The Purpose Driven Rabbinical School

by Rabbi Ben Greenberg

November 19, 2010

I remember my first day at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) Rabbinical School back in the fall of 2005 as if it were yesterday. It was only a few months before that I had graduated from the Lander College for Men (LCM), a philosophically right-wing break off from Yeshiva University in the Kew Gardens Hills neighborhood of Queens. My last semester at LCM felt almost entirely occupied with managing the intense curiosity and skepticism from my schoolmates and rebbeim. What is Open Orthodoxy? Why not just go to Yeshiva University’s Rabbinical School? Are you going to be able to find a job after finishing? Do they even learn halakhah there?

There was no doubt that I was taking a professional risk by choosing to attend YCT. I could have remained at Landers and studied for semikhah in their rabbinical training program, a 2-year program that consisted of learning the laws of kashrut during only the afternoons and had recently been approved by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA). Why would I leave what was by all accounts a quicker, less time-demanding program and enroll in a program that kept me in school from morning until evening for four years and lacked approval by the RCA, which was then the only Modern Orthodox rabbinic professional organization?

For me however the answer was simple. To sign up as a rabbinical student at YCT was not just to enroll in a professional training program, it was to sign up for a vision and to become part of a purpose driven rabbinical school. The mission of YCT is nothing less than to transform the landscape of not just the Orthodox community but indeed the entire American Jewish community, by infusing a new leadership of Modern Orthodox rabbis into the scene. These rabbis, while deeply committed to halakhah and to Orthodoxy would be simultaneously warm, open and accessible to all Jews. We were talking about the restoration of Modern Orthodoxy and the renaissance of the American Jewish community. How could I not be a part of that? Sure, it meant at times facing opposition from the establishment who would use whatever institutional power they had to try and thwart the success of the yeshiva but what great idea in history has not faced opposition?

Thus, there I was entering the yeshiva as a student for the first time on that crisp fall day in 2005. I had a picture I created in my head of what I would expect within the walls of YCT: Focus groups on Jewish continuity, philosophical debates on questions of ontology and existentialism and other similar areas. Lo and behold, my first few minutes at YCT shattered that image I had created. Yes, we were privileged to take part in a groundbreaking new pastoral counseling curriculum devised by Dr. Michelle Friedman and we had ample opportunity to explore the various intersections between modernity and tradition but we were also in yeshiva. Every morning until the afternoon we had the traditional seder, learning Talmud and halakhic texts, with a follow-up shiur by one of our teachers. The mornings were dedicated to concentrated, highly devoted analysis of the rabbinic texts in a way that would look familiar to anyone who has spent time in yeshiva.

Our study of rabbinic texts was not just limited to kashrut, the standard formula for Orthodox semikhah for generations, but we incorporated the study of the laws of Shabbat, family purity, life-cycle events and conversion among other areas. The afternoons were divided between pastoral counseling and professional development and serious explorations of mahshevet yisrael, Jewish philosophy from Rambam to Hermann Cohen. We probed into the background motivations for much of what we do as traditional Jews and delved into as many possible angles of an issue as possible. For example, if in the morning we were studying the laws of niddah, of family purity, then in the afternoon we would hear from gynecologists and sex therapists on the range of possible physiological and psychological issues to look out for. If we were studying the laws of kashrut in the morning then in the afternoon we would hear from experts in the field of industrial kashrut as well as those working towards sustainable agriculture.

The thread that was woven between all the elements of the education received at YCT was an attempt to create an Orthodox rabbi that not only knew and could make decisions on matters of Jewish law but was someone who was holistically trained to be sensitive to and be able to respond to all dimensions of the modern Jew. Now, as I am in the midst of my second year as the Orthodox rabbi at Harvard I look back on my education at YCT and realize how incredibly appreciative I am to the education I received there. There are precious few times in one’s life where a person has the opportunity to become part of a purpose driven educational institution and collegial community. I am grateful that back in 2005 I chose the less travelled path and now proud to be a member of the rabbinic alumni of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School.

Rabbi Ben Greenberg is the Orthodox rabbi of Harvard Hillel, Orthodox Jewish Chaplain of Harvard University and the Co-Director of the Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Harvard. His latest book Covenantal Promise and Destiny: Wisdom for Life is available for purchase on Amazon and at the Israel Book Shop in Brookline, Massachusetts. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Sharon.