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Future Rabbis Share Professional Challenges at Second Student Chevra

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, Communications Director

The professional joys and challenges rabbis share as community and spiritual leaders is often as important as the denominational differences among them.

This often overlooked opportunity for cooperation was the theme of the academic year's second CLAL Student Chevra, held February 13th at the Manhattan home of CLAL board member Barnet Liberman and his wife, Phyllis. Thirty-five rabbinical and Judaic studies students, representing the range of Jewish denominations, took part in the program, "The Personal Jew and the Professional Jew: Negotiating Your Two Selves"

The program encouraged rabbis-to-be to talk with one another in small groups about the challenges they face when personal feelings and professional roles come into conflict. The participants also discussed texts focussing on figures from the inherited tradition-including Moses, Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya and his contemporary Rabbi Akiva's wife, Beruriah-whose leadership roles and personal convictions force the public self and the private self into battle.

Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform and post-denominational students spoke passionately and personally about their own struggles, including attending and/or officiating at interfaith weddings of family members and friends.

The Chevra was a rare opportunity for Jewish leaders of all stripes to share their struggles and their successes, and to see each other as resources, colleagues and friends.

"Pluralism is understanding that your colleague base is broader than you think it is," said Rabbi Jennifer Krause, a CLAL Fellow and co-director, with Dr. David Kraemer, of the CLAL Rabbinic Internship Program. "The students learned that they can draw on the experiences of colleagues from other movements to strengthen their own professional lives within their own distinct communities."

Professional cooperation was also modeled in the planning for the event, which was coordinated by the nine rabbinical students taking part in the Wednesday track of the CLAL Rabbinic Internship Program. The Internship Program, which this year includes both the Wednesday group and a Monday group of eight students, is North America's only regular setting for inter-denominational study and dialogue among senior rabbinic students. The interns plan three Chevra events each academic year, putting into practice the lessons in pluralism and creativity they learn in weekly sessions with CLAL faculty.

Participants in the February Chevra included students from the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), the Academy for Jewish Religion (multi-denominational), Yeshiva University (Orthodox), the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (Reconstructionist), as well as full-time students from New York's Drisha Institute.

The Student Chevra was made possible with the generous support of The Joseph Alexander Foundation. The final Student Chevra of the academic year is scheduled for April 9, 2000.