Meet Tova Leibovic-Douglas | rabbi, ritualist, spiritual coach, energy practitioner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tova Leibovic-Douglas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tova, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I started The Ritual House because I wanted to create a business that focused on helping individuals, groups and organizations find practical inspiration for integrating rituals into their everyday lives. The more people and groups engage with rituals as themselves fully, the better our world will be and starting this business was the first step towards actualizing the values that are core to my vision for the world. As a rabbi, ritualist, spiritual counselor+coach, and reiki/energy practitioner, I felt called to create a business that could house the multiple skills and passions that are part of me. In truth, creating The Ritual House has allowed me to become a more spiritually integrated leader and bring all of the modalities that have helped transform my pain. The rooms that inform the business are Jewish wisdom, earthbound energy, and finding the sacred in the everyday. I work to ensure that I am honest with myself and the people I get to work with and remind us that we are all works-in-progress/process and are imperfect, which is our strength. I am grateful to be able to create spaces and multiple pathways for folks to engage with themselves in courageous ways and to help take part in the ritual revolution.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have always been an individual with conviction and clarity surrounding my value system, and I am a deep feeler. These attributes are both a blessing and a curse, making me an empathetic leader and experiencing a more complex path. It has not been easy for me to get to where I am. In rabbinical school, I felt like an insider on the outside or an outsider on the inside. I had more questions than answers and found confronting the patriarchal nature of our tradition and how we studied it to be painful for my soul. I was a female-identifying woman studying these ancient profound (sometimes problematic) texts that could never see me and as I learned them, I was pregnant and becoming a mother. After having my second child, I got physically, emotionally, and spiritually sick. In this painful moment, I began my intentional healing journey and experienced whatever modality was available in Los Angeles. By day, I studied Jewish wisdom texts. By night, I went crystal bathing, ancestral trauma clearing, becoming reiki certified, attending silent meditation retreats, sound bathing, learning astrology, and so on. It was through the combination of the western, eastern, and anything in between that I began to transform my pain into some form of healing, and I soon recognized that Judaism’s ancient mystic and Divine feminine earth-bound energy was also my birthright. I could integrate all of these elements. I learned (painfully!) that working within established institutions is not an option unless I could be my whole self, including bringing in my rebellious spirit. I believe that it is this journey that sets me apart as a rabbi. I find that the more honest I am, the more I see the companies, groups, and people who identify with my message, and I have learned to be okay with those who don’t. People pleasing is not an easy thing to release! The Ritual House aims to help people insert themselves into the ancient modality of rituals and to help them create new ones. I think I lead differently by being a vulnerable human, mother and work-in-progress. When I facilitate, I give individuals options and as a bridge builder, this feels like the only way. The Ritual House continues to grow the more authentic I am and the more I invite individuals to be themselves within the ritual. In other words, ensuring that I am reading the room and making the ritual as accessible as possible is the priority over the ceremony itself. The people in the room make the ritual, which makes facilitation a creative process.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It is hard to answer this question as a native Angeleno because I love it all! The first thing I would do is make sure that they see the vast landscape and rich diversity of this incredible city. I love doing this by driving Sunset Boulevard from the west side to the east side. We would for sure drive up the PCH as well and make sure to put our toes in the Pacific and in the sand. Some favorite spots I would make sure to take them to would be an art museum- either LACMA, The Getty, Hammer or MOCA. A hike would likely happen at Ferndelle trail to the Griffith Observatory to take in the view. Finally, I would make sure that we ate well and would bring them to some favorite spots that have decent Gluten Free options with LA vibes: Rose Cafe, Botanica, Sugar Fish, Gracias Madre, Felix, Mizlala and if you interviewed me ten years ago there would be live music in there too but I now go to bed at 8:30pm.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Many folks have informed who I am and why I am a spiritual leader. The first group is my family, including my ancestors. My parents come from two distinct worlds. My mom was raised Southern Methodist and we have ministers in our family history. My dad was raised ultra-orthodox by my grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors and had many rabbis in our family. My mom converted to Judaism, and we were raised in a joyful, liberal Jewish community. Having multiple faith worlds to explore informed who I am as an individual, which is to say that I knew from a young age that we are more similar and connected than we think. The second individual is my tweenhood babysitter and now dear friend, Henri Hebert of Inspiring You, who introduced me to Reiki and the spiritual world outside organized religion. She is a reiki master, dowser, and healer. The third is Rabbi Mark Borovitz, who founded Beit T’shuvah and is someone I am grateful for as he taught me that finding ourselves – all of us within the text is an essential way to learn and teach. Finally, I am most grateful to my husband, my constant supporter, and our two tiny humans, my greatest teachers. The book that changed the way I viewed my life’s work is The Wounded Healer by Henri J.M. Nouwen.

Website: https://www.theritual.house/

Instagram: @rabbi_tova

Facebook: @rabbitova

Other: rabbitova.substack.com

Image Credits
Tori Lynn Leibovic Jenna Freeman