Our Clergy

Visionary Synagogue Leadership

Under Rabbi Lerner’s leadership, Temple Emunah has experienced an extraordinary period of vitality and renewal. He has expanded prayer offerings — strengthening Shabbat, introducing meditation and yoga, launching Carlebach services, Shabbatonim, learner’s minyanim, trips to Israel and other destinations, and creative educational initiatives for all ages, while securing the synagogue’s financial future.

He has helped the community deepen its learning culture through classes on Psalms, liturgy, biblical literature, and Jewish thought, along with parent–child learning, breakfast and lunchtime sessions, and innovative family programs. His hands-on work with young families has strengthened our Tot Shabbat program and revitalized the Billy Dalwin Preschool at Temple Emunah.

A hallmark of his tenure has been community-building and hospitality. Rabbi Lerner is currently leading Temple Emunah’s long-range visioning process, which includes renovating the campus to create warm gathering spaces — including a coffee shop and lounge — to nurture connection and belonging. He has also helped sustain the community’s financial vitality through capital campaigns for the synagogue and Preschool.

Rabbi Lerner has been a pioneer in inclusivity at Emunah, performing the congregation’s first same-gender aufruf and wedding, strengthening LGBTQ+ belonging, and crafting new rituals that speak to contemporary Jewish life—including the Conservative Movement’s first dedication ceremony for interfaith couples.

Democracy, Social Justice, & Civic Leadership

Deeply committed to Jewish moral responsibility in the public square, Rabbi Lerner works across faiths to strengthen American democracy and protect fundamental rights. He is the co-founder of PrayersForLiberty.org, a Boston-area interfaith initiative promoting civic values such as the rule of law, due process, and voting rights. More than 300 clergy have engaged with the group’s programs, including its widely-covered “Reverse Paul Revere Walks” from the Lexington Battle Green to the Boston Common. He has also championed protecting immigrant rights from ICE in the DeICE Citizens Bank campaign.

Within the Masorti/Conservative Movement, Rabbi Lerner serves as co-chair of the Strengthening Democracy Committee of the Social Justice Commission and chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Committee. He is the creator of ClergyAgainstBullets.org and an advocate with Faiths United Against Gun Violence.

Locally, he is currently the longest-serving clergy member in Lexington. He has twice served as president of the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association and was its treasurer for 15 years. He currently sits on the town’s Ad Hoc Crematorium Study Committee, works with the Human Rights Committee and public schools to address rising antisemitism, and helped establish Lexington United Against Antisemitism (LUAA), where he chairs the clergy advisory board and serves on the steering committee.

For his public leadership in recent years, Rabbi Lerner has been recognized with several significant honors:

• The Abraham Joshua Heschel Award from the New England Jewish Labor Committee for his work “fighting for workers’ rights and dignity” (2016)

• The Gann Connect Award for his efforts to strengthen and promote Gann Academy within the Jewish community (2018)

• The Synagogue Council’s Leadership Award as one of the “heroes who keep the candles lit” during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021)

• Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa from the Jewish Theological Seminary (2026)

Interfaith Engagement & Global Jewish Connections

Interfaith work has been a defining thread of Rabbi Lerner’s career. He organized a rabbinic delegation to Germany with the German Consul General, and for the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) he led two interfaith clergy missions to Israel, bringing 40 ministers and priests to deepen understanding and strengthen relationships. He has served on the JCRC Council and its membership committee for the last decade.

Rabbi Lerner has traveled to Israel many times, lived there for several years, and led more than a dozen congregational journeys to Israel and Jewish sites worldwide — including Jordan, the UAE, Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. Over the past 18 years, he has brought over 600 participants on Israel experiences designed to foster deep engagement with the Jewish state. He is currently developing a Civil Rights trip for 2027 an Jewish Argentina Journey for 2028 and multigenerational Shabbatonim at Camp Ramah New England. 

Since October 7th, he has been a leading communicator of Israeli stories and realities, organizing a solidarity mission of 22 congregants and returning repeatedly to communities in the Gaza Envelope to volunteer and bear witness. He remains an outspoken Zionist committed to democracy, dignity, and justice for all people, modeling a compassionate, courageous, and nuanced engagement with Israel’s challenges.

Innovation in Ritual, Outreach, and Community Care

Rabbi Lerner has been a national voice in areas of Jewish belonging, interfaith family engagement, and community care. He chaired the Rabbinical Assembly’s Commission on Keruv, Conversion & Jewish Peoplehood, authoring the Movement’s first ritual for interfaith couples. He served as President of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis and President of the New England Rabbinical Assembly and served on the Rabbinic Assembly’s Executive Committee. 

Together with lay leaders, Rabbi Lerner co-founded the Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston, a volunteer society dedicated to sacred end-of-life rituals. He also created the first Masorti/Conservative synagogue kosher-certification partnership with an Orthodox supervisory agency, and Temple Emunah provides supervision to a number of local businesses.

Spirituality, Scholarship, & Teaching

A lifelong learner, Rabbi Lerner completed the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Rabbinic Training Program, participates in alumni institutes, and continues his study with the Hartman Institute and Hadar. He and Barbara Neustadt co-founded Emunah HaLev: The Meditation Institute of Temple Emunah, and together they are developing a Jewish book of weekly meditations with commentaries rooted in classical sources.

During sabbaticals, he has served as Scholar-in-Residence at Brandeis University, researching liturgy and intersections between Judaism and Eastern spiritual traditions, and served as a Visiting Instructor at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School.

His writing appears in Conservative Judaism, Times of Israel (regular drashot blog), JewishBoston, the New York Jewish Week, the Boston Jewish Advocate, the Chicago Jewish News, and other publications. 

Rabbi Lerner has contributed chapters to several edited volumes — writing on intermarriage and keruv (welcoming), synagogue renewal, spiritual innovation, Israel engagement, and Jewish peoplehood. His broader published work explores gun-violence prevention, moral responsibility, democracy, civil rights, Jewish ethics, and the spiritual life of prayer and meditation. Books include:

• Conservative Judaism, Volume XLVII, Number 1, Fall 1994

• Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Life & Thought, Issue No. 215/216,
  Volume 54, Numbers 3-4, Summer/Fall 2005

• Remember And Do Not Forget: Rabbinic Testimonies of January 6, 2021: A Horrific Day In American History

• Holding Fast: Jews Respond to American Gun Violence

• Not By Might: Channeling the Power of Faith to End Gun Violence

• Keeping Faith in Rabbis: A Community Conversation on Rabbinical Education

• The Rabbinical Assembly Proceedings 2001, Volume LXIII

• Torah Without End: Neo-Hasidic Teachings and Practices in Honor of Rabbi Jonathan Slater

Early Career

Before coming to Emunah, Rabbi Lerner served for five years as Associate Rabbi at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park, IL, where he also served as president of both the Southeast Lake County Clergy Association and the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis, and was selected as a STAR Rabbinic Fellow. He led multiple United Synagogue Youth trips to Poland and Israel and started and ran a kosher deli during his college years. He also helped re-found Alpha Epsilon Pi at Columbia and served as president of the Columbia Jewish Student Union (Hillel). As a Dorot Fellow in Israel, he studied at Hebrew University and the Pardes Institute for Jewish Learning, worked for the Masorti Movement, and even coached Israeli Little League, helping bring baseball to the Holy Land.

Personal

Rabbi Lerner is married to Sharon Levin, a psychotherapist in private practice. They are the proud parents of Talya, Ari, and Matan. An avid athlete, he enjoys softball, cycling, basketball, and yoga. He ran the 2015 Boston Marathon with a Temple Emunah team and brought 22 cyclists with him on the 2016 Hazon Israel Ride. For years, he organized Running with the Rabbi on Shabbat mornings, Monday morning Rides with the Rabbi, and Shabbat afternoon basketball.