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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RABBI'S ROLE: CURRICULAR IMPLICATIONS A Professional Project Presented to the Faculty of the School of Theology at Claremont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Ministry by Lee T. Bycel May 1995 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © 1995 Lee T. Bycel ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This professional project, completed by LEE T. BYCEL ■ — — -.■■■■■ ... i has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the School of Theology at Claremont in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MINISTRY Faculty Committee /C>h ^ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The Transformation of the Rabbi's Role: Curricular Implications by Lee T. Bycel The historic role of the rabbi has essentially been one of teacher and exemplar of Jewish law and lore. Beginning in the medieval period, the rabbi assumed other responsibilities including adjudication, scholarship, ritual supervision, and communal leadership. Gradually the rabbi's role shifted from vocation to profession. With the emancipation of European Jewry beginning in the late eighteenth century, the rabbinate underwent a radical transformation. As rabbinical jurisdiction over matters of civil law disappeared, the legal authority of the rabbinate eroded. The modern rabbi emerged as a religious functionary in the mold of the Protestant clergy. Prior to the nineteenth century, rabbis were trained in veshivot (academies of rabbinic learning) where studies focused exclusively on talmudic law. With the advent of emancipation, the modem rabbinical seminary arose as a Westernized alternative to the veshivah. In the 1980s, each of the four major American rabbinical seminaries initiated reviews of their curricula. This project examines these reviews with particular focus on the Reform seminary. All reflect awareness of the need to revise the training of the contemporary rabbi, but each Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. still allots the majority of courses to classical Jewish subjects. Given the similarity of role between contemporary rabbi and Protestant minister, careful attention is given to proposals for curriculum reform offered by Protestant theological educators, especially during the past decade. Models of the ministerial role and aspects of their curricular paradigms offer possibilities for developing a new curriculum for the training of the contemporary Reform rabbi. This study concludes that current rabbinical curricula have not caught up with the spiritual and social realities that the contemporary rabbi encounters. A new theoretical paradigm of rabbinical training is offered, emphasizing the rabbi's emerging role as mentor and counselor. The methodology of this study includes a diachronic survey of the rabbinate and rabbinical education, a synchronic study of approaches to theological education, critical evaluation of rabbinical curricula, and constructive synthesis. The particular focus of the study is the contemporary Reform rabbi and the Reform seminary's curriculum. However, the implications of this study are applicable to the contemporary rabbinate as a whole. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to several people for helping me with this project: To Marjorie Suchocki for introducing me to the field of Theological Education and for encouraging my work on rabbinical education; To Frank Rogers for his guidance, many constructive and insightful suggestions, and his friendship; To Uri Herscher for his considerateness and support of my doctoral studies; To Robert Kirschner, David Ellenson, and Stanley Chyet for their friendship, encouragement, and willingness to discuss many of the ideas presented in this project; To Marca Gay for her tremendous effort in typing this text and for her ongoing readiness to provide assistance; Indeed, to all my friends, colleagues, and students at the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles for their encouragement and under standing; To Elaine Walker for her suggestions for refining the footnotes and bibliography; and most especially to Judy, Micah, and Moti for their understand ing, support, and love. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments ............................................... iii Introduction .................................................. 1 Chapter 1. The Rabbinate: Ancient Vocation and Modern Profession ............................... 6 2. Tradition or Renewal? An Assessment of a Modern Rabbinical School Curriculum....... 64 3. Protestant Theological Education: Curricular Paradigms and Models of Ministry............... 99 4. Creating A New Curriculum: Education for the Contemporary Reform Rabbi .............. 137 Bibliography.................................................. 178 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Introduction This project focuses on the training of rabbis in the contemporary world. Although the role of the rabbi has been transformed in Judaism's transition from the medieval to the modern world, the seminary curriculum has yet to respond to this change. A curriculum designed for the model of the rabbi as religious mentor and counselor has still not emerged. From late antiquity, the rabbi functioned, for the most part, as a teacher, exemplar, and interpreter of Jewish law (halajchah). However, the Enlightenment in Western and Central Europe and the emancipation of the Jewish population during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries eroded the traditional authority of the rabbi. The overwhelming majority of Jews abandoned a traditional fidelity to Jewish law, and more Westernized expressions of Judaism arose. Prominent among them was the Reform Movement, which originated in Germany. This movement retained loyalty to the Pentateuch's moral and ethical laws but accepted as binding only those ceremonies and rituals deemed compatible with modern civilization. By the late 1800s, the Reform Movement had taken root in America and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, founded in 1873, had become an official denominational body for Reform Judaism by the late 1880s. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 Reform Jews did not look to their rabbis for halakhic rulings but for spiritual guidance, pastoral counseling, and theological perspective. Protestant clerical models were more influential than medieval rabbinic antecedents. Indeed, Reform Jews and their clerics were not unique in this regard. While the rabbi's traditional role was more emphasized among Orthodox Jews, even here the rabbi's authority was diminished as the coercive legal structure of the community was dismantled. Among the more secularized majority, the fragmentation of values left many people without a religious anchor. They looked to their rabbis to close the growing chasm between ancestral faith and contemporary life. However, the education of Reform and other rabbis has not kept pace with the transformed spiritual and social realities and situations that the modem setting entails. This paper calls for a reconsideration of rabbinical training. It requires that rabbis remain learned individuals. This is the foundation of their office. However, I am calling for a novel curriculum that would provide rabbis with the preparation to serve as religious mentors and counselors in a predominantly secular culture. This project focuses primarily on the Reform rabbi and the curriculum of the Reform rabbinical seminary, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC). However, I believe that most of the discussion applies to all Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 contemporary rabbis in America, with the exception of the most traditional, separatist, and insular communities. The curricula of the major denominational seminaries will be reviewed and contrasted with the offerings of HUC so as to illuminate the distinctiveness of the HUC curriculum. The ultimate aim is to focus upon a new curriculum proposal for the training of the Reform rabbi. In so doing, a paradigm for the education of all modem American rabbis will be offered. Chapter 1 traces the development of the rabbinate from earliest times to the modern period. The transformation of the rabbi's role is discussed in the context of changing Jewish communities and shifting centers of population. The rabbi's ancestral vocation eventually evolved into a clerical profession. The impact of this development, and its effect on the expectations placed on the rabbi, are given close analysis. The diminution of the rabbi's traditional authority has led to role confusion and a significant amount of stress and conflict within the rabbinate. New ways of conceptualizing the rabbi's role are explored with an attempt to define a more viable paradigm for the rabbi in contemporary society. Chapter 2 discusses the revisions in rabbinical curricula that took place during the 1980s in each of the major seminaries in America: Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Orthodox), the Jewish Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.