The Ongoing Legacy of the BJ Rabbinic Fellowship
In 1995, the Righteous Persons Foundation reached out to Roly to have a conversation. The BJ community was growing by leaps and bounds. Services were filled with Jews from all different walks of life. There were lines of people on 86th Street waiting to participate in Kabbalat Shabbat—to pray, sing, and dance (BJ services were being held at SPSA at the time). Some were looking for dates and some met and married at BJ (including BJ’s president, Ilene Rosenthal).
Something unique was happening at BJ and the Foundation was interested in supporting it. After a handful of meetings with Roly and Marcelo (Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein was a rabbi at BJ from 1995–2020) and the staff of Righteous Persons, a rabbinic fellowship was dreamed up to mentor a new generation of rabbis in the BJ model, and in memory of Roly and Marcelo’s teacher and refounding rabbi of BJ, Marshall Meyer.
The fellowship began in the summer of 1996.
Rabbi Yael Ridberg, in her final year at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, was the first BJ fellow. Over the years, 34 rabbinical students have been BJ fellows, spending the early years of their rabbinates here in our community—learning from the spiritual leadership and staff of BJ as well as from the community. Each has given of themselves and taught their unique Torah here and for many, if not all, BJ has deeply shaped their rabbinic identities. We have fellows who were ordained from all three of the Liberal movement’s rabbinical schools (Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist) as well Hebrew College, a pluralistic seminary.
This Shabbat, as part of the celebration of our Bicentennial, we will welcome home over half of the alumni of the BJ Rabbinic Fellowship from all over the country (unfortunately, those in Israel and Canada won’t be able to attend). We will learn from them throughout Shabbat services and Shabbat dinner. Following kiddush, Roly and I will facilitate a conversation about how the BJ Rabbinic Fellowship has shaped and impacted them.
I was a fellow from 1999–2001. I remember the feeling so distinctly of wanting to “grow into” a rabbi in the model of my teachers. I wanted to be a rabbi driven by a bold vision for a passionate, inspired, and justice-driven Judaism with prayer at its center. I wanted to embody and teach a Judaism that was demanding and enlivening, and to build community with intensity and love and commitment.
Ultimately, the most profound insight I had during the fellowship was that I needed to grow my own authentic voice. Rabbinical school provides extensive knowledge of text and skills, but often there can be a lack of focus on engaging with one’s soul and exploring one’s calling. It was at BJ that I learned to be attentive to my calling and to the ongoing refinement of the soul; a search that continues to this day.
Since my own days as a fellow, and as I have grown into a mentor to our fellows over all these years, I am always moved by witnessing that journey as each rabbinical student and rabbi finds their unique rabbinic voice. The BJ Fellowship was never intended to create carbon copies of our rabbinate nor franchises of BJ. It was founded with the faith that such a rabbinate–in whatever shape or form it evolves–can be lived as a calling. It was and is an acknowledgement that Jewish life and community is desperately needed to respond to the challenges of the day–then and now–and to lift us up to build community and a world of dignity, peace, and love.
There is a beautiful teaching in Rebbe Nahman of Breslov’s seminal work Likutei Moharan (Part II 48:2):
עַל־כֵּן מִי שֶׁרוֹצֶה לִכְנֹס בַּעֲבוֹדַת הַשֵּׁם, יִזְכֹּר זֹאת הֵיטֵב וְחַזֵּק עַצְמְךָ מְאֹד, וַעֲשֵׂה מַה שֶּׁתּוּכַל בַּעֲבוֹדַת הַשֵּׁם, וּבִרְבוֹת הַיָּמִים
.וְהַשָּׁנִים תִּכְנֹס לָבֶטַח בְּעֶזְרָתוֹ יִתְבָּרַךְ לְתוֹךְ שַׁעֲרֵי הַקְּדֻשָּׁה, כִּי הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ מָלֵא רַחֲמִים וְרוֹצֶה בַּעֲבוֹדָתְךָ מְאֹד
Therefore, whoever wants to enter into the service of God will remember this well. Give yourself much encouragement, and do what you can in serving God. Then, with the accruement of the days and years, with God’s help, you will surely enter into the gates of holiness. For God is full of compassion and wants your service very much.
As a community, we all share this extraordinary blessing—and Roly, Becca, and I as rabbis—to encourage fellows to find their unique path in serving God. And they in turn, for almost 30 years now, have gone on to lead communities and organizations—opening gates of holiness for so many. This Shabbat we will have the privilege of seeing the gifts of the Fellowship through the beautiful wisdom, love, and leadership of many of the alumni of the BJ Rabbinic Fellowship.
One of the other essential things I learned in the Fellowship was that so many are on the path that Nachman describes, doing what we can to serve God and to find our unique purpose. Rebbe Nachman is not speaking about rabbis alone, but about each of us. I have the gift of learning and teaching in a community where so many are on that path—as do the fellows who came before me, those who came after me, and those I now mentor. Given the enormity of the challenges we face in this world of ours, how good it is that together as rabbis and as a community, day in and day out, year in and year out, with God’s help, we seek to not only open the gates of holiness but to find our way in. I deeply believe God wants and needs all of our service.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Felicia Sol