OUR RABBIS
Meet Our Rabbis
The backbone of Moriah’s strong and vibrant community
Rachel Kohl Finegold
Rabba
Rabba Rachel (“Ra-khel”) Kohl Finegold has served as the rabbinic leader of Moriah since the fall of 2023, bringing energy and creativity to her teaching and her leadership. She strives to offer a Judaism that is intellectually rigorous while also joyful and personally fulfilling. She brings Torah that is deeply rooted in traditional texts and also embraces the modern world.
Rabba Finegold previously served as the Associate Rabba at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal for ten years, as the first Orthodox woman to serve as synagogue clergy in Canada. Prior to that, she served as a member of the clergy at Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in Chicago for six years. In both congregations, Rabba Finegold was the driving force behind many new initiatives to engage young families in synagogue life, and spearheaded new offerings for young professionals in their 20s and 30s. Rabba Finegold holds a BA in religion from Boston University, completed the Scholars Circle at the Drisha Institute in New York, and was ordained as part of the inaugural class of Yeshivat Maharat. Rabba Finegold served as the president of the Montreal Board of Rabbis and a vice president of the International Rabbinic Fellowship. She participated in the second cohort of the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI) Fellowship, a program to train rabbis to become change agents in the communities that they serve. Her first educational love is Jewish camp; she has served on the rabbinic staff of Camp Yavneh, and has been a participant and staff for M² - the Institute for Experiential Jewish Education.
A New York native, Rabba Finegold lives in Deerfield with her husband, Rabbi Avi Finegold, and their three daughters.
Sam Fraint Z”L
RABBI EMERITUS
Rabbi Sam Fraint succeeded Rabbi Samuel Dresner as Moriah Congregation’s second full time rabbi, serving the community from 1987 until his retirement in 2015During his tenure, Rabbi Fraint transformed Moriah from a modest Conservative synagogue to robust community deeply devoted to Jewish education, religious observance, and the State of Israel.
Born in Brooklyn at the height of the Baby Boom, Rabbi Fraint was raised as an identified though secular American Jew. He first connected with Conservative Judaism in high school through membership in United Synagogue Youth and traveled to Israel for the first time on a USY Pilgrimage trip. His lifelong involvement in Ramah began by chance: he was initially hired as a waiter at Ramah in the Berkshires and was subsequently promoted to a counselor when a bunk staff member failed to show up for the summer. Rabbi Fraint learned how to live as a Jew at Ramah and his experiences at camp influenced every career and personal decision he made thereafter, including his decision to join the rabbinate.
Rabbi Fraint graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 with a degree in English. After short stints in law school and a PhD program in Semitic philology, he enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. At JTS he mastered Hebrew language, halacha (Jewish law), religious practice, and pastoral care. He was awarded the Gordon Prize for outstanding first year rabbinical student and, upon graduation, he received multiple honors including the Cyrus Adler Award for outstanding graduating rabbi, the Talmud Prize, and the Homiletics Prize. Rabbi Fraint’s first pulpit was in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, and in 1983 he moved to Highland Park, Illinois, to serve at the assistant rabbi at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El for what was intended to be a three year sojourn to the Midwest. When he began at Moriah, the membership consisted of 70 dedicated families which grew to 400 families over the next three decades. He encouraged members to send hundreds of children to Jewish day school, Jewish camps, and religious school. Rabbi Fraint’s approach to Jewish observance was academic yet traditional, and he was proud that Moriah members could fluently participate in Jewish prayer anywhere in the world. He spent three sabbatical years in Israel with his family. Rabbi Fraint wrote hundreds of sermons, eulogies, wedding speeches, and charges to bar/bat mitzvahs with an uncanny ability to capture the fullness and complexities of life with sensitivity and eloquence.