Ikar Los Angeles

To thine own self be true: Sharon Brous has let this advice illuminate her path to becoming a rabbi. She was raised with a strong social, but not religious, Jewish identity. The more she studied and admired the humanity in the sages’ writings, the more Brous felt her voice was silenced simply because she is a woman. Today, as an ordained rabbi, Brous’s decades of hands-on pastoral care in Los Angeles has cleared “a path to become myself.” Her book, The Amen Effect—and how to get it—is embraced by seekers of every stripe and urges us to seek human connection in an increasingly isolated and divided world.