Be All The Rabbi You Can Be

Andrew Goodman, above and below, has done three years of military chaplaincy training because “People are doing important and difficult jobs and it’s not fair for them to have to do it alone.”

by Carolyn Slutsky
Staff Writer

Waking at dawn to do calisthenics on the pep field with the plebes at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and gathering at night to sing the Navy fight song, “Anchors Aweigh,” is a far cry from rabbinical school training in New York City. But for Andrew Goodman, a fifth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, military life has come to feel almost as familiar as urban streets and Jewish learning.
Goodman has spent the past three summers at Naval bases across the country training to be a military chaplain. In a seminary geared toward preparing rabbis for the pulpit, in a country at war, this is not something he has undertaken lightly, but for Goodman, being a military chaplain has been

one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of his rabbinic education.
“At first I thought, ‘I won’t go into this program if Bush is re-elected,’” says Goodman of making the decision to do his first chaplaincy training at Camp Pendleton near San Diego. “But then when he was I said, ‘the need is so great that now that he is re-elected I feel like it’s so much more important for me to be there.’”
In his reading on military psychology, Goodman has learned how combatants need to subvert a piece of their humanity in order to kill, and by contrast why chaplains should not also be fighters.
“We shouldn’t wield weapons, we shouldn’t have to take those psychological processes and silence them,” he says. “We shouldn’t take that nurturing, caring part of us and deaden it in any way.”
Goodman’s apprehensions about serving run from concerns about the justness of the current war, worries about the future of Israel in the U.S. military program, along with questions about the don’t ask/don’t tell policy that discourages gays and lesbians from serving in the armed forces.
Ultimately, though, the issues servicemen and servicewomen face, dealing with transitions from civilian to military life, adjusting to deployment and then a return to family, financial and post-traumatic stresses and other spiritual crises the military begets, feel deeply connected to his reasons for becoming a rabbi.
“People are doing important and difficult jobs and it’s not fair for them to have to do it alone,” he says. “There has to be liberal clergy out there addressing these emotional, mental and spiritual needs.”
As the winds of war have shifted, so has the role of military chaplains. During the Vietnam War, the draft necessitated that rabbinical seminaries send graduating rabbis for active duty. At that time, many middle-aged men active in business and Jewish communal life were veterans of World War II, so there was much resonance between military rabbis and synagogues back home. When the draft ended in the early 1970s, the numbers of Jews in the military dropped, along with the number of rabbinical clergy.
Today, there are some 5,000 Jews in the military along with their 5,000 dependents, and 29 rabbis serving as chaplains in all branches of the military, according to Rabbi Harold Robinson, director of the Jewish Welfare Board-Jewish Chaplains Council, and a retired rear admiral. While 14 of these 29 are liberal clergy, only three come from the Reform movement, which Rabbi Robinson sees as troubling as most soldiers are liberal or secular Jews.
He says that during Vietnam there were some 70 rabbis in the military, in contrast to today’s 29, and that mobility is so limited in Iraq that it is often hard for rabbis to travel. The chaplains who are serving are spread ever thinner, delegating some duties to lay leaders or conducting a “drive-by shul,” where they can only stay with a congregation for a short while, and Rabbi Robinson observes a growing vulnerability on military bases to Jews for Jesus, who target disaffiliated Jews.
As the war rages on, Rabbi Robinson also observes a disconnect between American Jews and the military, one that he sees echoed within seminaries as well, and that he feels accounts in part for the dearth of rabbinical chaplains.
“We as Jews have forgotten that it’s our children serving. Those 10,000 Jews came from somewhere,” he says. “They came from everywhere.”
Rachael Bregman, a 31-year-old rabbinical student at HUC, grew up watching television commercials for the military and thinking it looked like an exciting career, but one she would never choose. However, this past summer she did a military chaplaincy training at the Naval Station in Newport, R.I., and at Camp Pendleton.
“I do want to be a rabbi and I’m not exactly sure how, something about that training and being able to serve that community of people is spiritually rich, and difficult,” she says. “Being involved in war and growing up and becoming an adult, big life issues like that, walking that path with someone really calls to me.”
Plus, she adds, “there’s something about getting to say I’m an officer in the US Navy that’s cool.”
After her summer training, Bregman traveled to the naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, to lead high holiday services. She functioned as the sole Jewish rabbinic presence there, similar to how her classmates were faring at far-flung Hillels and congregations in places like Arkansas.
As for serving in a time of war, it is something Bregman wrestles with. “What I am really clear about is that I’m there to serve the people in the job they are doing,” she says. “These are people following their hearts and dreams and it’s hard, and no one should have to do that alone.”
Heather Borshof was drawn to try military chaplaincy training after a three-month army program in Israel.
“It gave me an appreciation that these people risk their lives so we can live the lives we live in freedom,” she says.
Borshof, 31 and a third-year student, underwent rigorous training last summer with a group of medical students and lawyers who would ultimately serve the Air Force, then later joined a group of chaplain candidates in which she was the only Jew.
“I represented Judaism for all these people,” she says of the experience of working with nearly 50 Christians. “I was able to help them see that Judaism is a living religion and not just an ancient relic.”
She, too, questions the military’s politics over the war in Iraq, but feels the job of chaplain is to help guide the mostly liberal Jews who risk their lives to serve.
For Rabbi Shirley Idelson, dean of the New York campus of HUC, the military chaplaincy program is an important part of the education offered at the seminary, and a potentially attractive choice for new rabbis. She says that while the vast majority of students choose to serve congregations, she sees more interest in military and pastoral chaplaincies, chances to bring rabbinical leadership to often interfaith, less-traditional environments. Goodman, Bregman and Borshof have also spoken to their classmates about their military chaplaincy training in the hopes that others might be interested.
Despite the general opposition to the war among liberal Jews, Rabbi Idelson says policies like don’t ask/don’t tell are more of a deterrent to serving in the military for her students.
Still, she applauds those students who do choose to serve. “The fact that we’re in a time of war makes all the difference in the world. There’s a critical need right now to help these men and women,” she says.
While his colleagues have more rabbinical school to complete, Goodman prepares to receive his ordination later this year and faces a decision about whether to go active and commit to a three-year tour of duty. He is hesitant, but continues to feel pulled to serve.
“Being a military chaplain is like a calling within a calling,” says Goodman. “The first call is to be part of the clergy, and from there there has to be the extra fit to be part of the military. It’s not for everyone, and I feel lucky that I’ve found this and it feels like a good match.”