Rabbi Elliot Kukla

Rabbi Elliot Kukla Speaking Topics

• Sanctifying Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary Lifecycles

  This current moment of anti-trans backlash is often framed as a clash between traditional religious values and new-fangled ideas about gender. However, gender creativity exists all over the world and through-out history within traditional religious texts and spiritual practices. In this session, I tell my own story as the first openly transgender rabbi ordained by a movement in Judaism. I have written prayers for sanctifying gender non-conforming lives that are used by all non-orthodox branches of Judaism. We will explore how to sanctify lifecycle moments that are unique to queer, trans and nonbinary people such as coming out, transitioning or moving to a less anti-queer city, as well as rituals for our everyday lives. This session leaves audiences with the spiritual tools to bring holiness to our lives and dispel stigma and shame.

• Gender Radicals in Traditional Religion

  This current moment of anti-trans backlash is often framed as a clash between traditional religious values and new-fangled ideas about gender. However, gender radicals exist within traditional religion. In this session, I tell my own story about how discovering the six genders beyond male and female in ancient Jewish holy books inspired me to become the first openly transgender rabbi. I also share two thousand year old Jewish texts that imagine the first human being (Adam) as an androgynous and God as infinitely gendered. In this moment of anti-trans backlash, this session shows that we have always existed. It empowers audiences to claim the diversity of the past to build a vibrant future.

The Spirituality of Disability Access

When we turn to the topic of disability access for our organizations or communities we tend to get stuck in the details. We worry about things like wheelchair ramps and ADA toilets. All these things are important but they are leaves on the tree on the access: relationship is the roots. You can take care of all those details and still not meet the needs of the people who actually want to access your community. In this session we will explore the thinking of contemporary disability justice activists like Mia Mingus, Alice Wong and Leah Lakshmi Pipzena-Samarasinha. We also offer tools for thinking about how access intersects with your community's existing practices and values. This session helps audiences understand that access is not a checklist. Access is about connection. Access is love.

Laziness as a Spiritual Practice

Workplace burn-out is at an all-time high. 42% of workers in 2023 reported burn-out, which marks a new record. We are exhausted and need to do less. And yet so many of us feel guilty whenever we try to rest Why is this? In this session, we will explore rest as a liberatory spiritual practice that can help us heal as individuals, strengthen loving relationships, and create a more sustainable future. We will begin by discussing the racist and exploitative origins of the stigma surrounding the term "lazy". Next we will explore sources on rest from a variety of ancient and modern spiritual sources including the Torah on the sabbath, the Nap Bishop, and Chinese practitioners Tang Ping. Finally, we will begin to uncover how to integrate rest into our own lives and through concrete spiritual practices that can be used individually and within your organization. This session is based on my New York Times essay "The Most Valuable Thing I Can Teach My Kid is How to Be Lazy".

Wild Grief: Honoring Disenfranchised Losses

The term "disenfranchised grief" refers to losses that are not widely socially recognized as legitimate sources of grief and are rarely marked by funerals or memorial services. Disenfranchised losses include the losses that go along with mental or physical illness, accompanying elders with dementia, deepening disability, heartbreak, divorce, estrangement, pet loss, the death of an abuser or an ex, abortion, miscarriage, moving, immigration, aging, the loss of a queer relationship and many other stigmatized losses.

Over the past years, since 2020, the world has changed rapidly due to many intersecting crises. Political upheaval, climate disruptions, and pandemic have all led to losses of people, places and things. Disenfranchised loss can lead to feelings of hopelessness, confusion, and despair, as well as addiction and mental health challenges. In this session, we will learn how to name disenfranchised losses, identify how they impact us at work and at home, and begin to understand how to free "wild grief" through ritual, story-telling, and self-reflection. I have offered bereavement spiritual care for the past 20 years. In 2021, I founded and direct the Communal Loss Adaptation Project which tends to the disenfranchised losses of a changing planet.