Rabbi Lists: Who Needs Them?

Jimmy Fallon has a signature routine on “The Tonight Show.” While soft music plays in the background, Jimmy thanks someone or something for having done (a usually unnecessary) something.

Several years ago Jimmy Fallon might have included this item in his “thank you” routine.

“Thank you, Newsweek magazine, for having an annual list of most important rabbis. Because nothing says ‘spirituality’ better than having people tear their insides apart over whether people sitting in a doctor’s waiting room recognize their names.”

The annual Newsweek “Rabbi’s List” was a soul-killer for everyone concerned. The rabbis who were not included on the list wound up feeling somewhat less than worthy and completely unnoticed. Some “listed” rabbis compared their rankings with their colleagues. Some moaned about how their rankings had dropped. Or, worst of all – that ego-shredding moment when they realized that they had totally disappeared from the current year’s list.

Here is what we know. In the rabbinate, the truly important things are unquantifiable and invisible. Fifty people in the pews will hear a great sermon. But helping someone sort out a tangled relationship with a now-deceased loved one? No one will ever know. Nor should they.

And then, there are the rabbis whose work just simply gets ignored. My years of living and working in close proximity to Fort Benning, Georgia gave me a new respect for the work of military chaplains. What about hospital and prison chaplains? How much do we value their work, especially when we realize how little they earn? The same is true with Hillel rabbis. 

Let’s face it. Our unquestioned acquiescence to the American cultural style of ranking, awards and recognition (I am writing this right after the Oscars, so it is quite top-of-mind) is, well, idolatrous.

But there’s a much larger issue at play here.

Very few rabbis have footprints beyond their own communities, and even fewer beyond the Jewish community. We don’t have a Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Neither do we have an American equivalent of former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, whose intellectual and spiritual influence extended far beyond the borders of the Jewish community.

Was it ever different? There was Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel Silver.

Two generations ago, America’s most famous rabbi was Joshua Loth Liebman, the rabbi of Temple Israel in Boston. He was the author of Peace of Mind, the first book to combine religious wisdom with psychological insights. In 1946, it was #1 on the New York Times nonfiction best-sellers list. It held that position for fifty-eight non-consecutive weeks.  Liebman became a radio personality — the Jewish answer to Norman Vincent Peale. Liebman’s successor, almost forty years later, Harold Kushner, who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He had similar success, largely because he could bring Jewish wisdom to Jews and gentiles alike. 

There was Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 1951, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine – the only time a rabbi has done so. The television show that he produced, “The Eternal Light,” had a national audience. In 1957, he persuaded Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren to spend a Sabbath at the Seminary studying Talmud.

There was, of course, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great theologian and social activist. While Abraham Joshua Heschel has many admirers, students and interpreters (including and especially Shai Held's new book), the most interesting and puzzling thing about Heschel is that he has no heirs.

Why have we stopped producing rabbis who can speak to America? Rabbis are far busier than they have ever been. Some congregations seem to value their rabbi’s public voice less than before. The rabbi's pastoral role seems more important than ever. Many congregations are quite vociferous in their wish not to hear “political” sermons. Secular Jewish organizations and their leaders have taken on most of what were once the “public” tasks of the rabbinate.

The odd thing? There were “public” American rabbis sixty years ago – before the internet, before the great technological advances that make communication so easy. And the odder thing? You would think that there are no national causes for which rabbis could be adding their voices. And they do. But again, in the immortal words of Tip O’Neill, all politics is local.

It is a violation of the tenth commandment to covet, but covet I do. I covet, for all American Jews, the example of Argentinian rabbi Sergio Bergman. He is a member of Argentina’s lower house of Parliament. He is the only rabbi in the world, outside of Israel, to have a seat in a national parliament.

And, it gets better. Rabbi Bergman skipped his first legislative session. Why? It was Shabbat.