Hebrew College – To foster spiritual formation among future rabbis through the creation of a series of professional development workshops, student and faculty retreats, and a new introductory course.

What was the impetus for this project?

In a time of extraordinary change, we need rabbis who can serve with compassion and humility and draw on the timeless wisdom of Jewish tradition to help address contemporary challenges. For rabbis to do so, their inner lives must be intertwined with and sustained by the teachings, practices, and resources of Jewish tradition. This spiritual formation is essential, challenging, and all too rare in rabbinic education. This project comes from our awareness that our distinctive focus on spiritual formation in rabbinic education continues to be compelling and timely and needs to be made even more central to our work.

Why is it essential that rabbinical students consider how their own spiritual growth can impact their professional lives?

The foundation of rabbinic leadership is a deep and enduring relationship with God and Jewish tradition that nourishes an equally deep love and commitment to the Jewish people and serving a better world. Only if rabbinical students cultivate their own inner lives will they have the spiritual resources required to do the essential rabbinic work of caring for the individuals and communities they serve and helping them find their path in Jewish living and building communities. This means delving into their own relationship to God and to questions of faith, making Jewish tradition an essential and enlivening part of their souls.

What issues facing the Jewish community keep you up at night?

Jewish tradition challenges us to cultivate our capacity to hold the most important human[YK2] —to balance the individual and community, universal and particular, continuity and change, to name a few—and to do so with rigor and compassion. We are living in a time of increasing polarization, when the wisdom of Jewish tradition is needed more than ever—and yet it is ever harder to hear and to hold amidst the fraying of lived community, and the flattening of human beings as reflections of the divine image. This project will help rabbis internalize this wisdom and serve a world in need.

Learn more at hebrewcollege.edu/graduate-leadership-programs/become-a-rabbi/.