Sometimes “ask your rabbi” is the correct answer. But just because it’s correct doesn’t mean it’s the right answer to give, and it’s certainly not the only answer to a Jewish question in a public space.
Life is imperfect. We’re all humans, and that’s a big message of my channel. If you’ve been here at all, you’ve heard me say rabbis are only human. Some of them are jerks, some of them are busy, some of them are ill.
We do the best we can with the resources we have. And when someone doesn’t have the resource that we know is the correct answer that they need, they still need help. And we can give them imperfect help. We can do the best we can with the resources we have to help other people too.
And more than that, there are a lot of people here who just really are not at a level where asking a rabbi is something that they’re going to do.
Maybe they are absolutely brand new, reading their first book about Judaism, and they’re asking a question about Judaism on the internet that came up from that book. “Ask your rabbi” isn’t the right answer. It’s just not. They don’t have the confidence yet to call up a rabbi and be like, “Hey, you don’t know me, but I have a question.”
That’s just unrealistic, and I cannot imagine that many rabbis would be happy with your advice that every Tom, Dick, and Harry that has a question should call up their local rabbi at the synagogue. They don’t have time for that.
They probably don’t even know yet that there’s, like, different movements and denominations.
So exactly which rabbi do you call? Because to that person, every rabbi is the exact same. They don’t know the differences yet I understand that some of you just don’t feel qualified to answer these questions. That’s okay. You don’t have to answer them. But when other people do, you shouldn’t be jumping down their throat.
But I think there are two other feelings behind the “just ask your rabbi” shut down talk answer. The first one is I think there are people who do just wanna shut down conversation. They don’t like outsiders getting the information.
They think you don’t belong here, and no one can stop other people from gatekeeping Jewish information on the internet. There have always been gatekeepers in the world.
The internet just makes them louder and a lot easier for you to run into them. But I think for most people, a lot of the reason why they’re shutting down this conversation is because they don’t want it to get controversial. They don’t wanna ruffle anyone’s feathers.
They don’t want anyone getting upset.
By giving one Jewish answer, you are by definition not giving the eight Jewish answers that probably exist in reality. And there is always some crazy person on the internet who wants to yell at you for leaving out their answer. Like, I get that. Believe me, being a public Jew on the internet? Not fun.
But our society has become so polarized now, and it’s not just politics, it’s religion, too, and we need to get over that. We need to be able to have civil conversations about our differences in public places. That is an important social skill to have. Take it from the autistic kid who had to build all of her social skills from scratch.
This is an important social skill, and we are losing it. So the next time someone asks you a Jewish question and you’re tempted to say, “Just ask your rabbi,” I want you to stop thinking about how other people are gonna respond to your answer. I want you to think about how that person that you give an answer to is gonna feel.
That’s the person you should be helping.
Because Judaism has always had peer learning. We’ve always learned from other people who weren’t our rabbis. That’s the entire purpose of the chavruta system, the pairs-based learning system of Talmud and other Jewish topics. Families teach each other. Friends pass good advice to one another.
People are constantly sharing their experiences with us, and more than that, not every question requires a ruling of Jewish law, a psak. And like I said above, doesn’t matter if it requires a psak or not, some people just need an answer, and they’re not going to get it from a rabbi. It might as well be from someone who is responsible and empathetic and cares about whether they have useful information or not.
And you don’t have to give them the answer. You can tell them where to look, how to start approaching the problem, ’cause a lot of times the question isn’t exactly as straightforward as it seems. Most of the time, what people are actually asking is, “What do people usually do?” That’s a social question. Or, “How do I start?”
It may even be as simple as, “What even is this thing?” But it also might be as deep as, “How do I handle this emotionally? This is something hard and I don’t know how to handle it.”
But here’s the hidden problem: it creates dependency. When this phrase is overused, it teaches people not to think critically, not to think for themselves.
Don’t discuss things openly, outsource all your personal judgment, and be afraid of making mistakes.
Healthy religious leadership should help people grow in wisdom and confidence, not become spiritually helpless.
But also, the internet cannot replace real relationships with real Jews. If you’re one of these people living far from a Jewish community, start working towards finding ways that you can reduce your dependency on the internet and people like me.
I am not your ideal information source. I’m okay, but eventually you do need a rabbi, and you need friends.
Ideally, it would be great if you eventually had family members who are Jewish. That’s not in the cards for everyone, but it is for a lot of you. While I do want to expand the amount of internet advice that is available to you, it also has limits.
You do need people who know you deeply and know your life and know your circumstances and your limitations. That is gonna get you the best advice for your situation. Internet advice is kind of a sledgehammer. So what would better responses look like? As I said, I’m a lawyer, and the number one phrase of lawyers is, “It depends.” That’s a great place to start.
Here are some other phrases you can use: “Here’s what I know.” “This varies by denomination.” “Here’s a starting point.” “I’m not an expert, but here’s how I handled it.” “Here are some resources.” You can help without pretending to be the final authority. These people are already anxious, nervous, super overwhelmed, and super afraid of looking like an idiot.
A dismissive answer can shut them down for weeks, maybe months, or even end their Jewish journey altogether. As a general rule, people aren’t asking for a final Halachic Jewish law ruling. Mostly, they’re asking whether they’re allowed to begin. You don’t need to know much about Judaism before you deserve kindness, empathy, and help taking the next step.
And if part of the problem is that you have no idea how to actually approach a rabbi, what to say, what to ask, what to expect, or how not to feel incredibly awkward doing it, watch this video next, What I Wish I Knew Before My First Rabbi Meeting.
