Never date a fellow rabbi — that’s what both Sarah Smiley and Josh Leighton thought when they met while at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. It didn’t quite work out that way.
Now married with a 2-year-old daughter, Eliana, the two rabbis both work at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah. They’re the only married rabbi couple to both work at the same congregation in the Kansas City area.
Rabbi Smiley has been a traditional congregational rabbi at B’nai Jehudah for the past year. Rabbi Leighton just came onboard in July to work on outreach and engagement for the congregation.
“So far, I feel like we’ve bounced ideas off of each other, but we haven’t really worked on projects together,” Rabbi Smiley said.
It’s not an unusual thing to happen generally in the Jewish community — Rabbi Smiley and Rabbi Leighton said they know several other similar couples, but it seems to be a rarity in Kansas City. Rabbi Leighton has previously taught at congregations where Smiley was the rabbi.
The couple didn’t plan to work together here, but it just happened that the position at B’nai Jehudah opened up, and Rabbi Leighton was looking for something along the same lines.
“We had no intention of ever working together, but this works out, because we are doing very different things,” Rabbi Leighton said.
Because the congregation’s building is still under construction, they don’t spend as much time in the same building right now as they will eventually. Sometimes they have lunch together at Rabbi Smiley’s desk.
One thing that was important to them both is that while they’re happy to collaborate on programs and projects, they don’t want to be in a situation where one is directly supervising the other. With their positions, Rabbi Smiley is the one who could have found herself in that supervisory role.
They met when Rabbi Smiley was in her third year at HUC, and Rabbi Leighton was in his second. The funny part is that even though they hadn’t met, Rabbi Leighton knew Rabbi Smiley — sort of.
When he traveled to Israel to live for his first year of rabbinical school, Rabbi Smiley had just left. Rabbi Leighton’s roommate knew Rabbi Smiley and had all the things she had left behind in Israel — a printer, modem and cell phone.
“For the first few months in Israel, I would call him, and his voicemail would pick up, and it was like, ‘Hi. This is Sarah Smiley,’ ” Rabbi Leighton said.
Rabbi Smiley and Rabbi Leighton could have met numerous times — during a summer in Israel and at two different NFTY national conventions, but it didn’t happen.
When they did finally meet, “We talked about how we would never date another HUC student, and then it happened. Months later, we were both like, ‘Oops,’ ” Rabbi Smiley said.
They married in 2011 when Rabbi Smiley was working for the Ohio State University Hillel in her hometown of Columbus, and Rabbi Leighton had just been ordained. Ten days later, the two moved to New Jersey, where Rabbi Smiley became a rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Westfield.
Despite their initial reluctance, it can come in handy to have another rabbi in the house.
“I always have a sermon editor,” Rabbi Smiley said.
It can be tougher when looking for jobs. When they lived in New Jersey, Rabbi Smiley had a full-time job with one congregation, and Rabbi Leighton took a part-time job at one congregation and had a few other part-time gigs.
Their first year in Kansas City, Rabbi Leighton did some teaching and took care of their daughter.
“The openness and welcoming of the Jewish community here in general and the B’nai Jehudah community in particular has really made transitioning to life here and then transitioning to this job easy-ish,” Rabbi Leighton said.
Rabbi Smiley said she’s appreciated that because they’re working with the same congregation, Rabbi Leighton knows the people she mentions when they talk about their work. The shared experiences also help them figure out which congregants might be perfect for certain activities or programs.
“One of the things I was thinking about before the first time Josh came to a staff meeting was, ‘Is this going to be any different because we happen to be married, and no one else around the table happens to be married?’ No. It’s been a non-issue,” Rabbi Smiley said. “I almost feel like our work interactions have been no different than if a different person would have come into the role.”