Rabbi Raysh Weiss: Shaar Shalom Congregation, Halifax
Rabbi Jennifer Gorman: Beth Tzedec Congregation/Mercaz-Canada, Toronto
Rabbi Gorman: I recently read an article online about female rabbis who are single. Below the story, one person had written a comment that he can’t relate to a single rabbi without kids since his “life’s troubles” mostly focus on the work/family/partner/children balance.
It got me thinking about how much I don’t have in common with some of my congregants, members and donors. How do we ensure we’re providing the guidance our communities need when we don’t share their experiences?
Rabbi Weiss: To borrow from (and adapt) the closing song of the vintage television show Wonderama, rabbis are people, too. People react to the rabbis in their lives just as they do to friends, family, peers and strangers. We each see the world through slightly differently tinted glasses and tend to apply our passions, prejudices and interests to everyone we encounter. The pastoral challenge is that the transference runs much deeper and the spiritual expectations are much higher.
The basic reality is that rabbis cannot be all things to all people. No rabbi, regardless of age or background, has in her or his personal repertoire the entire gamut of human experiences and emotions from which to draw pastorally.
Rabbi Gorman: Yet those who look to us have such varied backgrounds – in the end, it’s my responsibility to provide a Jewish context in which they can find themselves. That usually involves letting each individual guide me in guiding them. What I mean is to be present enough with individuals, couples or families to see what they need in the moment. If that means providing textual sources, so be it. And if it means simply sitting with someone to hold a hand, then I do that, too.
Rabbi Weiss: During my seminary years, I trained as an interfaith chaplain in the emergency room of a hospital in lower Harlem, N.Y. I will always remember the first patient with whom I spoke. She was a woman in her late 60s, in very poor health, whose life had posed immeasurable challenges at every turn. She had nowhere to turn and no one to help her. I felt deeply guilty of my privilege and ashamed of my comparatively young age. How could I, then a late 20-something, dare to “counsel” a woman who had endured so much cruelty and unjust hardship in her life? It took me a while to realize that I could still be present and offer my full care – and that this was my role.
While rabbis can also technically have the same life experiences as those whom they serve – whether graduation, coming out, marriage, adoption, birth, miscarriage, divorce, sickness, death, job transitions or any other notable life transition – no two experiences, even of the same milestone category, are the same. Our task as rabbis is to be compassionate and good listeners. Part of being human is being “outside” of another’s experience, but being able to bridge the gap by being lovingly present.
Rabbi Gorman: I had a similar experience as a hospital chaplain and as a civilian with the U.S. navy and marines. I used to wonder how to minister to people whose life experiences are so different than mine, especially when doing interfaith work. But I learned that the most important part of my rabbinate is what military chaplains call a “ministry of presence.” It’s not a term we often use in Jewish life, but it’s vital to connecting with congregants and those who need us.
We say there are shivim panim la-Torah (70 faces to the Torah). Each of us, at each stage of our lives, can find something helpful or meaningful in our texts and traditions. When I teach, I try to acknowledge that I view text and tradition through my own tinted lens – when I was a child, I related to the Torah one way, then differently as a teen, as a single adult, a newlywed, a parent of young children and now as a parent of teenagers and adults.
Even though no one’s ever had my exact experience, Torah and Jewish tradition informed me at each step. I think we can help others find that information.
