The New York Times called him "a virtuoso of an exuberant actor." Alternative-rock musician Perry Farrell invited him to perform on stage with the band Jane's Addiction.
He was dreadlocked for more than 10 years before turning to a more "conventional" life as a father, husband of a medical student and rabbinical student at RRC.
And, by the way, Darby Jared Leigh is profoundly deaf. In fact, he is one of only a handful of deaf men and women ever ordained as rabbis by any of the major rabbinical seminaries in the US.
Leigh is a native New Yorker and fire-juggling Generation Xer who toured as a leading actor with the Tony award-winning National Theater of the Deaf. Both The New York Times and Variety reviewed favorably his 1997 NTD performance as the lead in Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt.
In 2001, he provided consulting services for the Oscar-nominated documentary Sound and Fury and for Hands ON, an organization that provides sign-language interpreting for Broadway and off Broadway productions.
Leigh has taught on issues related to deafness for such organizations as the New York City Fire Department, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities.
He also is an accomplished athlete. Leigh was asked to compete for the US Deaf Olympic snowboarding team.
Leigh's route to the rabbinate may have been circuitous, but he is grateful to RRC for helping him accomplish his ambition. "After I began to study Jewish ethics, I knew I wanted to become a rabbi. I wanted to sing and dance and pray, to engage people in this search for truth. But I pushed the thought away. A deaf rabbi? The RRC faculty has been incredible in their willingness to experiment. As a result of my experience, we've actually improved the study tools available for all students."
Leigh graduated in 2008 and became assistant rabbi at Bnai Keshet, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Montclair, NJ, working with another RRC alum, Rabbi Elliott Tepperman, '02.
Before entering RRC, Leigh received his B.A. in religion, summa cum laude, from the University of Rochester and an M.A. in religion from Columbia University.
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