How Rabbinical School is Like B'nai Mitzvah Tutoring....

SR Fellow Aaron Miller, an HUC-JIR student in Cincinnati, shares this reflection about his rabbinical school training to-date:

One of the many highlights of the Aleph cohort's most recent Schusterman conference in June was a panel of young, rising “superstar” rabbis who have been in the field for less than five years and spoke to us about what it was like to be newly-minted rabbis. I took pages and pages of notes (I really wish I had a tape recorder) trying to soak in everything they had to teach. What an impressive panel!

Going back through my reams of chicken scratch, I noticed that one of the nuggets of wisdom I wrote down from this panel was a quote from one of the young rabbis who said, “Rabbinical school really only gives you a year’s worth of ‘material’ to use at your first pulpit. At best. I remember my first year trying to calculate who would be at whatever function I would be leading to see if I could repeat something I already said!”

It got me thinking: if rabbinical school only teaches us “a year’s worth of ‘material’… At best,” then what is the point of rabbinical school? Five years of rabbinical school, and we only get one year’s worth of “material?” It reminds me of a bar or bat mitzvah gone awry.

The first thing I tell my b’nei mitzvah students is that a “successful” bar or bat mitzvah has almost nothing to do with how much Hebrew they get up on the bima and say on the “big day.” Why spend months of learning for one Shabbat morning if the next time you step into a synagogue is (God-willing) at your wedding? For me, a “successful” bar or bat mitzvah is one where my newly-minted Jewish adults love being Jewish and have started to create an active and enduring Jewish identity.

In a way, the question that I ask my b’nei mitzvah students is one that I’m asking myself right now. As I careen toward the HUC finish line, what has rabbinical school taught me that will endure beyond my first year in the field? Rabbinical school has exposed me to genres of texts I never knew existed. It has completely changed my approach to teaching and to Jewish education. I have even learned some basics about things like officiating life cycle events, hospital bedside manner, and fundraising. Most important though, these past five years have shown me that there is always, always, more to learn and have instilled within me enough love of Judaism and the rabbinate to continue learning throughout my career. (I hope!) For now, I think that a “successful” rabbinic education is one that infuses newly-minted rabbis with a love of Judaism and the Jewish people that will be forever a part of their lives. If I leave rabbinical school with only this love, I’d like to think I have been well-trained for my life as a rabbi, even after that first year in the field.

What do you think? What are the enduring components of a formative educational experience (rabbinical, Jewish, or otherwise)?