[Post I just read: JTA Archives are now digitized and on-line for free , at Michtavim]
The other day, a comment from a friend caused me to calculate just how much time rabbis spend in training for the halachic component of the rabbinate.
Without any particular goal in mind, while sitting on a plane, I did the math: Aside from pastoral, administrative, or communal training, aside from studies of Hebrew language, Chumash, Navi, Jewish History, homiletics and so on… how much time do rabbis spend on learning either law, or legal theory, in Talmud or Halachah classes?
Of course, the answer will vary by program. I understand that there are 1-year rabbinic training programs. I also know that certain yeshivot grant automatic ordination when their kollel students get married. And then, of course, there are ‘partial ordination’ programs in which students specialize in specific areas of law, for which they are tested and for which they receive certificates.
So I’ll take a student who follows a course of study with which I am familiar: Day school, followed by Modern Orthodox high school, followed by Yeshiva University, two years in Israel, and semichah studies at RIETS-Yeshiva University.
As a general rule, day schools have their students – sometimes boys and girls, sometimes just boys – begin to study mishnah and gemara in 5th or 6th grade. Let’s say it’s 6th grade. They generally spend 40 minutes each day for the first year, for which I’ll assume 180 curricular days. So that’s 120 hours.
For 7th and 8th grade it’s more intense, more like 90 minutes each day. Continuing with 180 days each year, that’s 540 more hours, for a total of 660 hours.
Then high school. As I recall, we spent 3.5 hours each day in gemara and halachah at MTA. Again, I’ll allow 180 days. Over a four year high school career, that’s 2520 more hours, for a total of 3180 hours by the time he graduates high school.
[Of course, I have not counted time spent on homework, or Sunday school, or outside chavrusa learning; that’s too hard to estimate. And I also haven’t counted summer learning experiences, formal or informal.]
Our student then goes off to Israel, where he studies for two years. For five days each week he studies gemara and halachah for at least 8 hours per day, and in certain yeshivot more like 10-12 hours per day. But let’s go with 8 hours per day during the week for 200 days each year, and then 6 hours on each Friday-Shabbos combination for 40 weeks. That’s really undercutting it, but it yields 1840 hours each year, 3680 total [again, minus summers], for a lifetime total of 6860 hours spent in studying gemara and halachah.
Not all of these studies are at the same level, of course; in 6th grade he’s getting an introduction. In 7th-8th he learns about Rashi and Tosafot on some level. In high school he studies Rishonim, and to a certain extent he is introduced to Acharonim. In Israel he may learn Acharonim in greater depth. But it’s 6860 hours, before he has even entered college.
At YU’s Mazer Yeshiva Program, he studies gemara and halachah for 4 hours each day as part of the curriculuum, and another 2 hours each night, and let’s assume 180 days per year. Again, we discount outside studies, Sundays, summers. But for 3 years in college, that yields another 3240 hours. Total of 10,100 hours lifetime.
Then he enters the semichah program, and he learns 8 hours each day, 180 days per year, for 3 years, for a total of 4320 hours. Again, this is undercounting because of summers and Sundays, and it undercounts the numbers per day, but it’ll have to do. Total of 14,420 hours lifetime, before receiving semichah.
By comparison – someone who attends a full daf yomi cycle, hearing 1 hour of shiur per day (as opposed to our 35 minutes here!), spends about 2707 hours. This is more than 5 times that number.
And it’s only the beginning; a rabbi who stops learning when he enters the rabbinate will soon find himself out of his depth.
That’s an awfully long time to spend on this, much more than I think necessary for a person who is not entering the rabbinate. For a non-rabbi, I think the time could be better spent on other parts of Torah.
Further, one could give educational classes and write articulate articles and give inspiring speeches without all of this study. It’s not particularly hard for an experienced student to tackle a new topic by reading a few existing articles, digesting and organizing the information and finding a good way to present it.
I've been told by Conservative and Reform colleagues that this time is unnecessary, that primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views.
But I do think this amount of time is necessary if one is to be serious about learning and teaching on a deep level, let alone answering halachic questions. Accepting someone's digest means sacrificing the possibility of personal investigation, and the depth of understanding that comes with that investigation. And it means that when new questions come up, one flounders for a way to address them. The time is necessary.
As I said, I don’t really have a goal or conclusion here. Just thoughts on a plane.
Showing posts with label Life in the Rabbinate: Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life in the Rabbinate: Training. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Studying for Ordination - The Heart and the Mind
[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here]
If I had made a wordle out of my emails of 7-10 days ago – ie pre-Flotilla – the words New Canadian Yeshiva and Conservative Semichah would have been featured prominently. Everyone wanted to talk about this new institution, with its interesting array of staff and its claim to represent true centrism.
To me, though, the most thought-provoking part of this new institution’s presentation was its emphasis on the academics of training for the rabbinate. They emphasize the intellectual, with course descriptions and fieldwork and academic study and touted affiliations with a dozen or so university Judaic Studies departments. Semichah (ordination) studies are laid out with tracks and texts and credits, and so on.
I state at the outset that I know next-to-nothing about this institution; I have only viewed their website. So this is not a comment on the specific institution, or the people involved. It is only my reaction to the design of a semichah curriculum along academic lines.
To me, academia is about cold study.
Academics may be personally religious, but they are not supposed to bring that religion into the academic setting. Their fervor comes from fascination for and absorption in the topic, but from the brain rather than the heart. A professor who is Jewish should teach biblical criticism or talmudic hermeneutics or pastoral counseling just as a Hindu would, and a student should learn from each identically.
For a university professor to teach a text from a heartfelt devotional perspective is wrong – objectivity is the name of the game, the professor a narrator viewing the text, the ritual and their form and function from the point of view of an impassive observer. And the student is expected to divorce his own inner life from the subject matter, as well, at least for the duration of the semester.
Training for the rabbinate, on the other hand, is as much about building the soul as it is about building the mind.
Of course, training for the rabbinate has always been intellectual, in the sense that there is heavy emphasis on text study, whether on a modern critical basis or in the traditional model. But it’s also been about personal growth of the rabbinical student, through mussar [ethical instruction] and mentorship and spiritual development. It's about sensitizing the student to the needs of others, and sensitizing the student to his relationship with Gd.
How will that fit into a university setting?
I taught a Pirkei Avos shiur yesterday, and as part of the shiur I noted the statement of the start of Avos d’Rabbi Nasan [also found in Yoma 4a-b, in a slightly different format], expanding on Pirkei Avos 1:1: משה נתקדש בענן וקבל תורה מסיני , “Moshe was sanctified in the cloud, and then he received the Torah from Sinai.” As the text proceeds to explain, Moshe could only receive the Torah after experiencing the awe of remaining in a cloud for six days, so that he would receive the Torah באימה, ביראה, ברתת ובזיעה – with intimidation, with awe, with trembling. It had to be an emotional experience, not only an intellectual experience.
Avos d’Rabbi Nasan argues that Torah study which will perpetuate a masorah, a tradition that endures through generations, cannot be academic. Torah study which worries about the loss of a single letter,Torah study which inspires all-nighters to understand a Rambam or finish a masechta, Torah study which is concerned about teaching and inculcating a lifestyle, Torah study which is concerned about raising children to a love of Judaism, Torah study which leads to practice, must be heartfelt.
When Chagigah 15b says that one may learn Torah only from a mentor who is like a malach [angel], it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
When Shabbos 30b says that one’s lips should “drip bitterness” with the awe of learning, and if they do not then they should be burned, it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
And when Shabbos 30b says that Torah that is not preceded by awe of Heaven is useless, it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
This is what bothers me about aligning rabbinic training with university education. University-alignment makes the focus of rabbinic training the absorption of legal information, practical details, officiating and counseling and paskening – but not about personal religious growth and development. [Example: The posted curriculum includes nothing about mussar for the student’s own growth, but only about mussar as a tool the rabbi can use on others.] It involves a focus on becoming a better teacher and pastor, but not a better Jew. Through pastoral training there may be some development in בין אדם לחבירו, social sensitivity, but not בין אדם למקום, the relationship between student and Gd.
It displays a lack of אימה, of awe.
I know that this is also one of the knocks people bring against my own alma mater, Yeshiva University – there is a conception, in some circles, that YU is overly academic in its approach to Judaics. But that knock tends to come from people who haven’t actually been at YU, and particularly RIETS; my experience in the yeshiva was one of personal growth along with academic growth, of rebbeim who were role models in Yiras Shamayim (awe of heaven) as well as Torah study.
One last note: This is not meant to be a diatribe against academic Jewish studies. I believe that we should have intellectual, academic, rigorous study of Torah, and that rabbis as well as others will benefit from learning it properly. I also believe that practical rabbinical training should be executed in a formal, planned, structured way. But rabbinic training must be far more than that. To do otherwise will breed fine professors, fine orators, fine counselors, but I fear it will not lead to an enduring Judaism.
If I had made a wordle out of my emails of 7-10 days ago – ie pre-Flotilla – the words New Canadian Yeshiva and Conservative Semichah would have been featured prominently. Everyone wanted to talk about this new institution, with its interesting array of staff and its claim to represent true centrism.
To me, though, the most thought-provoking part of this new institution’s presentation was its emphasis on the academics of training for the rabbinate. They emphasize the intellectual, with course descriptions and fieldwork and academic study and touted affiliations with a dozen or so university Judaic Studies departments. Semichah (ordination) studies are laid out with tracks and texts and credits, and so on.
I state at the outset that I know next-to-nothing about this institution; I have only viewed their website. So this is not a comment on the specific institution, or the people involved. It is only my reaction to the design of a semichah curriculum along academic lines.
To me, academia is about cold study.
Academics may be personally religious, but they are not supposed to bring that religion into the academic setting. Their fervor comes from fascination for and absorption in the topic, but from the brain rather than the heart. A professor who is Jewish should teach biblical criticism or talmudic hermeneutics or pastoral counseling just as a Hindu would, and a student should learn from each identically.
For a university professor to teach a text from a heartfelt devotional perspective is wrong – objectivity is the name of the game, the professor a narrator viewing the text, the ritual and their form and function from the point of view of an impassive observer. And the student is expected to divorce his own inner life from the subject matter, as well, at least for the duration of the semester.
Training for the rabbinate, on the other hand, is as much about building the soul as it is about building the mind.
Of course, training for the rabbinate has always been intellectual, in the sense that there is heavy emphasis on text study, whether on a modern critical basis or in the traditional model. But it’s also been about personal growth of the rabbinical student, through mussar [ethical instruction] and mentorship and spiritual development. It's about sensitizing the student to the needs of others, and sensitizing the student to his relationship with Gd.
How will that fit into a university setting?
I taught a Pirkei Avos shiur yesterday, and as part of the shiur I noted the statement of the start of Avos d’Rabbi Nasan [also found in Yoma 4a-b, in a slightly different format], expanding on Pirkei Avos 1:1: משה נתקדש בענן וקבל תורה מסיני , “Moshe was sanctified in the cloud, and then he received the Torah from Sinai.” As the text proceeds to explain, Moshe could only receive the Torah after experiencing the awe of remaining in a cloud for six days, so that he would receive the Torah באימה, ביראה, ברתת ובזיעה – with intimidation, with awe, with trembling. It had to be an emotional experience, not only an intellectual experience.
Avos d’Rabbi Nasan argues that Torah study which will perpetuate a masorah, a tradition that endures through generations, cannot be academic. Torah study which worries about the loss of a single letter,Torah study which inspires all-nighters to understand a Rambam or finish a masechta, Torah study which is concerned about teaching and inculcating a lifestyle, Torah study which is concerned about raising children to a love of Judaism, Torah study which leads to practice, must be heartfelt.
When Chagigah 15b says that one may learn Torah only from a mentor who is like a malach [angel], it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
When Shabbos 30b says that one’s lips should “drip bitterness” with the awe of learning, and if they do not then they should be burned, it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
And when Shabbos 30b says that Torah that is not preceded by awe of Heaven is useless, it’s because the experience is meant to be religious.
This is what bothers me about aligning rabbinic training with university education. University-alignment makes the focus of rabbinic training the absorption of legal information, practical details, officiating and counseling and paskening – but not about personal religious growth and development. [Example: The posted curriculum includes nothing about mussar for the student’s own growth, but only about mussar as a tool the rabbi can use on others.] It involves a focus on becoming a better teacher and pastor, but not a better Jew. Through pastoral training there may be some development in בין אדם לחבירו, social sensitivity, but not בין אדם למקום, the relationship between student and Gd.
It displays a lack of אימה, of awe.
I know that this is also one of the knocks people bring against my own alma mater, Yeshiva University – there is a conception, in some circles, that YU is overly academic in its approach to Judaics. But that knock tends to come from people who haven’t actually been at YU, and particularly RIETS; my experience in the yeshiva was one of personal growth along with academic growth, of rebbeim who were role models in Yiras Shamayim (awe of heaven) as well as Torah study.
One last note: This is not meant to be a diatribe against academic Jewish studies. I believe that we should have intellectual, academic, rigorous study of Torah, and that rabbis as well as others will benefit from learning it properly. I also believe that practical rabbinical training should be executed in a formal, planned, structured way. But rabbinic training must be far more than that. To do otherwise will breed fine professors, fine orators, fine counselors, but I fear it will not lead to an enduring Judaism.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Making of a Rabbi
I have had no time to string together coherent thoughts over the past several days. Thank Gd, I’ve been very busy running Chanukah programs as well as setting up progarms for the rest of winter, but my writing has suffered.
So, instead, I’ll post a list I’ve been contemplating for many months. It’s a list of rabbis who made a profound impact on me, shaping my own way in the rabbinate.
The list first emerged in response to a certain line of questions I’ve often been asked: “Which rabbis shaped your thinking?” “Which rabbis are your role models?” “To whom do you address your own questions?” This was my attempt to answer those questions.
I’m not including rabbis whose seforim I’ve used; this list is limited to rabbis I knew personally.
I’m also not including my friends who are rabbis, although they have taught me a great deal; this list is limited to rabbis I’ve seen in more of a teacher/mentor role.
And, of course, I’ve learned from many who are not rabbis, as well as my own students, but that’s for other lists…
Some of the rabbis on this list taught me to learn, others taught me to teach, others taught me (or tried to teach me) menschlichkeit, others taught me communal involvement and still others taught me counseling.
Some of them taught overtly, others by example.
Some of them taught me just one lesson of pivotal importance, others were my rebbeim for many years.
Rabbi Yosef Blau
Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Rabbi J. David Bleich
Rabbi Michael Broyde
Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen
Rabbi Hillel Davis
Rabbi Armin Hyman Friedman
Rabbi Moshe Fruchthandler, zt”l
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin
Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, zt”l
Rabbi Zvi Koff zt"l
Rabbi Daniel Korobkin
Rabbi Maurice Lamm
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein
Rabbi Pesach Oratz, zt”l
Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt
Rabbi Yonasan Sacks
Rabbi Herschel Schachter
Rabbi Boruch Simon
Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik, zt"l
Rabbi Moshe Tendler
Rabbi Mayer Twersky
Rabbi Noach Weinberg, zt”l
Rabbi Avi Weiss
Rabbi Yosef Weiss
Rabbi Mordechai Willig
One more thought: I publish this list here not only because I find it interesting, but also because I think creating a list of mentors is a good idea; perhaps this will motivate others to create their own.
So, instead, I’ll post a list I’ve been contemplating for many months. It’s a list of rabbis who made a profound impact on me, shaping my own way in the rabbinate.
The list first emerged in response to a certain line of questions I’ve often been asked: “Which rabbis shaped your thinking?” “Which rabbis are your role models?” “To whom do you address your own questions?” This was my attempt to answer those questions.
I’m not including rabbis whose seforim I’ve used; this list is limited to rabbis I knew personally.
I’m also not including my friends who are rabbis, although they have taught me a great deal; this list is limited to rabbis I’ve seen in more of a teacher/mentor role.
And, of course, I’ve learned from many who are not rabbis, as well as my own students, but that’s for other lists…
Some of the rabbis on this list taught me to learn, others taught me to teach, others taught me (or tried to teach me) menschlichkeit, others taught me communal involvement and still others taught me counseling.
Some of them taught overtly, others by example.
Some of them taught me just one lesson of pivotal importance, others were my rebbeim for many years.
Rabbi Yosef Blau
Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Rabbi J. David Bleich
Rabbi Michael Broyde
Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen
Rabbi Hillel Davis
Rabbi Armin Hyman Friedman
Rabbi Moshe Fruchthandler, zt”l
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin
Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, zt”l
Rabbi Zvi Koff zt"l
Rabbi Daniel Korobkin
Rabbi Maurice Lamm
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein
Rabbi Pesach Oratz, zt”l
Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt
Rabbi Yonasan Sacks
Rabbi Herschel Schachter
Rabbi Boruch Simon
Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik, zt"l
Rabbi Moshe Tendler
Rabbi Mayer Twersky
Rabbi Noach Weinberg, zt”l
Rabbi Avi Weiss
Rabbi Yosef Weiss
Rabbi Mordechai Willig
One more thought: I publish this list here not only because I find it interesting, but also because I think creating a list of mentors is a good idea; perhaps this will motivate others to create their own.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Re-upping as a Rabbinic Mentor
I found out yesterday that I will be invited to serve again this year as a mentor for the Center for the Jewish Future / Legacy Heritage Fund Rabbinic Enrichment Initiative’s rabbinic mentorship program.
In this mentorship program, experienced rabbis are paired with rabbis who are just starting out, for a period of two years. The rabbis visit each other, and communicate regularly (at least weekly) to talk about issues, to discuss long- and short-term planning, etc. And, sometimes, the mentor rabbis have to spend some time clarifying to the mentee's shul that his job is to help the mentee, and not to be a liaison between the mentee and his shul.
To my mind, this is a great program; I could have used a mentor when I was starting out.
All right, full disclosure: I would not have taken advantage of it, because I was way too insecure to trust anyone to be my mentor. I was sure that all information and skills fit into one of two categories: (A) Things I know, or (B) Things I will never admit I don't know.
But I should have had one.
When the program started a couple of years ago, I was absolutely, positively sure I didn’t belong as a mentor. I was the most junior mentor by far; I had 9 years of experience, and the next-junior mentor had 20-something years. I’m still not sure why they asked me, except that more senior rabbis had declined the opportunity. But there I was at the table with rabbis whose experience and wisdom still awe me.
After a couple of years in this role I finally feel like I do have some small sense of what I am supposed to be doing. A very small sense, but it's there.
Certainly, being a mentor has been good for me, for all the reasons that mentorships usually benefit mentors:
-I’ve had a chance to travel to places I would never have seen otherwise. Granted that I don’t travel well (understatement alert), it’s still been a good, deepening experience for me;
-Seeing others’ challenges has given me perspective on my own (Wow, am I glad that's not my congregant);
-Helping others with their weakenesses has given me insight into my own (Those can't do...);
-Mentoring has forced me to think systematically and thoroughly about the mechanics of the rabbinate (Yes, there is a system. Or there should be, at any rate.);
-I’ve gleaned new ideas for implementation in my own rabbinate.
About the only thing I would really want to change is the title “mentor,” for two reasons:
-I think it’s off-putting for the mentee, although most of them wouldn’t say so directly. This new rabbi is someone who has completed a serious course of learning and who is already in the field, counseling people and dealing with tough issues, and labelling myself – still relatively young in this field – as a “mentor” is a bit patronizing. Not to mention it can be undermining if the senior rabbi is introduced to the community as a formal mentor; I prefer the title "partner rabbi," "buddy rabbi" or something similar.
-The title suggests I know something. Certainly, I’ve seen a lot over the years, but experience makes you a זקן without necessarily being a זה שקנה חכמה – in other words, it gives you the gray hair, but necessarily the gray matter to go with it.
In the past two years I have worked with three young rabbis, and I’ve learned from dealing with each of them. I hope they have benefited as much from me – and I hope to become even better at it over the course of this year.
In this mentorship program, experienced rabbis are paired with rabbis who are just starting out, for a period of two years. The rabbis visit each other, and communicate regularly (at least weekly) to talk about issues, to discuss long- and short-term planning, etc. And, sometimes, the mentor rabbis have to spend some time clarifying to the mentee's shul that his job is to help the mentee, and not to be a liaison between the mentee and his shul.
To my mind, this is a great program; I could have used a mentor when I was starting out.
All right, full disclosure: I would not have taken advantage of it, because I was way too insecure to trust anyone to be my mentor. I was sure that all information and skills fit into one of two categories: (A) Things I know, or (B) Things I will never admit I don't know.
But I should have had one.
When the program started a couple of years ago, I was absolutely, positively sure I didn’t belong as a mentor. I was the most junior mentor by far; I had 9 years of experience, and the next-junior mentor had 20-something years. I’m still not sure why they asked me, except that more senior rabbis had declined the opportunity. But there I was at the table with rabbis whose experience and wisdom still awe me.
After a couple of years in this role I finally feel like I do have some small sense of what I am supposed to be doing. A very small sense, but it's there.
Certainly, being a mentor has been good for me, for all the reasons that mentorships usually benefit mentors:
-I’ve had a chance to travel to places I would never have seen otherwise. Granted that I don’t travel well (understatement alert), it’s still been a good, deepening experience for me;
-Seeing others’ challenges has given me perspective on my own (Wow, am I glad that's not my congregant);
-Helping others with their weakenesses has given me insight into my own (Those can't do...);
-Mentoring has forced me to think systematically and thoroughly about the mechanics of the rabbinate (Yes, there is a system. Or there should be, at any rate.);
-I’ve gleaned new ideas for implementation in my own rabbinate.
About the only thing I would really want to change is the title “mentor,” for two reasons:
-I think it’s off-putting for the mentee, although most of them wouldn’t say so directly. This new rabbi is someone who has completed a serious course of learning and who is already in the field, counseling people and dealing with tough issues, and labelling myself – still relatively young in this field – as a “mentor” is a bit patronizing. Not to mention it can be undermining if the senior rabbi is introduced to the community as a formal mentor; I prefer the title "partner rabbi," "buddy rabbi" or something similar.
-The title suggests I know something. Certainly, I’ve seen a lot over the years, but experience makes you a זקן without necessarily being a זה שקנה חכמה – in other words, it gives you the gray hair, but necessarily the gray matter to go with it.
In the past two years I have worked with three young rabbis, and I’ve learned from dealing with each of them. I hope they have benefited as much from me – and I hope to become even better at it over the course of this year.
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