To prepare for my annual “clergy formation” meeting last week, I pulled out my notes from the session a year ago and was blown away by how much I have changed. I am a little in awe of this process and I’m definitely grateful for the opportunity to see the growth in specific areas.

The general idea is to assess where you are in areas of Self, Intellectual, Pastoral, and Spiritual, identifying goals for future growth and potential obstacles to those goals, and finally, naming some middot (character traits) to work on.

I’ll start with Self.

On the airplane home from the AJR Intensive in New York almost two weeks ago already, I brainstormed all sorts of ways I could improve my home environment to maximize overall success. First, I decided to get my body moving more (and came home and found my FitBit and charged it). I have since reached out to the personal trainer I had a few years back and arranged to meet her twice a week. And along with exercise, I cut myself off from all the junk I’ve been eating. (That is just how I am… all or nothing.) I am taking advantage of whatever motivation I can find to see me through! This time it was me reflecting that I had the knowledge that some of our speakers had, but I would be too hesitant to give a presentation before the students and faculty because I dislike how I look right now. So healthy habits is #1. Along with that, I’ve been getting regular monthly massages to help with shoulder stress and even taking the occasional evening bath.

My innate curiosity has led me to many new explorations, one of which I will be embarking upon during the month of May – a course for future rabbis about facilitating difficult conversations. I also realized that I have new friendships that I am leaning on and loving. AJR has been good for finding like-minded people with whom I can have meaningful discussions, but even beyond that, I’m enjoying my Mussar friendships too. I have reconnected with a friend I enjoy being with and we have lunch every other month or so. I am being braver in sharing of myself, and that has only come back to me tenfold. 

On a whim in December , I started a spreadsheet to compare the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives of the same events over the past 100 years. It quickly grew. It is remarkable how each side has different stories with different names for their various crisis points. I saw that both sides are seeking validation for their suffering, but neither will legitimize the other. I was actually trying to figure out a middle column between the two narratives, but stopped with little success. There are a variety of reasons the two-state solution has not happened, but the primary factor is the lack of will of Palestinian leaders. They want to eliminate the Jews more than they want statehood for themselves. “They” is probably 30% of the Arabs… but the other 70% do not have a voice right now due to oppression by their own “leadership.”

I really can go on and on about this, though honestly, I can’t have a conversation with many people anymore about post-October 7 Israel because I read so much about Israel every day. (The topic of the Intensive was “antisemitism” and I hate to say it, but I learned very little. I also believe that the main response to antisemitism is a strong and vibrant Jewish community. Who needs a seminar about that?) Anyway, a professor of mine who I’d sent an early version of my spreadsheet got quite excited about this project and encouraged me to flesh it out much more… it ended up being 14 pages in a very teeny-sized font. Not only that, but this trimester he has it on the curriculum for our class on Pluralism. I even created a presentation for the class that was well-received and one person asked me if I would give that same presentation as a lunch and learn for her congregation! Look where a little curiosity can get you!

Signs of Growth: Intellectual 

It’s not surprising really that I have learned a great amount in a year. What does surprise me is the breadth of that learning. Last March, I said that my lack of Hebrew vocabulary was an obstacle. I am soon finishing my fourth trimester of Modern Hebrew and I will no longer be called a beginner. I’ve been waiting for this level-change for awhile! There are still four more trimesters of Hebrew ahead of me, but I can understand and speak it relatively well and I continue to learn more and more vocabulary. (BTW, did you know that the Hebrew Bible has 8,000 words; Modern Hebrew has 100,000 words, and English has 700,000 words – according to my teacher?)

AJR has a looooong list of “ritual skills” that we have to learn on our own with recordings and various resources and then be tested on. I tried doing it on my own, but it was only when I found a friend to go through them with me that I picked up some momentum. We determine what we will learn for each week and then meet to run it past each other. I am going to be testing on “Kabbalat Shabbat nusach” soon. (These are traditional melodies for prayers I had not heard before. Heck, there are prayers I’d not seen before. I have been attending the same rigid worship service for years and I am finally branching out to other places.) I love doing this and I’ve only just begun! Someday I’ll be able to tie tzitzit, lead five different versions of kiddush for various occasions, and tell you the components of a kosher ketubah, among many other things.

Another recent change is that my Mussar Torah study group that has met on Friday mornings for years decided to switch to studying the Haftarah reading each week. This is fantastic because I haven’t read any of them. We are accompanying them with a book of modern commentaries that is wonderful and leads to engaging discussion. 

Speaking of working on my confidence…. My Master’s Thesis was quite an undertaking and I truly learned a vast amount of history about the Mussar movement and its schools of thought. I was talking to one person at dinner in New York about the general idea that each person has a spiritual curriculum, and I realized that all six people at the table were listening! It felt really good to have a sense of “expertise” about something. Apparently I am also overeducated on antisemitism too. A Gratz course I took about antisemitism and racism was extraordinary — so much new and relevant material to read and discuss! And I’ve read a lot recently as well.

Signs of Growth: Pastoral

I will share a secret with you that will no longer be one if Mr. B is still reading this. I’ve been accepted into a fully online certificate program for Aging and Palliative Care for Interfaith Clergy at Yeshiva University. I’ll be taking one class at a time until I’ve done all six, and it will take two years. Mr. B looks out for my time and energy levels and does not want me to get burned out, so he was against me doing this program right now. But honey…YU’s semesters are only 8 weeks; it’s asynchronous and mostly online discussion boards about our reading material. All good!). I have two friends in the program already. The first course will be “Coping With Loss” — kind of relevant at the moment… and always will be. Future courses will be Basics of Counseling; Philosophical Foundations of the Helping Professions; Social Gerontology; Palliative Care (Serious Illness); and Interfaith Perspectives on Aging. I think all of them sound interesting and useful. I will be doing some chaplaincy field work as part of my program.

AJR offers mini-courses in between trimesters, and someone who was recently ordained advised me to do as many of them as I could in order to accumulate requirements and credits quickly. A typical class during the trimester meets for 2.5 hours one day a week for 11-12 weeks (and Hebrew is twice a week). These shorter ones are four days in a row, 8am to 5pm, but then it’s over. It’s a very long time to be sitting in front of a computer learning, but the one I took was fascinating (and we had several breaks). “Psychopharmacology for Clergy” was jointly taught by a psychiatrist and AJR’s Director of the Cantorial program, who I adore for his sensitivity and kindness. I learned so much about how to help someone and their family who may be struggling with addiction, OCD, depression, sleep disorder, ADD, anxiety, etc. I know far more than I’ll ever need to know about medications and how they interact with our brain and nervous systems. The biology of it all is fascinating to me, but the emphasis on the course was to know about resources, counseling, and warning signs.

Signs of Growth: Spiritual

I started meeting monthly with a long-time friend who I asked to “accompany me” through this program as I learn and grow. He is someone I respect and who I can share what I’m learning and discovering about myself. He is working in a congregation and therefore current with what’s new and evolving in the Jewish community globally. Sometimes I can recommend a book or describe a speaker I got to hear, and he always has insights and thoughts about next steps for me. 

In fact, in our most recent meeting, when I was just back from Intensive, I mentioned that many fellow students have a therapist they meet regularly with. I asked what he thought about that and he asked if I’d ever considered working with a coach… how cool is that!? (A therapist can help with past pain and trauma and help make sense of where you are today because of it; a coach starts with where you are now and sets goals for where and how you want to grow.) He gave me the name of a young (are 48-year-olds still young?) Jewish woman, I set up an initial session to meet her, and I loved her… we are going to be working together for the next six months! I cannot wait to see what comes of this. I am hoping to work on my low self-confidence level, among other things. Actually, this is probably a “Pastoral” area of growth, but we’ll leave it here.

Last trimester, I took a course called “Personal Theology” that I wasn’t looking forward to because I figured I already knew my own theology; I wanted to learn what other great thinkers believed! Well, I was wrong. I had no idea what I believed about Revelation, God, Israel, Jewish Peoplehood, and Eschatology until I read A LOT of theological modern thinkers and wrote the six reflection papers on each topic. I am so happy that I explored these concepts and now have a better grasp of my own beliefs. The process reminds me now of what Joan Didion wrote: “I write to know what I think.” So so true.

Goals for growth

Last year, I identified many areas for growth and I’m happy to say I’ve addressed them or am in the process of that. For the year ahead, I hope to grow spiritually by exploring prayer through music. I have had some huge aha moments about this and will be attending a communal song and worship retreat in May. Intellectually, I look forward to learning more liturgy. Pastorally, I’m looking forward to the upcoming “difficult conversations” program.

Obstacles to growth

Confidence (hence, the coach) and Imposter Syndrome, which means that I hardly feel worthy to be teaching anyone how to do anything or attending a songleading retreat. BUT… I’m putting myself in more practice situations. I recently gave a webinar on a small part of my MA thesis to facilitators in The Mussar Institute and many people emailed me that they want more… so during the intersession break between trimesters, I plan to make 8 30-minute audio recordings as a resource for the facilitator archive, which I think will be great fun. I saw the list beforehand of who had signed up to attend the webinar, and I kept thinking, “Who am I to be teaching rabbis or anyone about Mussar?” Imposter Syndrome comes to ruin my day! In the end, it was really good. I knew my facts were right, of course, so it was all in how I told the stories, and I guess my enthusiasm about the material came through. (Honestly, that is a teacher’s secret weapon, I think. If you are excited about something, it’s easy to share it with others.)

Another big step is coming up next week. During the trimester, classes are offered on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays. Each of those days has a lunchtime learning program of some kind (guest speaker, ritual skill presentation, a cantorial student doing a practica, student association meeting, etc.) and each afternoon, in between class blocks, there is a Minchah service. There are certain requirements that can only be met if 10 people are on screen, so truly I am contributing just by being there, and I’ve benefited from seeing a variety of styles and creative approaches to worship. Having attended them for 1.5 years now, I have been feeling a responsibility to do my part and lead one. The student responsible for finding leaders for this trimester has asked me and I had already been considering it. My ritual skills partner challenged me to Just Do It! And so I said yes. I have learned the traditional nusach and am ready to lead. Additionally, for Tachanun, a special set of prayers, one of which is “Guardian of Israel/Shomer Yisrael,” I’ve created a slide show to a special song about Israel that is popular on the radio (in Israel) right now, including many photos from my trip four years ago. I suspect it’s going to be meaningful. The entire thing has been a big deal for me, and I will truly celebrate after I lead the service for the first time. After this time doing it correctly, according to certain unspoken rules, I can then use any tunes I wish and play guitar, read poetry, etc. 

Middot to work on

Menuchat HaNefesh/Equanimity – finding balance. (One thing I decided on that airplane trip from New York was to move my comfy reading chair from my office, where it really is blocking my bookshelves, to a corner in the art room. I also put most of my creative-themed books and some journals on a round rotating tower next to the chair… and a lamp behind it. I plan to do some free-writing/morning pages there to help me find that balance. There are some times of the month when my hormones lead me to be more emotional and those times usually involve low energy and various aches and pains. (I am striving to be able to do what I did recently for a class: I proactively wrote a paper 3 weeks early because I knew I wouldn’t have the mental stamina to write it when it was due – which was something I figured out by journaling about it.) 

Last March, I said I hoped to address my frenetic pace and scattered attention. I was doing far too much: finishing my Masters program AND writing the thesis, taking AJR classes already, leading the Omer program, and the Passover seder at my house for 28 people, etc. This year there is no big project of any kind. My classes are manageable, the Omer program is significantly scaled back, and my brother-in-law will be leading the seder. Progress. (Another recently learned lesson: do not take three classes on one day. Ever again.)

Shvil Hazahav/Moderation – saying no, setting boundaries. For instance, I’m limiting myself to taking Hebrew and one other course during the summer trimester. Since I will also have the new Coping with Loss class, and the Omer program, I know I can’t take on more and still have time for family and travel and reading fiction.

* * * * *

If you don’t know yourself, you don’t know what you are capable of. I think this is the reason behind the clergy formation process. If you made it all the way here, I have to say I’m very impressed. I mostly wrote this for myself. 🙂