Rachel Kohl Finegold
I came to Yeshivat Maharat out of a desire to gain the training that would allow me to do my job more effectively. When I entered the program, I was already serving in a clergy capacity without formal credentials. As the education and ritual director of a Modern Orthodox synagogue, Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in Chicago, I have spent the past six years being a religious resource for our members. In addition to my work organizing educational programming for youth and adults, as well as running our new mikvah, I delivered divrei Torah from the pulpit, fielded halakhic questions from congregants, and served in a variety of pastoral capacities.
I stepped into this role without formal clergy training, which meant that it was harder to do my job. When I received halakhic questions, I wasn’t always sure that I was qualified to answer them. Congregants themselves would sometimes ask a question with the caveat, “Maybe you or your husband can answer this for me.” (I happen to be married to a rabbi.) People would not know how to introduce me to their visiting friends or family: “This is Rachel. She is our… What do we call you?” I felt that enrolling in Yeshivat Maharat would allow me to formalize my religious leadership role, allowing me to answer the questions that came my way more confidently while also creating greater clarity for those whose religious needs I served.
The learning at Yeshivat Maharat was different from the studying I had done previously at Drisha Institute and in other settings. There I had engaged in Torah study lishma, learning for its own sake, but this learning was for the sake of leading—and it felt different. As I recently stepped into a new position as part of the clergy team at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, the maharat credential allowed me to embrace my role as a religious leader and has helped others accept me in that role.
During the months leading up to the Maharat graduation, people often asked me who my role models have been and what propelled me into taking this career path. The truth is that even though I have had some wonderful educators and inspirational role models, I never encountered an Orthodox woman in synagogue leadership and never imagined a career that would look like my own. In the early years of my career, I simply put one foot in front of the other, looking for a role in Jewish education and leadership that was right for me, and I stumbled onto this path. However, the creation of Yeshivat Maharat means that young women will now see spiritual leadership as a viable career option. It will allow them to point to me and my colleagues and say, “That is what I want to do.” It is a privilege to be part of this important sea change.
Ruth Balinsky Friedman
My path to Yeshivat Maharat was both direct and winding. My father is an Orthodox rabbi, and I grew up watching him serve in this capacity—teaching, giving drashot on Shabbat, counseling people, and answering halakhic questions. He would share tidbits of his wisdom, such as how to properly run a program or the best ways to teach a text. So, on the one hand, I grew up intimately acquainted with the world of the rabbinate. On the other hand, I was an Orthodox girl who did not see Orthodox women serving in these capacities. I learned the skills of how to do the job, but I never once thought that I would ever actually have that job.
That all changed in the summer of 2009. I had graduated from Barnard in 2007, and, not knowing what I wanted to do professionally, I decided to spend the year studying Jewish texts at Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. I instantly fell in love, and decided to stay another year. Toward the end of my second year at Drisha, in March 2009, I attended Rabba Sara Hurwitz’s conferral ceremony at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. I remember the incredible energy in the room, and all of the Orthodox women who were currently working in synagogues gathered to celebrate the momentous occasion. When Rabba Sara and Rabbi Avi Weiss reached out to me a couple of months later to ask if I might be interested in attending their new school, Yeshivat Maharat, I knew that I had found my calling. Here was a program that would provide me the textual knowledge that I needed, as well as internships and leadership training. People looked at me warily when I said that I planned to attend the school, wondering whether the risk would be worth it. But I knew that it was the right thing to do, and I jumped right in.
What makes Yeshiva Maharat unique is that it explicitly trains women to serve as spiritual leaders in the community.
Part of what attracted me to Yeshivat Maharat was that it was a program that would train women to serve in a leadership capacity in the Orthodox community. There are many fantastic programs for Orthodox women’s higher education, but what makes Yeshivat Maharat unique is that it explicitly trains women to serve as spiritual leaders in the community. An important part of this mission is bestowing a title on the graduates. Having the title of maharat enables me to be recognized as a member of the clergy in the United States, and to be formally recognized within the Jewish world as well. It conveys that I have completed rigorous training and that I am equipped to serve the Jewish community. But, most importantly, having a title teaches future generations of Orthodox Jews that all can serve as spiritual leaders for their community, and that positions of leadership are not reserved for only half the population.
I have always wondered whether it would have taken me the first twenty-four years of my life to realize what I wanted to do had I seen other women serving the Orthodox community in a capacity of leadership. Had I known as a child that I could be a maharat, would I have spent all of college wondering what I would be doing with my life? Or would I have intentionally pursued this path from the moment I graduated from high school? With this new model of leadership, we will no longer have to ask that question. Instead we can maximize the talent in the Orthodox community and therefore enable it to continue to thrive. The rest, as Hillel once said, is just commentary
Abby Brown Scheier
My path to Yeshivat Maharat must have been preordained. I grew up in a house that was saturated with Jewish learning. My parents were both knowledgeable and passionate Jews. My mother was an educator in Jewish schools and in Jewish camps. She was also a fantastic cook, so our Shabbat and holiday table was always filled with good food and interesting conversation. My father was a rabbi and a professor of Jewish studies and involved on various Jewish community boards.
It never occurred to me to be a rabbi, as this was never an option for a women educated in the Orthodox system. Furthermore, my initial stabs at a career path avoided the option of Jewish education: I began university as a biology major, and later had plans to attend law school. However, my passion for Tanakh and Jewish texts won out. I found myself planning programs in Jewish summer camps and teaching Tanakh in a Jewish day school.
I didn’t set out to become a rebbetzin—but I fell in love with a rabbinical student. Suddenly, I was thrust into a position of leadership when my husband was engaged as senior rabbi of Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim. Congregants would ask me questions and were looking for answers from me. A referral to my husband wasn’t always the best response.
I was deeply inspired by Rabba Sara Hurwitz’s conferral ceremony, and was intrigued by the creation of Yeshivat Maharat. In the summer of 2009, my husband and I spent time in Jerusalem. I attended a Kolech conference, and the conversation—both at the formal sessions and in the informal hallway chatter—was about the need for female spiritual and religious leadership. It seemed that all these influences were moving me in the direction of study at Yeshivat Maharat.
I jumped at the opportunity, and my husband and I somehow figured out how I could study at the yeshiva in New York, live in Montreal, continue to teach my classes, and be a mother to my four young children (two of whom were born while I was a student at YM).
Now, upon graduating, I’m not sure what the future will hold. I continue to teach both adults and youth. Being a maharat makes me feel more confident in my teaching and leadership. I feel more capable of fulfilling a role that, in some ways, I married into. Most importantly, I know that our four daughters will grow up in a world where they will truly know firsthand that they, too— if they choose—can grow up to be Jewish spiritual and religious leaders.