Part II: The Unraveling of the Rabbinate
If my numbers on rabbinical school admissions are slightly off, my sincerest apologies—but by how many? Not dozens. The broader truth remains unchanged: the pipeline is drying up, and the once-stable profession of the rabbinate is now teetering on the brink.
Some scholars argue that the proliferation of rabbinical schools—HUC, JTS, AJU, AJR, Aleph, Hebrew College—has spread the limited pool of candidates too thin, weakening each institution’s numbers. Maybe. But that’s not solving the fundamental issue. As a Conservative rabbi, I need Conservative colleagues. Instead, we’re creating boutique rabbinates that cater to every ideological nuance while failing to address the systemic decline in the profession itself. We’re treating symptoms, not the disease. And when it comes to recruitment, let’s be honest: spinning the “diversity of options” argument makes donors feel good, but it doesn’t fix the crisis.
What Was the Rabbinate, and What Is It Now?
Was there ever a golden age when people lined up at their rabbi’s door with a chicken in hand, awaiting a halakhic ruling on its kashrut status? Maybe. But if that world existed, it is long gone. Today’s rabbinate resembles something between a nonprofit CEO, a development director, and an untrained therapist.
Colleagues of mine dispense deeply insightful pastoral care—but should they have to? Are they the right people to field every mental health crisis, every marital breakdown, every existential crisis? The questions we are asked often demand expertise that seminary training simply does not provide. And yet, we answer. We listen. We do our best. Because in the absence of a clear role, we have become everything to everyone, and in doing so, we have lost our identity.
Israel: The Third Rail
A colleague recently told me that he, like me, keeps an Israeli flag in his office, along with bumper stickers and other pro-Israel materials. One day, someone entered his office for an unrelated discussion, paused, and asked if the pro-Israel imagery was “triggering” and might deter others from speaking openly.
Triggering. An Israeli flag.
Fifty years ago, Jews debated Israeli policies, not Israel’s existence. Today, the hottest trend among American Jews under 35 is performative anti-Zionism, a social currency almost as ubiquitous as Lululemon leggings and oat milk lattes. We have gone from asking whether a chicken is kosher to debating whether the entire Jewish homeland should exist.
Choosing the Hill to Die On
A friend once advised me to choose my battles—that not every fight is worth having. I understand the wisdom of that, but I fundamentally disagree. If you truly care about something, how can you sit back and watch its mismanagement and decline without speaking up? For better or worse, I only know how to care at 100% or not at all. I didn’t become a rabbi to pick and choose which aspects of Jewish life I could afford to fight for—I went into this because I believed in the continuity of the Jewish people.
And yet, that belief is not shared universally. The lay leadership of Jewish institutions operates on a different calculus. Rabbis pour their hearts and souls into Jewish life, while many of our most influential decision-makers see Jewish involvement as a part-time commitment—something to fit in between board meetings and charity events. Their version of Jewish engagement is strategic philanthropy; ours is existential devotion. The gap between these perspectives has never been wider, and the rabbis are the ones burning out in the process.
The result? A rabbinate that is becoming increasingly apathetic. We simply do not have the hours in the day to write sermons, teach in the Hebrew school, visit the sick, sit through yet another round of committee meetings scheduled for when it’s most convenient for lay leaders (i.e., after 7 PM), and still fight for the soul of the Jewish people. The irony is devastating: we have created a system that demands total commitment from rabbis while systematically eroding their passion and sense of purpose.
The Unintended Lesson of Apathy
I never set out to become disillusioned. I never intended to resent the Jewish community’s vision for its own future. I entered the rabbinate expecting to be challenged, to learn, to refine my beliefs in the crucible of debate. What I never imagined was that the greatest lesson I would learn from the Jewish community was how to stop caring.
And yet, here we are. My friend was right. You can’t fight every battle. I just never expected that the Jewish community itself would be the one to teach me the lesson of apathy.
Next Time: Where Do We Go From Here?
The market hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, but the floor is coming. And when it does, the question won’t be why no one wants to be a rabbi anymore—it will be whether there’s anything left to save.