Last week, seventeen new rabbinical students began their studies with Hebrew Union College. None of them sold their house, or moved to a new town, to do it. And still, to launch their studies as Rabbinical School students, we gathered, as all HUC students do, in-person. On our first day together, I stood in front of them, at the opening of our HUC Cincinnati in-person intensive and asked them to sit with three questions: What is a rabbi? What values will guide you as a rabbi? And what does it mean to become a rabbi through a virtual program? Their answers were all true.

What is a rabbi? Pirkei Avot offers a less than satisfying answer, describing a chain of command: Moses received Torah at Sinai and handed it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly, hand to hand, down to us, transactional but perhaps also ephemeral at one and the same time.

We know what a rabbi does: writes a sermon. Leads services. Teaches Torah. Officiates a wedding. Sits with a mourner. Runs a board meeting. Organizes a community. All true. And all incomplete, because underneath the list is the chain in which they are now links, imparting something of deep value.

Leading us to the second question, what are the values that are most important to you in your rabbinate? Being the rabbi who hands people a text and helps them wrestle with it? Or a pastor, the one who shows up when everything else has fallen away? A........

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