Not a single person yesterday...
...during or after Shabbat morning services mentioned Avi, even though most knew the reason for me chanting the Torah.
Congregants and staff were probably reluctant to talk about Avi, lest they upset Susan, Chana or me.
On the contrary, Susie and I would have welcomed remembrances of Avi.
I recognize that no one who was present yesterday has taken a pastoral counseling or CPE course, either of which would have provided some insights and supervised experience with grief counseling. Such courses are required of rabbinical students in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements of Judaism. In the Orthodox world, some institutions like Yeshiva University and Chovevei Torah have requirements, but Haredi yeshivos generally do not.
Clergy who have not taken pastoral counseling o0r CPE are not only short-changing their congregants -- they are short-changing themselves.
Congregants and staff were probably reluctant to talk about Avi, lest they upset Susan, Chana or me.
On the contrary, Susie and I would have welcomed remembrances of Avi.
I recognize that no one who was present yesterday has taken a pastoral counseling or CPE course, either of which would have provided some insights and supervised experience with grief counseling. Such courses are required of rabbinical students in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements of Judaism. In the Orthodox world, some institutions like Yeshiva University and Chovevei Torah have requirements, but Haredi yeshivos generally do not.
Clergy who have not taken pastoral counseling o0r CPE are not only short-changing their congregants -- they are short-changing themselves.
posted by Jay Lapidus at 7:11 PM
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