Shabbat afternoons. Valles hosts these gatherings to try to fill what she experiences as gaps in the local Jewish commu- nity, which has only Chabad and Reform services — a space for those who want something Jewish but not institutional. Valles isn’t making a lot of money from the Shtibl and hasn’t officiated at very many life-cycle events, but her model works for her and the people around her. Some of her congregants will go to more established congregations for their milestone events, but the number of people who are using her for their weddings and b’nai mitzvah is growing. She also says that, like other freelancers, even if she wanted a full-time career in the rabbinate, she would be much more likely to cobble one together from a variety of independent jobs, rather than working for a single institution. While some freelancers choose this path, there are many others for whom it is less of a choice and more a product of circumstance. This is true of my own rabbinate. Years ago, with my wife’s career on the rise—we are both ordained—I chose to stay home to take care of our young children. During that time, I would occasionally do a wedding or teach an adult education class. Once I was ready to return to work, it was virtually impossible to find a job with a large gap in my resumé. I tried to form my own adult education institute, but the demand did not seem to be there. And so the freelance gigs ended up becoming a significant part of my rabbinic life by default. It wasn’t until our 10th year of marriage that I had a pulpit position. After being around rabbis for the better part of two decades—many of my friends and colleagues were rabbis, and I was the executive director of the Montreal Board of Rabbis for several years — I realized that I was actually capable and fairly skilled at rab- binic work. I also thrived on the structure that a synagogue rabbinate provided. But shul politics were a different story and, for a variety of reasons, I was glad to go back to the other side of the bimah , where I am once again.
culprit, synagogue attendance has been plummeting since before the pandemic: a 2020 Pew Research Center study showed that 52% of Jewish adults said they seldom or never attended a religious service. Also in 2020, the Synagogue Studies Institute report showed that 40% of synagogues were growing, 20% were holding steady, and 40% were in decline. While this may seem to indicate a steady state, the study found that “synagogues likely mirror the larger reality of the church world where 70% of people attend the largest 10% of congregations. So too, the largest synagogues are attracting more and more members while smaller ones, in difficult markets, report challenges.” In the same study, only 8% of congregations reported a lot of emphasis on engaging young Jewish adults, while 55% reported no en- gagement at all. The Synagogue Studies Institute report also made the case that communities are particularly hard on their rabbis. It found that 45% of rabbis reported being in a congrega- tion where they were the sole rabbi; combined with the av- erage synagogue size of 320 members, this points to rabbis who are often overworked. Despite this, 34% of rabbis reported not having taken a sabbatical in the past decade. The Atra study made the issue more explicit: one key find- ing was that rabbis are suffering from burnout. “Many cite emotional exhaustion, financial stress, and institutional dys- function as reasons for leaving mid-career. New rabbis often feel underprepared for the skills needed for the managerial, fundraising, and pastoral demands of modern rabbinic life.” WHAT IS A FREELANCE RABBI? Freelancers are rabbis who, by and large, operate outside the auspices of synagogues, Hillel, schools, and the like. Similar to other types gig worker, some freelance rabbis do it as a side hustle, alongside one or more other paying jobs, or to supplement the primary income in their family. Others string together several part-time gigs into a full- time career, either by choice or out of necessity. Their approaches vary: they may preside over life-cycle events, they may lead a community out of their living room, or they may organize non-traditional High Holiday servi- ces. Some walked away from establishment jobs to do their own thing, and some never managed to get a job after rab- binical school in the first place. They are, for the most part, working in more modern and liberal denominations; few Orthodox rabbis go the freelance route. Margot Valles, a rabbi, adult educator, and former aca- demic in Lansing, Michigan, says that she knew from the start that she was not interested in a traditional pulpit. “The stuff they have to do and the problems that they have to deal with are just not at all what I was interested in,” she says. “I really just wanted to learn. I had maxed out the local learning opportunities, so I did rabbinical school.” After she completed her studies, Valles started a small organization called the Shtibl that she says is “definitely not a congre- gation.” Members meet semi-regularly, sometimes for ser- vices, like on Purim, and sometimes just for Kiddush on
WHY DO RABBIS GO FREELANCE?
Robust research into the growth of freelance rabbis does not (yet) exist, but it’s possible to make some educated guesses about the causes. One likely involves those low- er rates of synagogue participation: the people who have left congregations, find membership cost-prohibitive, or have no family affiliation with any particular shul still need services. Couples still want a religious officiant on a mile- stone day, as do mourners when they bury their loved ones. Another may be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, as people increasingly see rabbis working outside of the established pulpit model, leading them to opt out of congregational life in turn. And then there is the natural evolution of the rabbin- ate as it looks to find meaning in an increasingly secular- ized and individualized world. Therapists have replaced rabbis as counsellors, an entire online industry (span- ning everything from TED Talks to The School of Life) can substitute for sermons at any hour of the day or night, and worship and community play a diminishing role in so many
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