“I think Dan is going to be a rabbi.”

It was 20 years ago, the night of the second Seder during my first year of college, and I decided to come home at the last minute to be with my family. That night was different from all other nights because for the first time, I took the head of the table to lead us through the Haggadah. After dinner, as my parents were doing the dishes, I heard my mom say those words that changed my life.

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To my dad, and not to me. I thank God every day that I just happened to overhear them.

The thing is, mom wasn’t responding to anything I had said about my future. She was responding to something she had just watched me do, and to a pattern she had been watching unfold for years. So many of the things I loved to do — public speaking, teaching, learning — could be done as a rabbi. My mom connected the dots before I did.

The question facing the Jewish community today is: Who else is connecting those dots?

Atra’s landmark study “From Calling to Career: Mapping the Current State and Future of Rabbinic Leadership” has given us the data to understand the rabbinic pipeline crisis. Of approximately 4,100 rabbis serving across the United States, only six percent are under age 35. Retirements will soon outpace ordinations. And hundreds who seriously considered the rabbinate ultimately walked away — not for lack of motivation, but because the path was too costly, too long and too disruptive. Still, the study’s core thesis is hopeful: the problem is structural and therefore solvable.

But I want to press on a question that comes before people ever encounter the structural barriers. Before anyone weighs tuition costs or program length, they must first imagine the rabbinate as a possibility. That earlier stage — what we might call the “funnel” — needs more attention. How do we identify the people we want to encourage to consider the rabbinate in the first place?

For my doctoral research at Hebrew Union College, I conducted parallel studies of recent HUC rabbinic alumni and several of the most prolific rabbinic mentors in the Reform movement — rabbis who had each guided between five and 25 future colleagues to follow in their footsteps. I asked the recent alumni to narrate their journeys to the rabbinate, and I asked the mentors how they guided others to become their colleagues.

One of my study’s central findings was the identification of six distinct “rabbinic personae,” patterns of behavior and dispositions that manifest in future rabbis either before or alongside their discovery of their career aspirations. These are not self-reported motivations. They are observable, characterological traits — things people do, not things they say. And, most importantly, they are not confined to Jewish life. They are:

The Performer: the theater kid, the musician, the high school news anchor, the b’nai mitzvah student who lights up on the bimah.

The Teacher: the teenager who tutors elementary schoolers, the kid who returns to teach religious school.

The Scholar: the college student who falls in love with their first Jewish studies course, the star student in religious school.

The Activist: the kid who’s always knocking on doors for candidates, the teenager who goes to every rally.

The Pastor: the friend everyone goes to for advice, the hospital volunteers, the kid who shows up at shiva.

The Community Builder: the board game night organizer, the book club leader, the Shabbat dinner host.

These personae are not mutually exclusive (most future rabbis exhibit several of them); and though my research focused on Reform rabbis, I suspect they cross movement lines. Taken together, they represent the raw materials of rabbinic character. What makes them so valuable is that they are visible to anyone paying attention: parents, camp counselors, youth group advisors, Hillel professionals and, of course, rabbis.

Understanding the kinds of people who become rabbis matters for how we respond to the Atra data. If we focus too much on lowering structural barriers — tuition reduction, remote learning options, shorter programs — we may make it easier for those who have already decided to become rabbis to enter the field. But we’ll miss the upstream opportunity to widen our funnel by helping people discover that the rabbinate is for them in the first place. 

The middle schooler who stars in the school musical doesn’t know that they’re a “performer” who could star on the bimah. The college senior who hosts Shabbat dinner weekly in her dorm doesn’t know she’s a “community builder” with rabbinic potential. The friend who always shows up with chicken soup doesn’t know he’s a “pastor” in the making. Without intentional intervention, many of these individuals may never consider the rabbinate at all.

So what would it look like to invest in the funnel? It would mean equipping those who are already shaping Jewish lives — educators, rabbis, youth professionals, campus staff — to recognize and name rabbinic potential when they see it. It would mean creating cultures in our communities where suggesting the rabbinate is normal, even expected. And it would mean creating the leadership opportunities that allow future rabbis to try on the role before they have the language to describe what they’re doing. 

This isn’t wishful thinking — Atra’s own data shows that nearly 40% of rabbis and rabbinical students say a Jewish leader’s explicit encouragement strongly influenced their decision to enter the field. The encouragement works. We just need more of it.

I was lucky: My mom looked at me and saw the rabbi within. But I was just as lucky that I happened to be listening when she shared her prophecy with my dad. Given the urgency of this moment, the Jewish community can’t afford to be lucky. To prevent the rabbinic pipeline from drying up, we have a communal imperative to be on the lookout for the rabbis hiding in plain sight. Because the next generation of rabbis is already out there — performing, teaching, learning, campaigning, comforting and convening. They just need to hear someone say, “I think you could become a rabbi.”

Rabbi Dan Ross is the director of alumni engagement at Hebrew Union College.