Hallelujah – Narrow Way – Hallelujah

Somewhere around July of 2024, I received a strange phone call.  An actual Rabbi was on the other end of my phone, asking if I would consider contract CPE work at AJRCA.  As I listened to Rabbi Hoffman share about the life and growth of the CPE program, I became excited about the possibility of leading a group of future Rabbis, Cantors, and Chaplains into deeper self-awareness through the clinical method of learning (action – reflection – new action). I was curious about exploring the undertones of the ancestral connections common to our faith perspectives, while exploring ways to translate and transliterate our unique worldviews into the work of offering spiritual and emotional support to those in need.  I was excited about many things, and I came with a Hallelujah in my heart.

I was not so excited about the great unknown that I was about to walk into.  The complexities of a past I had nothing to do with, along with the amazing possibilities of continuing a legacy set in motion by a respected colleague.  Upon reflection, those feelings were reminiscent of my experience of moving to Perth, Australia, to offer CPE at Royal Perth Hospital.  I had so many curiosities and wonderings, and a bit of fear. 

When I arrived at my first residency experience, I began looking for common ground. Spaces where we have walked similar, parallel, and intersecting paths.  I observed the gathering of old friends and the introduction of new ones.  I was welcomed by the Elders and embraced with a cautious curiosity by the students.  The change that was ‘promised’ had arrived, and behold, she is African American and a Jesus Follower – Oy vey!

Then the music started, and my body and soul naturally fell into step with the rhythm. Time both stopped and started, as our bodies began to sway to the drums, tambourines, and THE VOICES! I had never been in a group of Cantors before, and when those voices lifted, I was transported into the Hallelujah realm immediately!  I could not understand their words, but I understood the meaning underneath, within, and inside the music.  And I knew I was home, visiting dear cousins.

After the Hallelujah (Honeymoon) came the journey through the narrow way. The next natural step.  Here is where the messiness came out and covered us all.  The messiness of our world, the systems we navigate, expectations, difference, fear, grief, grief, grief! We made it to the narrow way with spectacularity!  We made it through to our messes together, and some may have realized that it is primarily in the messy spaces that the work gets done.  

Please take these words with you as you continue to live into the action-reflection-action or hallelujah-narrow way-hallelujah.

 

I came to give 

A Piece of my soul 

In hopes of touching 

A place in yours 

 

I came to offer 

Cooling water for your 

Fractured heart 

Purpose for your shattered dreams 

 

I came as I was called 

Into the vast unknown 

I came, and you were here 

Here with your smiles 

And the silent questions in your eyes 

 

You offered me words 

Spoken from your hearts 

I came to give 

And I received 

 

I came to give 

And to me was given 

 

I came 

You came 

And now 

We are changed.

Yasher-koyekh
Dr. Trina
https://www.poetrina.com

Journeys to the Promised Land
By Rabbi Joshua Hoffman, President and CEO,
Academy for Jewish Religion California

Do we have the right spiritual leaders to meet the moment?  It’s a timely question in the Jewish world, given the recent attention upon rabbinic leadership.  Right now, our hearts are yearning for steady, compassionate, and healing voices to help navigate the sustained crises we witness daily. Are these the skills our leaders currently possess?

Traditional forms of leadership rely upon the will of the collective, where success is measured by mass. Such models may even diminish or deny the value of the individual for the sake of the majority. We are living in a time, though, when we are capable of accomplishing extraordinary feats all by ourselves, simply with the click of a button. It feels like there is no collective for which we would willingly diminish our individuality or that very little of what we hear is healing, compassionate, or steady. Rather, we find ourselves constantly struggling to navigate through a cacophony of voices clamoring for our attention.

Spiritual leadership is defined by a different metric. Spirituality implies that ​the individual seeker has unique desires to connect to something purposeful and whole. For the spiritual person, any model of leadership is not easy to define. This is due, in part, because we have been raised with the responsibility to choose independently. Spiritual leadership, at best then, is the art of navigating compassionately between individuals to give focus and purpose to all in search of something more.

As Jews, the virtues of radical empathy, historical rooting, overcoming adversity, and the ever-present capacity to hope are the pathways toward a responsible life. Our ultimate connection with others is built upon the value of seeing the other and recognizing their uniqueness through their struggles and their triumphs. To have faith in Judaism is to believe these values actually do make a difference when practiced as individuals seeking a better world for all. That is what we mean when we say we belong to something greater than ourselves.

This wisdom isn’t Jewish, alone. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism offers three models of spiritual leadership – the trailblazer, the ferryman, and the shepherd.  Whether a leader stands in front (the trailblazer), alongside (the ferryman), or behind (the shepherd) the seeker, the Dalai Lama suggests they are someone who practices mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion. Islam similarly offers models of leadership that include concepts like amanah – sacred stewardship of the people and hikmah – wisdom to bring compassion and mercy toward those seeking guidance. In all faith traditions, we look to our leaders for these qualities as they guide us toward lives of meaning and purpose.

When we study the wisdom of Jewish tradition, the development of leadership as a concept coincides with the evolution of the people. In other words, the authority of the right way to live is all in the hands of God, yet the direction toward the human ideal is all in the hands of the people. It seems radical to suggest that to lead is to offer a direction without sustaining a tone of authority. And yet, it is time to reaffirm this approach to leadership and to guide seekers toward shleimut, toward wholeness, toward healing. 

The Academy for Jewish Religion California has been investing in the training of spiritual leaders this way for over 25 years. The Academy was formed with the intent to respond to a spiritually vacuous world at a time when deep, meaningful connections were sacrificed on the altar of Jewish continuity. By reclaiming the centrality of spiritual formation and development in our leaders, the Academy has successfully trained hundreds of rabbis, cantors, chaplains, and community leaders to transform the Jewish world. As AJRCA celebrates a milestone and responds to the challenges of connection and purposeful living anew, we identify key qualities leaders must possess to serve a community of seekers with individual and collective goals.

Today’s spiritual leaders possess a deep understanding of Jewish texts and traditions so they may use their emotional intelligence to support seekers through life’s challenges and celebrations. Leaders have a calling to make complex Jewish concepts accessible.  They engage diverse audiences by truly mastering the model of genuine commitment to Jewish life in their own behaviors. Spiritual leaders possess an uncommon understanding of contemporary issues, interfaith dynamics, and how to make Judaism relevant to modern life so they may share timeless wisdom with others.

 Above all, spiritual leaders are those who ask one question again and again, “For what purpose?” When meeting people amidst their struggles, leaders compassionately ask, “For what purpose?” When transforming one’s triumphs into lasting action, the leader steadily responds, ”For what purpose?” In the Torah, the struggles and triumphs, the deviations and the guidelines illuminate a path to wholeness. This is what we call reaching the Promised Land. Just as the Torah concludes with the people about to enter the Promised Land, leaders are successful when the connections we make reveal within us the humility to encounter the Infinite. That is what healing looks like. These are the skills the right leaders need to meet this moment, indeed to meet every moment.

Spiritual Leadership for a New Era:
AJRCA’s Vision for Seminary Education
By Rabbi Joshua Hoffman, President and CEO,
Academy for Jewish Religion California

The recent publications of research and shifting positions of seminary leadership signal an important moment for our field. As rabbinical education comes into focus, I welcome this opportunity to engage in a vital conversation about how we prepare spiritual leaders to serve the Jewish people. The challenge before us is not whether cantorial, chaplaincy, or rabbinical education matters. It really does matter. Rather, we must ask how we can best prepare leaders to meet this moment.

Since its founding in 2000, the Academy for Jewish Religion California has pioneered an approach that addresses this challenge head-on. For over 25 years we’ve seen the challenge as an invitation to re-imagine what spiritual leadership can be.

Atra’s groundbreaking “Rabbi Effect” study confirms what many of us have long observed: young American Jews hunger for authentic relationships with spiritual leaders who can guide them through life’s profound questions. Some observers anticipate resistance to the changes educating future leaders require as a response to this need. As one of the flagship multidenominational seminaries, AJRCA does not resist innovation in our training, we embody it. We embrace the sage wisdom, “Turn it and turn it again, for it contains everything.”
(Pirke Avot 5:22)

For years, we have been training rabbis, cantors, and chaplains together in an integrated model that prepares spiritual leaders to serve within and between all expressions of Jewish identity. Our vision is inclusive and holistic. Whether serving in synagogues, hospitals, college campuses, or emerging Jewish communities, our graduates are equipped to meet people where they are, honor the fullness of their Jewish journeys, and offer the deep wisdom of our tradition without judgment or exclusion.

This approach resonates. This article, and others, note the declining enrollment at many rabbinical schools. Yet, AJRCA’s enrollment by comparison has been steady and growing since 2020.

The Atra research reveals that 64% of young American Jews consider having a relationship with a rabbi important and that positive rabbinic encounters profoundly impact Jewish identity and engagement. Young Jews want spiritual leaders who are accepting, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. We want rabbis who can provide both wisdom and welcome.

This is where the nature of our training becomes crucial. We emphasize connection and authentic presence in an era when technology and institutional formality can create distance between leaders and the people they serve. By training cantors, chaplains, and rabbis in the same cohort, we ensure that our graduates understand spiritual leadership as a multifaceted calling that transcends any single role or setting. They learn to build relationships, to listen deeply, to hold complexity without judgment, and to help individuals craft meaningful Jewish
lives.

What do Jewish communities need from their rabbis? How do we train people who can build the kinds of authentic, transformative relationships they seek? These are among the questions that drive our work at AJRCA.

As the field grapples with change, AJRCA stands as a beacon—not of resistance, but of possibility. We demonstrate that there is genuine demand for rabbinical education when we focus on preparing spiritual leaders who can truly serve the needs of contemporary Jewish life. Our vision is not simply transdenominational; it is transformational. We train wise, compassionate leaders equipped to help all Jews find meaning, connection, and purpose within our ancient and ever-renewing tradition.

The future of rabbinical education will not be shaped by institutions clinging to past models or simply reorganizing existing structures. It will be shaped by those willing to ask bold questions about what spiritual leadership can truly be—and courageous enough to train leaders
accordingly.

Tu B’Shvat Higiyah

Tu B’Shvat arrives quietly. No shofar, no matzah, no fast, no dramatic historical rescue. Just trees. Just sap rising. Just the patient, persistent work of roots beneath the surface, doing what they have always done: drawing life from hidden places and turning it into something that can one day bear fruit.

And yet our tradition insists that this is a New Year.

Not the New Year of kings or commandments, not the New Year of freedom or judgment, but the New Year of growth.

Our sages chose to mark the moment when the trees, though still bare, begin their internal renewal. In the middle of winter, when the world looks dormant, something essential is already happening. Tu B’Shvat teaches us to trust in processes we cannot yet see, to honor beginnings that do not announce themselves with blossoms, to believe in life that is quietly gathering strength.

That teaching feels especially resonant in a time when so much of our spiritual and communal work is slow, incremental, and often invisible. We live in a culture that celebrates the dramatic and the immediate, the viral and the visible. But the Jewish calendar gently pushes back. It sanctifies patience. It reminds us that not all transformation arrives with thunder. Some of it rises, drop by drop, through narrow channels, until one day it appears as sweetness.

In the language of the Kabbalists, Tu B’Shvat is not merely about botany or even ecology. It is about the flow of divine energy through the Tree of Life, from root to branch, from the hidden realms to the world of action. They imagined sap as shefa, sacred abundance, moving upward when the channels are open. Our task, they taught, is to clear the blockages — through blessing, through learning, through ethical living, through mindful eating — so that life can circulate freely.

This is a deeply hopeful vision. It suggests that the world’s brokenness is not only a matter of absence, but of obstruction. Blessing is already present. Holiness is already flowing. The work is to become conduits rather than dams.

Tu B’Shvat also carries a gentle but insistent ethical voice. “For is the tree of the field a human being?” the Torah asks in the context of war. Our sages hear in that question an invitation to see ourselves in the trees and the trees in ourselves. Like them, we are vulnerable to forces beyond our control. Like them, we depend on stable soil, clean water, and a climate that allows us to thrive. Like them, we can be wounded, cut down, or, with care, restored.

To celebrate the birthday of the trees, then, is to affirm our responsibility for their future — and for our own. In an age of ecological anxiety, Tu B’Shvat is not a quaint agricultural relic. It is a spiritual call to attention. To bless a fruit is to acknowledge the miracle of interdependence: sun and rain, earth and time, human labor and divine generosity, all woven together in something as simple and astonishing as a fig or an olive.

And there is another layer still. Trees do not grow for themselves alone. They offer shade they will never sit under. They bear fruit they will never taste. They plant seeds for forests they will never see. There is a quiet moral grandeur in that. A tree is, by its nature, an act of faith in a future beyond its own lifespan.

So too with much of our spiritual work. We study, teach, build, pray, and organize not only for the sake of the present moment, but for generations we will never meet. We invest in institutions, in relationships, in values, trusting that what we nurture now will one day shelter and sustain others. Tu B’Shvat sanctifies that long view. It tells us that planting is itself a form of prayer.

The calendar places this New Year in the heart of winter. That, too, is a teaching. When the branches are bare and the days are short, when the world seems paused, even discouraged, the tradition whispers: do not be fooled by appearances. Life is stirring. The sap is rising. The future is already being prepared.

In a time when it is easy to feel overwhelmed by what is broken, Tu B’Shvat offers a counter- narrative of quiet confidence. Growth is happening, even now. Healing is possible, even now. Renewal does not always announce itself with blossoms. Sometimes it begins in darkness, in cold, in the deep places where roots learn how to hold.

And so we bless the fruit. We bless the tree. We bless the earth that sustains them and the hands that tend them. We bless the hidden work of becoming. Tu B’Shvat teaches us to trust that beneath the surface, something holy is on the move.