ACRE Blog

An interesting piece from The Alban Weekly about continuing education. Let us know what you think - leave your comments!

It used to be that rabbis learned torah. That's what they did. Then someone would interrupt him (remember, they used to be only men) and ask a question about whether their chicken was kosher, or what brochah to make on the new sewing machine. He would answer, and go back to learning. That's the Fiddler on the Roof picture, but it doesn't quite work out that way today. In the American context rabbis are called on to be pastoral clergy, organizational CEOs, charismatic sermonizers, and many more roles which keep them more than busy: often on the way to burnout. This situation has brought a growing awareness that since the rabbinate has become an institutionalized profession as well as a spiritual vocation, there needs to be built in institutionalized spaces, times and resources for rabbis to renew themselves, revive the spiritual and intellectual excitement that got them into the rabbinate in the first place. But this newly emerging awareness goes up against two prevailing and mutually contradictory misconceptions: First, that the old picture somehow still applies. "Of course the rabbi still learns torah. That's what rabbis do. When? It's not clear, but I'm sure she is finding the time." The other, contradictory assumption is that as a degreed, certified professional, the rabbi is a "finished product" and doesn't need to be supported in learning more. That's what seminary is for! In a sense, the rabbinate finds itself betwixt and between: having moved beyond the traditional, more informal world of the pre-modern rabbinate but not yet quite mature as a profession like law or medicine, it suffers from on both accounts. As is always the case with evolution, change comes not by trying to create something new, but by adjusting the old needs to new circumstances. We still need rabbis who learn and grow, and care for their spiritual vocation, but we now need to institutionalize these goals along the lines of modern professions. These are not necessarily easy waters to navigate. There will need to be research, a variety of different angles and perspectives, trials and errors. How does one professionalize without losing the sense of vocation? Where are the places that the seminaries are doing a good job of preparing rabbis for the field and where are there gaps to be filled? What can we learn from other clergy in the U.S., especially Christian clergy who have a head start on many of these question? The emerging field of Continuing Rabbinic Education is essentially attempting to create a new vision of the rabbinate. It is one in which the rabbi is not a "finished product" but a constantly growing "life long learner." It is one in which the traditional ideal of the rabbi as one who exemplifies a life of torah, in continually learning and practicing torah, is merged with the demands of the rabbi as modern professional.

posted by Steve Kraus, on behalf of Natan Margalit - Executive Director of Oraita  

In 1990, I visited my friend Rebecca at MIT. As we walked the halls, she described a form of computer communications which she and her friends used to share homework or to set times to meet for pizza. Puzzled, I wondered why they didn't just walk down the hall and knock? Two years passed and Rebecca, still at MIT, spent an evening showing me around her computer account. Loading a rudimentary program, she asked me to envision a newspaper that could focus stories about subjects I was particularly interested in, such as Israel. I simply could not see the value.

Nothing in our tradition speaks against technology. On the contrary, some innovations, such as the printing press and movable type, have played important roles in enabling more Jews to own and access the wisdom of our teachers. In many ways, these most recent innovations have a very familiar feel. The listservs that are favored by many in the rabbinic community resemble the letter writing that previous generations used to seek rabbinic counsel. And the hyper-linking of the web resembles nothing so much as a page of Talmud, which (while lacking the speed of point and click) uses key words and phrases to direct us to other relevant texts. The web is filled with treasures of Jewish knowledge, and the miracles of modern databases have been a blessing to all of us who search through rabbinic and scholarly materials.