Prophet or Clerk?
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During
my first year of rabbinical
school I was told that a rabbi
could be a prophet or a clerk,
and that most of us would turn
out to be clerks.
Rabbi Steven Wernick, the head
of Conservative Judaism’s
rabbinical association, chose
to be a prophet when he
claimed that his colleagues
lacked missionary zeal,
adding, “We want to get
paid. We don’t believe.”
The clerks revolted, and Rabbi
Wernick was forced to recant
and apologize.
Are rabbis really in it for
the money? No. There isn’t
enough money to be had. But we
do have families, and
mortgages, and college
tuitions to pay, and that
takes money, and money comes
from people who like you and
who think you are a good
rabbi. And most people think
rabbis are good because they
say what the people want to
hear. People like clerks.
True, clerks don’t inspire
us, but they don’t upset us
either. Prophets ruffle
feathers, and people with
ruffled feathers rarely pay to
support the ruffler. So if you
want to survive in the
congregational world you learn
to be a clerk.
And it isn’t just in the
congregations that money
matters, denominational power
is also determined by money.
The most powerful rabbis in
any movement are those who
raise the most money for that
movement. And to do that you
need to build a large
congregation willing to donate
to that movement. And to do
that you have to cultivate
people with money. And to do
that you have to be the rabbi
they want you to be, you have
to be a clerk.
In the process of building a
wealthy congregation, of
course, the rabbi too becomes
wealthy, and the more rabbis
earn the more they are
expected to give to their
seminary and their movement,
and the more they give the
more say they have in shaping
the policies of that movement.
Whether we are talking about
Congress or congregations, it
is always all about the money.
But what about Rabbi
Wernick’s other claim, that
liberal rabbis don’t
believe? What he meant was
that they don’t believe
enough to live in near poverty
as so many Chabad rabbis do
who gladly set out to serve
Jews in the remote outposts of
world Jewry. We liberal
American rabbis didn’t sign
up to serve the Jews of
Calcutta, especially if we
have to live in Calcutta in
order to do so. Chabad rabbis
go where they are sent because
they believe saving a single
Jewish soul is worth any
sacrifice. They believe they
are doing God’s work. Do
liberal rabbis believe this? I
don’t know. But even if they
do, they have a hard time
imagining that God wants them
to do God’s work in a place
that lacks proper sanitation,
air conditioning, and cable
television.
Not that liberal rabbis
don’t sacrifice. Anyone
burdened with the task of
clerking middle class American
Jews with a strong sense of
personal entitlement knows
about sacrifice.
Anyway, I wish Rabbi Wernick
well in his job, and I applaud
his moment of prophetic zeal.
I fear, though, that he has
learned a sad lesson: if he
wants to keep his job he has
to abandon any pretence of
being a prophet. The clerks
have won again. They always
do.
Other Rami posts that I've loved! Why Are Jews Liberals God Knows The Danger of Difference Blaming the Jew$
posted
by Brian
Worley November 25,
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