Where Have All the Rabbis Gone? (Part One)
A Newsletter from Rabbi Jonathan Miller
I have a vague memory of listening to the Kingston Trio singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” on a warped vinyl recording on my parents’ stereo, which at that time was a bona fide piece of furniture in the living room. It made a hiccup with every rotation of the turntable. My generation thought that music with scratches and the occasional skip was normal. Here is the ballad in abbreviated form.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them everyone.
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to husbands everyone.
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone to soldiers everyone.
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards everyone?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers everyone.
When will the ever learn? When will they ever learn?
And thinking of those generations of women plucking flowers off their dead husbands’ graves, putting them in a mason jar and weeping for their loss and the foolishness of war, I cried with all the widows and the fatherless kids felled by the guns of battle.
Then my-across-the-street neighbor, Ellen Grossman—hey, Ellen—played the song on her guitar at the sixth-grade talent show and I shed a tear again. It was a popular anti-war ballad, and the Vietnam War was just getting started big time in the American consciousness. Wikepedia reports that the song was originally composed by the famous folksinger, Pete Seeger and was later performed by more than 80 artists. Add one more for Ellen. . . .
When I entered seminary in 1976, I joined the Jerusalem class at the Hebrew Union College with, I am estimating, more than 50 prospective rabbis bracing themselves for the 5-year slog to ordination. Most of us were just out of college, or perhaps had a year or two of real life under our belt trying unsuccessfully to avoid the “call” to religious service. One of my classmates, future rabbi Helene Ferris, was at that time a seemingly to me ancient 39-year-old woman with three kids in tow. Five years later, my guess is that we unleashed 35 newly minted pulpit rabbis to protect and serve the Jewish people. Some of my classmates chose a different path and dropped out. Some flunked out. Others looked at the demands of pulpit service and thought it wiser to become a counsellor, a non-profit executive, an academic, or a teacher; all noble pursuits with weekends free and no 24/7 on call.
I read on my rabbinic Facebook page that the incoming 2022 rabbinic school class had a grand total of 15 students. One of my classmates thought it might by a few more, maybe 18. No matter. Nowadays, a 39-year-old second career woman studying for ordination would not be considered an oddity. Recently, seminarians are often refugees from the corporate world or the corner office in search of greater meaning and purpose (God bless them!). Assuming that some of these students might not finish the program and that others will forfeit their opportunities to serve pulpits, the Hebrew Union College might in five years’ time produce nine, ten or perhaps eleven rabbis who will want to do the holy work of congregational service. What will happen to congregational life when there might not be enough rabbis to serve?
The rabbinate has changed dramatically during these 50 years. And we are not alone confronting these changes. Protestant and Catholic seminaries are downsizing or shuttering their doors altogether. Some campuses have more tenured faculty than they do students. Fewer and fewer people are devoting their lives to serving the people in the pews and the God they purport to believe in. And with many of the students older (and wiser we hope), their shelf life in the congregation is shorter than the traditional straight out of college students.
To reframe the question posed by the folk singers’ ballad, “Where have all the rabbis gone?”
I will report more on that in my next newsletter. Stay tuned for my thoughts and musings.
The working title of my novel, not yet published, was a line taken directly from a phone call I received during my last year serving Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, Alabama. I picked up a voice message from a man whose name I no longer remember, but otherwise I remember every detail. He left a message in a thick country southern accent, “Rabbi, Rabbi, please call me back. I need me a Jew to take care of my dog.” The man was serious. At first, I thought I should take umbrage. Umbrage can be immensely satisfying in a perverse sort of way. But I decided this was too juicy a request. I did not want to miss out on a juicy phone call just because I had a moment of pique. I called him back and I am very glad I did.
So that was going to be my title, “I Need Me a Jew to Take Care of My Dog.” Even though a bit long to splash across a book cover, it certainly would grab attention, which is what a title ought to do. But with the rampant rise of antisemitism, I thought the better of it. What would I gain from associating Jews and dogs without context on the cover of my book? Maybe not such a good idea. I do not hate Jews, even though I worked with them for decades. (I was a happy rabbi!) But others do. I do not want to help the haters hate more by associating Jews with dogs in the title. Doing my part for the cause.
The title of the book as it now stands is a simple, “Take My Dog.” More concise but less descriptive.
Please enjoy and stay tuned. Backwards and Forwards will appear, again, magically in your inbox in a few weeks.
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Whether we are going backwards or forwards, none of us is standing still. And successful people can move both forwards and backwards at the same time.
Until next time, shalom,
Jonathan