rabbis were becoming academics and career educators, and taking on roles at Hillel chapters on university campuses. THE RABBINATE TODAY Over the centuries, rabbis have moved from being sources of halakha to ones who are moreh derech (literally, teach- ers of the way): people who help guide others. Wernick tells me that he’s a life coach now. “The coaching that I provide is to a community that cares about human beings because they’re created in the divine image.” In Novem- ber 2025, Atra, a centre for rabbinic innovation, released a study on the state of rabbinic leadership; its findings bear out Wernick’s description. The study looked at rabbinic job
And it unfolded on a parallel track to scholarship; the rabbis who spent long hours studying were not the ones presiding over ceremonies. In England, for example, virtually no spiritual leaders were actually ordained as rabbis — the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire reserved that title solely for himself— but rather as ministers, and were referred to as reverends. This was the case in North America as well. Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College and a historian of American Judaism, told me that the first ordained rabbi did not arrive in America until 1840. Before that, those who came to minister to the people were just that: ministers who were unordained but well versed in all aspects of Jewish life. They were, Eleff explains, “expected
descriptions and found that congre- gations were looking for “individuals who simultaneously fulfill the roles of teacher, guide, counsellor, and role model, whose presence is meant to enrich the spiritual and cultural lives of those around them while remain- ing relatable, particularly to young people.” And yet, while this might be the model for today’s rabbi, many find it increasingly difficult to fulfill that role inside a synagogue. The majority of rabbis in the study were in pulpit roles, with non- profit, JCC, Hillel, and military and hospital appointments mak- ing up most of the rest. Notable, though, is that the study included the small-but-significant category of rabbis who described their work as independent or entrepreneurial, which is how 5% of respondents identified. Atra found that this is the fastest-growing cohort. While 5% may seem small, the sheer presence of this category is a watershed: Atra’s research seems to be the first time a major study of rabbis has accounted for freelancing as a practise. A 1987 study published by the Rabbinical
Assembly and the Jewish Theological Seminary, designed as a snapshot of their rabbis at the time, listed 15 different categories of rabbinic position and did not even offer free- lance or entrepreneurial as a category. Neither did a 2020 report by the Synagogue Studies Institute on Reform and Conservative synagogues. The rabbinate does not exist in a vacuum. It is evolv- ing because of changes in the Jewish community writ large. Nowhere is this more evident than in the changing—and, to put it bluntly, diminishing — role of synagogues in Jewish life. (This should not, on its own, necessarily be interpreted as a tragedy: there’s a case to be made that the mid-20th-century heyday of synagogues was a his- torical anomaly.) Though COVID-19 is often cited as a
to arrange for kosher meat distribution, to lead prayer and read the Torah, to oversee life-cycle events, and eventual- ly to be the superintendent of a synagogue school.” Eleff points out that the renaissance of Jewry in North America that began in the 1880s was a mostly lay-led phenomenon. For example, in 1935, when the Organized Kashrus Labo- ratories was founded as one of the early kosher certification bodies, it was started and led by a chemist. It was not until the early- to mid-20th century that what we think of as the typical synagogue rabbi became common- place. Synagogues were either lay-led, or had rabbis whose function was limited to ritual duties. Eleff says that even that was the norm for a short span of time: before long, rabbis began to expand beyond the synagogue pulpit. By the 1960s,
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