There could not be a better time for the rethinking of current rabbinic education and synagogue structures. With the post-Oct. 7 surge of interest in Jewish learning and community, now is the time to shape a rabbinate that is better attuned to the needs of the modern liberal Jewish community. The recently released Atra study “From Calling to Career: Mapping the Current State and Future of Rabbinic Leadership” provides excellent data on today’s rabbinical school students and rabbis in the field, and has given our community much to discuss. Headlines have largely focused on the increase in female and LGBTQ rabbinical students or that many rabbis are choosing not to serve in pulpits. They’ve succeeded in stirring up debate, but are missing a larger call to action. It is clear from the research that systemic change in how rabbis are educated — and then how synagogue lay leadership in particular is structured — needs to change. The philanthropic community can foster these changes.

First, let’s look at rabbinic education. I spent 10 years of my career running Rabbis Without Borders (RWB) at CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. The goal of RWB was to provide continuing education for rabbis, helping them to be entrepreneurial and more creatively connect people to meaningful Jewish life both within and beyond congregations. Each year we launched a new highly selective cohort of about 25 rabbis who spent a year immersed in learning and conversations about American life today. Key to this immersion was determining how they could offer Jewish wisdom to help people with the challenges in their lives. 

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During these years, I learned that the formal training these rabbis received in school, whether from legacy institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College or newer programs like Aleph, Hebrew College and the Academy for Jewish Religion, did not adequately prepare rabbis for the rabbinate today. Yes, most students gained a basic knowledge of Jewish traditions, texts and rituals, as these are a crucial component of rabbinic education; but very few learned how to translate this wisdom from our tradition in ways that would be meaningful for contemporary Jews and their families, many of whom have non-Jewish members. It is not enough to simply learn the texts of our tradition. Rabbinical students need to be challenged to be creative with the texts of our tradition and to experiment with teaching them in ways that connect with everyday life. 

If we want the current surge of interest in Jewish learning among American Jews to continue, then we need rabbis who can make our tradition relevant and meaningful to our lives. As such, the way rabbinical schools teach text and train students needs to be evaluated and reimagined for the 21st century. Text studies need to be planned with an eye toward how their lessons will be used in practical ways once the student graduates. 

When I was in rabbinical school, our Talmud curriculum consisted of starting at the beginning of a tractate and seeing how many pages we could learn by the end of the semester. The content of what we were learning was secondary to learning the structure of Talmudic argument and commentaries. This should be reversed: Students can learn useful content — like how and why the Passover seder is structured the way it is, or guidelines for visiting the ill — along with how a Talmudic argument is laid out. 

We can do this. Our traditions have survived this long because Judaism has balanced both preservation of traditional texts with reinvention for a new era. 

In addition, rabbinical schools have been slow to adapt to various realities that their graduates experience. Half of all rabbinic students will go on to serve in non-pulpit roles, and schools need to adapt curricula for a variety of career choices. Rabbinical students headed into non-profit, chaplaincy, Hillel and educational positions need different skill sets and should be educated accordingly. Practical skills, like budgeting, fundraising, curriculum development and board management need to be taught in greater detail than they are now. Millions of dollars are currently being invested in running several different liberal rabbinical programs. What would it look like to merge many of these programs to cut back on administrative costs and instead invest those dollars in creating more robust curricula? Students would be better able to more comprehensibly train for the rabbinate they want to pursue. 

While not addressed in the Atra study, another area that deserves far more attention is how rabbinical schools prepare students to engage with the most defining and complex conversation in Jewish life today, how American Jews relate to Israel. We are now seeing cohorts in which many students arrive with strong political convictions, but very little grounding in the full sweep of Jewish history and peoplehood. Some become identified with anti-zionist activism, which flattens the rabbinate into a single issue and leaves them without the tools to guide communities through a complex and emotionally charged subject. At the same time, students who care deeply about Israel aren’t receiving the training needed to hold constructive and loving critique of Israel’s political policies. 

Rabbinical education should cultivate rabbis who can speak with depth, historical knowledge and empathy across differences and who can help Jews wrestle meaningfully with Israel rather than abandon the conversation entirely. They need to be able to understand and feel the pain of those who hold different views from their own. When programs fail to foster this range, they inadvertently narrow the rabbinate itself and deny the larger community the leadership it needs at a crucial time.

Now let’s focus on the rabbinic graduates who serve in pulpits. Pulpit life is extremely difficult. The Atra study showed that while 97% of rabbis find their work meaningful, the burnout experienced particularly by pulpit rabbis is real and acute. 

Again, these statistics bear out what I learned working with rabbis for so many years. At RWB, after rabbis completed their fellowship year, they joined a robust alumni network which many turned to for support in all aspects of their rabbinate. The stories some of these rabbis shared about their treatment at the hands of lay leaders or congregants would turn your stomach. I regularly heard stories that ranged form sexual harassment (of both male and female colleagues) to verbal abuse and toxic environments where rabbis where pressured to turn away from their own moral compasses. This, combined with the fact that many congregants expect their rabbi to be available to them 24/7 with no regard for nor understanding of the multiple responsibilities they may be dealing with at any given time, leads to the situation we see now where rabbis are deserting the pulpit. A higher pay scale than non-pulpit positions is not worth the trade-off in mental health. If our treatment of pulpit rabbis doesn’t change, we will find ourselves without them.

In my current role at the Jewish Funders Network, I see great opportunities for the philanthropic community to step up here. Not only can philanthropists establish a think tank for revamping rabbinic education and then invest in new educational models, but they can also invest in a new system for educating synagogue lay leaders. There was a time when the denominational structures provided this, but budget cuts and the weakening of the denominational system has caused lay leader support to fall by the wayside. Lay leaders need to both better understand the many responsibilities clergy hold and be trained on how to establish a positive culture within their communities. 

Abuse and harassment of rabbis and cantors should not be tolerated. Culture change within a synagogue should start at the board level, and then a process for sharing the new more respectful culture with the congregation at large needs to be established. Creating more positive communities will not only benefit rabbis, but individual Jewish communities as well. There is an ongoing joke that every congregation calls itself “warm and welcoming,” yet individuals who walk through the doors often do not experience this. This is, of course, a gross generalization, and there are truly wonderful synagogue communities out there. However, the decline in synagogue membership rates overall leads me to believe that there is tremendous potential for improvement in this area. Creating strong, interconnected, caring communities will further benefit the Jewish community as a whole. Especially during a time of rising antisemitism, general fear and a coming AI revolution, having a space where people can come together to support and lift each other up is crucial. Now more than ever, people need a place to gather and feel a sense of belonging and safety.

As a community, we should be regarding this study of the rabbinate as a wake up call. We are failing our rabbis and depriving our communities of the leadership they need. Now is the time to bring together key thought partners to reimagine rabbinic education, create efficient rabbinic programs to serve the needs of motivated students, and change our internal synagogue and communal cultures into one where everyone feels welcome, appreciated and safe. The Jewish Funders Network invites you to dive into this work. If you are interested in being part of a philanthropic peer network exploring these issues, or want to be part of a think tank or meeting on next steps, please reach out to me. Together we can make the changes our community needs to flourish. 

Rabbi Rebecca W. Sirbu is the executive vice president of the Jewish Funders Network.