Original article on eJewishPhilantropy
by Rabbi Meesh Hammer-Kossoy Rabbi Leon A. Morris – November 14, 2024
The egalitarian, non-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian ethos of contemporary culture —for all of its blessings — has undermined the notion of leadership. Correctly suspicious of power and its inevitable abuse, our society is critical of practically everyone in a position of authority. The biblical figure Korah’s claim resonates universally, and our hearts and minds concur: “For all the community are holy…Why do you raise yourselves above?!” (Numbers 16:3)
There is no question that equality is a Torah value, as the Mishnah teaches: “For this reason, the human was created from a single individual…so that no one could claim ‘My father is greater than yours’ (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). Similarly, Jewish life and learning demands that everyone is entitled to a voice. The midrash (Lev. Raba 9:3) interprets the verse from Deuteronomy 33:4 “Moses commanded us Torah, the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob,” as a case in point. “‘The inheritance of the congregation of Yanai’ is not written here, but rather ‘the congregation of Jacob.’” The Torah belongs to every Jew. No Jew should be denied access to their legitimate birthright.
Courtesy/Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies
Nevertheless, a commitment to accessibility and broad ownership of Jewish tradition does not have to be in tension with the need for leadership cultivation to ensure a strong Jewish future. However, this will require a change of approach and emphasis within the Jewish community. With such a single-minded focus on accessibility and scale of communal engagement activities, it has become less of a priority in the Jewish community to attract, cultivate and invest in future leaders whose commitments will be far deeper and who require a much greater investment of time and resources. As a result, rabbinical school class sizes have dropped precipitously at the non-Orthodox seminaries. There is a severe shortage of teachers, school directors, nonprofit managers, CEOs and others who wish to serve our communities across the Jewish communal landscape.
This crisis may be of our own making. The increase of funding priorities that focus exclusively on the notion of scale, the broadest impact on the most number of participants and keeping the cost per participant as low as possible has impacted the Jewish community’s obligation to invest deeply in Jewish leadership. Of course, we have a responsibility to serve as many Jews as possible with finite resources. Yet focusing on breadth over depth means our ship will eventually run aground in shallow waters. To avoid this, our commitment to accessibility and outreach must be in parallel with our need and responsibility to cultivate new Jewish leadership. Pursuing this two-track approach–aimed at developing an empowered, educated leadership rooted in our rich Jewish tradition–will require significant investment in immersive experiences for relatively small numbers. The leadership crisis in American Jewish life won’t be solved by Shabbat dinners and challah-baking workshops, despite their effectiveness as forms of Jewish engagement.
Instead, Jewish leadership cultivation requires depth and content. Our leaders need to be immersed in the world of Jewish texts, tradition and ideas. We cannot simply identify the next Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and inject her full of resources. The midrash (Leviticus Raba 2:1) explains, “One thousand enter [to learn] Scripture, and one hundred succeed, [those] hundred enter the study of Mishnah, and ten of them succeed. Of those, only one succeeds in Talmud.” This should compel us to cast a much wider net, with the understanding that this is neither an elitist, hierarchical approach to education nor a waste of precious resources. Every one of the thousands who are taught Torah benefits immeasurably from their learning and enriches their lives and the lives of their communities. In today’s liberal Jewish reality in which Torah literacy is scarce, every educated person rises to be one of the “officers over a thousand, hundred, fifty or ten.” (Deuteronomy 1:15)
For all the crisis-mode conversations happening in Jewish organizational life about the lack of a “leadership pipeline,” our own institution, the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies has the track record and the recipe for cultivating future Jewish leaders. Alongside our fiercely egalitarian ethos, we are hyper-aware of the impact that outstanding, well-trained and inspired individuals can have on large numbers they will teach and influence. Over 50 years, we have launched the careers of 300 day school professionals, including 29 heads of school and 268 Jewish studies teachers; 336 Hillel professionals on 71 campuses; and over 700 rabbis from every denomination.
What could this world be if we had another Sarah Schenirer to teach us that learning Torah is for everyone? Or another Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to demonstrate that Jewish tradition deplores racial discrimination? Or a Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook to prove that the birth of a Jewish state does not conflict with a deep love for all humanity? Or another Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Meir Yisrael Kagan) to help us understand that consumerism will not bring us happiness and that speech should never be debased and remain a tool for holiness? Even more, imagine who might emerge if all of those leaders had been given the opportunity to learn together and from one another at the beginning of their journey.