Weddings

“As a queer, secular Jew marrying a non-Jewish atheist, I never imagined I would have a Jewish wedding, especially not in the middle of a pandemic. But Heather helped us design a ceremony imbued with layers of personal and cultural meaning that worked for us both. She went above and beyond in accommodating us and our family members, including remote attendees via Zoom, and arranging everything on short notice with such generosity and grace. I cannot recommend her more highly as a rabbi, officiant, and guide.”

– Beatrice A.

When choosing a rabbi to officiate our wedding ceremony, we knew that we wanted ritual that was unique and personal to us. Rabbi Heather Paul was able to take our vision and make it into so much more, demonstrating deep care to ensure that our ceremony was one filled with creativity, beauty, and profound significance. We could not be happier with the ceremony that Rabbi Heather Paul led, our loved ones are still talking about it! 
– Trudy and Marlee G

Memorials

“I was worried going into a Zoom memorial service that I was in the wrong mood for it and wouldn’t be able to properly grieve. Without being forced to go through a getting-ready process, I hadn’t been able to unwind or mentally prepare for this event. The moment I logged on, I heard Heather’s voice in the perfect tone, with perfect background music. I was transported. She had somehow created this space that had transformed my study into a place of grieving. I was with my community and they were there with me. Every time Heather’s voice floated through my screen, I was reminded of the love we all had for the woman who had passed. With such care, Heather guided all of us through a service that honored her just as well as any in-person service could have.”
– Virtual Memorial Service Participant

I met Heather my sophomore year at Stanford through her amazing work with Hillel and Camp Kesem, both of which quickly become sanctuaries for me as a Jewish cancer survivor struggling with a rigorous courseload of mathematics and computer science. During fall quarter of my junior year, though, that courseload proved too much for me to handle as one of my fraternity brothers was struck with encephalitis from a tick bite he received while hiking during the summer, and the tragedy of his resulting coma and eventual passing cast a dark cloud over my fraternity brothers.

Heather turned out to be much more than a shoulder to cry on during this all; she quickly became a bedrock not just for me but for the entire fraternity and even his family. See, my fraternity brother’s brain damage and resulting coma had struck me twice, first as loss, a loss all the more painful with the specter of possible recovery that never came to pass, and second as survivor’s guilt, for I had recovered swimmingly from my own brain damage in the form of brain cancer just before my freshman year. Heather counseled me through my grief every step of the way, to the point where I became comfortable enough to invite some of my fraternity brothers in for group sessions with her. Out of these sessions came the idea to fold 1000 paper cranes as a fraternity to send to him, as my high school had done for me when I was diagnosed with cancer. As I taught my brothers to fold paper cranes, the process proved quite cathartic for us, allowing us to pour our love and grief into craft. Those cranes meant the world to his parents, and none of it would have been possible without Heather.

When he eventually passed, though, the grief came roaring back, a thousand times stronger. Again, Heather helped me channel all my thoughts and feelings into something positive, this time in the form of poetry. And so it was that I wrote the eulogy that was spoken at his funeral, which Heather officiated: 4 stanzas of six lines each. I always had an affinity for math and science, but thanks to Heather, that poem, and the voice inside me they awakened, I now have a creative writing minor too. It’s staggering to imagine the far-reaching impact that one amazing individual like Heather can have on the world.

– Alex, Stanford University, Class of 2014