The address at the Leo Baeck College Study Day & Viva Presentation, celebrating 100 years of the World Union for Progressive Judaism as part of the Darkeinu conference, delivered on Thursday 7 July 2026:
I’d like to start with asking you to imagine a rabbi. Please, don’t tell me if the image in your head contains a beard. I just want to point out that I do not have a beard. Instead, what I really want you to imagine is what you associate with that rabbi. What words come to mind to describe them? What qualities does this rabbi embody? Is your own rabbi like this person you are imagining? To what extent do you think the rabbi in your mind’s eye is like the one the person sitting next to you is imagining?
If I asked you to perform a similar exercise about a doctor or accountant or schoolteacher, how similar or different might the experience be? I’m asking because I think that we might have a closer alignment to each other of some of these other professionals. For example, we probably want our doctors to have a great bedside manner, we may well also agree that first and foremost they need to have an excellent grasp of human physiology, to be able to diagnose our ailments accurately, and to do the best that medical science can to treat us. If, on top of that, they can be kind, gentle, and caring, these qualities are important bonuses; but if we had to choose between a caring but not great pathologist, or an acerbic but brilliant diagnostician, we might well choose the latter on the basis that we’d be more likely to get the right treatment.
But what about our rabbis? If you had to choose between the kind, compassionate rabbi who can’t read Hebrew accurately and isn’t any good at interpreting Talmud, or the Talmud Chacham, a gifted genius in halacha (Jewish law) and the interpretation of classical rabbinic materials, who is distant and not very good with children, we might each of us have a different opinion on who is a more suitable rabbi for our needs and the needs of our community.
In order to consider exactly this sort of question, we did a survey recently at Leo Baeck College. We talked with our current students, our faculty, our rabbinic alumni, current chairs of UK Progressive congregations, our trustees, and Patrons. We found out what we already knew instinctively.
We want our rabbis to have excellent Hebrew; to have deep Jewish learning in Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Talmud, Midrash, liturgy, history, and theology; and we also want them to be superb with children and the elderly, to care for the sick and those in mourning, to support people with mental health issues; we want them to have high levels of safeguarding training and understand how to work with trustees and other lay people; we want them to be able to read a financial spreadsheet and line manage staff and volunteers; we want them to lead a meaningful service for Shabbat, funerals, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, Holocaust Memorial Day, communal seders, civic events and more—all while ensuring they are using the most exciting new technology; we want them to write brilliant sermons, synagogue newsletter articles, and blogposts as well as be great at promoting themselves and our communities on social media; we want them to be leading lights to the world outside of our congregations; we want them to teach children, converts, and adult learners alongside non-Jewish school groups and interfaith gatherings. We want all of these things and much, much more.
And we don’t want to have to choose between them. We want our rabbis to do everything.
As someone who has spent the past 15 years of my professional life trying to train people to become these all-encompassing “super Jews,” I can say hand on heart that it has been and continues to be a real challenge. Occasionally, a student arrives already fluent in modern Hebrew with a solid grounding in the Jewish textual tradition alongside a background in management and/or counselling and/or education. More often than not, students arrive with patchy background knowledge in a whole variety of areas. Few who have grown up in our Progressive Jewish communities have any substantial knowledge of Jewish texts. Hebrew is a major bugbear for some, too.
But background learning and skills acquisition up to the point at which students begin their training is only one part of the equation that we must address at Leo Baeck College. The more profound, underlying issue, as I have been alluding to, is what actually is a rabbi, or more precisely, what is a Progressive rabbi?
The origins of the rabbinate begin with the story that the rabbis of the Mishnah told about themselves. At the opening of Pirkei Avot (Avot 1:1) we find the following:
מֹשֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי, וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ, ויהוֹשֻׁעַ לִזְקֵנִים, וּזְקֵנִים לִנְבִיאִים, וּנְבִיאִים מְסָרָוּהָ לְאַנְשֵׁי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה.
Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly.
In the mishnayot that follow, the rabbis continue this line, from the Men of the Great Assembly to an assortment of other sages until, eventually, they come to the great progenitors of the rabbinic schools, Hillel and Shammai. From these two giants of the rabbinic world, it is a small hop to Rabban Gamliel, the third-generation Tanna who was the first appointed Nasi (head) of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish judicial court of antiquity. The rabbis of this earliest period told the story that they were the holders, interpreters, transmitters, and students of a Torah that was passed directly down to them from Moses himself at Mt. Sinai, where he heard these words directly from the mouth of God.
The later Tannaim and Amoraim (generations of rabbinic sages), claimed this inheritance. They set themselves up as the authorities over Jewish practice and theology. Judaism could no longer be led by priests making sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem, nor did Jews hold national sovereignty led by monarchs in their own land. Instead, these rabbis became the authorities in matters of Jewish practice and theology. They were not paid civil servants of the community—they were farmers and small businessmen and tradesmen and wealthy landowners, but first and foremost they were scholars. And they were, of course, all men.
The title, Rabbi, means “chief, master, teacher,” according to Marcus Jastrow, the compiler of the most influential Talmudic dictionary. The title appears in antiquity not in the Bible, but much later on, after the destruction of the Second Temple. It represented a mastery of learning, both of the oral and written Torahs; it granted authority to the holder in matters of Jewish practice, ritual, and interpretation.
The title of “Rabbi” bestowed upon the holder status within the Jewish community. The title could only be passed on from one rabbi to another through a process of semicha, a literal laying on of hands; but this process, this chain, was broken some time in the 5th century during a period of intense persecution. The title was not used again for some centuries.
I will not digress into the medieval and early modern periods. Certainly, the title was revived at this time, but what is more relevant to us is the use of the title from the late 19th century onwards. During this period, the great seminaries both in continental Europe and the United States established themselves and began ordaining rabbis en masse for the purpose of serving congregations as paid professionals, particularly in the Reform/Liberal, Conservative/Masorti, and modern Orthodox worlds.
These seminaries prided themselves on academic rigor based on 19th-century Wissenschaft des Judentums (the scientific study of Judaism). They offered degree courses akin to the professionalization of all the newly established middle-class professions—such as doctors, surgeons, lawyers, engineers, and architects. Rabbis were envisioned in this mould, but, perhaps more importantly, in the mould of Protestant ministers, who were also schooled in universities with degrees in theology.
Yet the job that ministers were expected to do was not entirely analogous to that of the clergy of other religions. Protestant ministers were not intermediaries between their congregants and God in the way of Catholic priests, nor did they have authority over a legal tradition to adjudicate in matters of religious law in the manner of rabbis. However, in the countries where these rabbinical schools were established, the Protestant model was dominant.
Protestant ministers spoke about ethics and morality. They tended to their congregants’ souls, offering spiritual guidance. They preached, often of the fire-and-brimstone variety, and led worship. They guided churches concerned with welfare and local community life. And they were, to varying degrees, scholars. Ministers learned Latin and Greek and Scriptures and church theology in their seminaries.
If this language sounds familiar, it is because we have adopted it, not because such language or descriptions are native to Jewish communities. But as the nascent theologies of Jewish emancipation began to be thoroughly developed from the 19th and well into the 20th and 21st centuries—and particularly the Progressive theologies that hold that every individual Jew has personal autonomy to make decisions over their own religious lives—the role of the Progressive rabbi became more and more opaque.
What is the purpose of a rabbi if every Jew can be learned to the extent that they may make their own decisions free of communal constraint or halacha? Rabbis are not required to perform any religious ritual, not even in Orthodoxy, even if having one preside at a variety of life cycle events is customary. Neither are rabbis required for leading services or reading Torah, as they largely do not outside the Progressive world.
But the Protestant minister had made a career of performative soft power, of persuading the community that only an academically trained theologian and scholar could offer the moral guidance required for congregations to thrive. And so, the Progressive rabbinate to a degree, nominally, without quite owning it, followed suit. Yet Progressive theologies of personal autonomy were built around the presumption that any Jew, all Jews, were also knowledgeable Jews, studied enough to make informed choices about Jewish practice and ritual, Jewish ethics and morality, Jewish learning and texts.
In the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 40b), the following story is told:
וּכְבָר הָיָה רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן וּזְקֵנִים מְסֻבִּין בַּעֲלִיַּת בֵּית נִתְּזָה בְּלוֹד. נִשְׁאֲלָה שְׁאֵלָה זוֹ בִּפְנֵיהֶם: תַּלְמוּד גָּדוֹל אוֹ מַעֲשֶׂה גָּדוֹל? נַעֲנָה רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן וְאָמַר: מַעֲשֶׂה גָּדוֹל. נַעֲנָה רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא וְאָמַר: תַּלְמוּד גָּדוֹל. נַעֲנוּ כֻּלָּם וְאָמְרוּ: תַּלְמוּד גָּדוֹל, שֶׁהַתַּלְמוּד מֵבִיא לִידֵי מַעֲשֶׂה.
And it already happened that Rabbi Tarfon and the Elders were reclining in the loft of the house of Nit’za in Lod. This question was asked of them: Is study greater or is action greater? Rabbi Tarfon answered and said: Action is greater. Rabbi Akiva answered and said: Study is greater. Everyone answered and said: Study is greater, as study leads to action.
This is a sentiment repeated in classical sources. Study is at the root of action, of practice. We cannot be Jews in the world if we do not learn Jewish texts. Take this passage from the Mishnah (Peah 1:1):
אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר: הַפֵּאָה, וְהַבִּכּוּרִים, וְהָרֵאָיוֹן, וּגְמִילּוּת חֲסָדִים, וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה. אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶם בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּרֶן קַיֶּמֶת לוֹ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא: כִּבּוּד אָב וָאֵם, וּגְמִילּוּת חֲסָדִים, וַהֲבָאַת שָׁלוֹם בֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶגֶד כֻּלָּם.
These are the things that have no definite quantity: The corners [of the field]; First-fruits; [The offerings brought] on appearing [at the Temple on the three pilgrimage festivals]; The performance of righteous deeds; And the study of the Torah. The following are the things for which a person enjoys the fruits in this world while the principal remains for him in the world to come: Honouring one’s father and mother; The performance of righteous deeds; And the making of peace between a person and his friend; And the study of the Torah is equal to them all.[^1]
This passage does not tell us why the study of Torah is equal to them all, but, of course, we know the answer: “Study is greater, as study leads to action.” How do we know that we should honour our parents or make peace between people? How do we know that we should perform deeds of righteousness? From where do we learn that we should leave the corners of our field for the poor to glean from? Study of Torah is what leads us to behave as Jews.
Back to the rabbis of the Talmud, their concern for rabbinic authority lay in adjudicating law. How does one know how to settle monetary disputes without a great deal of learning? Who decides which animals are suitable for Temple sacrifices and which are not? How can you know without years of training? We would expect solicitors and barristers and judges to make rulings on monetary disputes today—and we wouldn’t want anyone who has not studied the relevant legal areas in depth for years to adjudicate.
But the kashrut status of potential animal sacrifices may seem not merely theoretical, but, perhaps at best, irrelevant. Yet from these discussions in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 4b – 45a) derive the basis for the varieties of Orthodox semicha, the categories of “Yoreh Yoreh,” which authorizes the recipient to rule on matters of kashrut and similar areas of Jewish law that pertain to basic daily life. The more advanced level of semicha is called “Yadin Yadin,” which authorizes its recipient to rule as a dayan—a judge in financial matters.[^2]
The late Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Jonathan Sacks, quotes the following in his Haggadah:
When Rabbi Chaim of Brisk was asked, ‘What is the role of a rabbi?’ he replied, ‘To redress the grievances of those who are abandoned and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, and to save the oppressed from the hands of their oppressor.’[^3]
Rabbi Chaim of Brisk was a late 19th-century Talmud scholar, a lecturer at the Volozhin yeshiva and later rabbi in Brest in Belarus. He started his own school of Talmud study, which is still influential in contemporary Orthodox circles. All of which is to say that he was a serious scholar of the Jewish textual tradition, while his definition of a rabbi seems superficially to be something else entirely.
But I come back to the Mishnaic dictum, וְתַלמְוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנגֶדֶ כּלֻּםָ (the study of Torah is equal to them all). I suspect that Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, quite simply, would not have understood how to redress grievances, protect the poor, or save the oppressed had he not spent a lifetime studying Torah. Moreover, redressing grievances, protecting the poor, and saving the oppressed required more than ethical courage. It required, and arguably still does require, deep study and legal knowledge to adjudicate fairly.
Where does that leave the Progressive rabbinate? Progressive rabbis adjudicate on very little, perhaps only matters of status—basically conversion and Gittin (Jewish divorces). If we are not legal authorities, then why study our legal tradition? Should we continue to be scholars, if our learning grants us no authority? Why not simply train people in social work, counselling, management, finance, charity law, and safeguarding? On the whole, these areas seem to be of high priority to the communities we have consulted. And why assume such a role should be paid? Why not simply train volunteers to perform these functions? I return to the question again of what is a Progressive rabbi?
I was granted semicha 30 years ago this summer. My teacher, Rabbi Sheila Shulman z’’l, laid her hands on me, offering me more than her blessing, more than her wisdom, more than the sum total of what she had taught me. She made me a link in a new/old chain of tradition that ties me irrevocably to the ever-expanding world of Jewish knowledge. Sheila taught me to read—not the ABCs, but how to look at a text and parse it, dissect it, argue with it, and reconstruct it; she taught me how to make meaning Jewishly.
That is the tradition that I have tried for almost half my rabbinate to pass onto the next generation. Anyone can take a safeguarding course—and arguably all of us should—but not everyone is prepared to become a link in the chain of Jewish meaning creation.
Perhaps the hardest quotation to read in the review Leo Baeck College commissioned into rabbinic training was this one: ‘The college doesn’t know what rabbis are and what communities need.’ The College is, of course, not an entity independent of the people who make it up. As Principal, I must take responsibility for this failure to clearly express what rabbis are.
As I have tried to articulate up to now, such a definition within the Progressive world is not easy or straightforward. Neither the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors UK nor the Conference of Liberal Rabbis and Cantors articulate such a definition either in their membership criteria or constitutions. The Movement for Progressive Judaism also does not provide a definition in any of their publicly available information. Rabbis (and cantors for that matter) are simply people who have been ordained by recognised seminaries.
In the States, our sister seminary in the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the Hebrew Union College, has published a serious article on its new curriculum.[^4] The authors, Rabbis Joe Skloot and Dvora Weisberg, address important questions of design principles and outcomes and organizations. At no point, however, do they overtly address the question of what a rabbi actually is, though one may argue that the definition is inherent in the programme they describe. Their programme, while it may differ in elements of delivery and emphasis, is not a million miles away from what we deliver at LBC. And still, the problem of what we are training people to become persists.
For my part, it will perhaps come as no surprise when I do my best to describe what I believe the role of the Progressive rabbi ought to be. I have articulated versions of it elsewhere in my academic work. The Progressive rabbi ought to be deeply, profoundly learned in the Jewish textual tradition as well as completely immersed in the wider, contemporary world. Our job should be to bridge these worlds, to create new meaning from our ancient sources, to enable our communities and the individuals of whom they are comprised to be both entirely Jewish and thoroughly modern (or postmodern, if you prefer).
Let me give you an example from my own writing. In my book, Polyamory and Reading the Book of Ruth, I overtly draw from Jewish conceptual frameworks, the grammar and syntax of Biblical Hebrew, modern literary theory, and queer studies in order to draw a new meaning out of our ancient text.[^5] I bridge traditional Jewish modes of interpretation with radically contemporary ones. In doing so, I consciously and overtly create a space for the inclusion of polyamorous folks and their families into our communities.
The Movement for Progressive Judaism cites diversity, inclusion, and social justice among its core values. We could simply say that the polyamorous are included on those values alone. Or, as my book argues, in engaging seriously with Torah, we can make a case for positive inclusion that enables diverse groups of people to see themselves and their lives reflected in our holy texts. The latter is, for me, the role of the rabbi.
We talk too often about a false dichotomy between academic and vocational studies. But to become a rabbi is not only to engage in the study of Tanakh and Talmud, the siddur (prayerbook) and Haggadah, the Mishneh Torah and Midrash Rabbah entirely separately from the study of pastoral care, bereavement counselling, change management, homiletics, and working with volunteers.
When we speak of the academic, we seem to mean something not rooted in the skills of real-life work, whereas the vocational seems to be almost entirely based on experiential practice. Yet what is line management or safeguarding or financial oversight without the bounds of Jewish ethics and morals? What is the study of Torah, if not for it to impact how we live and breathe and eat and shelter and do as Jews?
So, for me, what is a Progressive rabbi? As for myself, I try to be a living embodiment of what I understand to be this role. To be an exemplar to our students. To be a colleague to my colleagues. To understand that each of us will be a different sort of bridge.
That is why the Leo Baeck College MA award is officially in Applied Rabbinic Theology. That is why after 4 years of study, students are asked to write a dissertation that requires them to consider the following question: ‘How will this dissertation be applicable to my rabbinate?’ So every one of our alumni will bring something new into our Progressive Jewish world. So that they will each graduate with a tiny bit of our Jewish world in which they claim some expertise.
The process of learning, of studying Torah, is infinite. But the most core part of being a rabbi, any sort of rabbi, is this study. וְתַלמְוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנגֶדֶ כּלֻּםָ—The study of Torah is equal to all, to everything. Turning again to Pirkei Avot (5:22), the curiously named Ben Bag Bag said it best:
הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ. וּבָהּ תֶּחֱזֵי, וּסְיִיב וּבְלֵה בָהּ, וּמִנַּהּ לֹא תָזוּעַ, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ מִדָּה טוֹבָה הֵימֶנָּה.
Turn it over, and turn it over, for all is in it. And look into it; and become grey and old in it; and do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it.
—
[^1]: Mishnah Peah 1:1 via Sefaria (accessed 28 April 2026).
[^2]: What Is a Rabbi? via Chabad (accessed 28 April 2026).
[^3]: The Jonathan Sacks Haggadah; Essays, The Art of Asking Questions, 11 via Sefaria (accessed 28 April 2026).
[^4]: Joseph Skloot and Dvora Weisberg (Winter 2026), “Hebrew Union College’s New Rabbinical School Curriculum: Integrative Rabbinical Education for A New Generation”, The Reform Jewish Quarterly, pp. 34-43.
[^5]: Deborah Kahn-Harris (2023), Polyamory and Reading the Book of Ruth (Lexington Books).