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| THE CHRONICLE
ALUMNI CHANGING THE WORLD
“
A
s an ardent advocate for spiritual
practice in contemporary Jewish
life, Rabbi Rachel Cowan is having a sig-
nificant impact on the creativity and
enrichment of worship, liturgy, and ritual
throughout the Jewish community, its in-
stitutions, and congregations,” said Rabbi
Ellenson in presenting Rabbi Cowan with
the President’s Medallion at HUC-
JIR/Jerusalem’s Academic Convocation
on November 14, 2008.
Ordained at HUC-JIR/New York in 1989,
Rabbi Cowan was recognized for her groundbreak-
ing contributions to Jewish spirituality; as a guide to
the
Mezorim
Program at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem, which
is creating the language and vocation for a new pro-
fession of pastoral care-giving to serve Israelis at times
of illness, crisis, and joy; and for her ongoing inspira-
tion and support for HUC-JIR’s students and alumni.
In a recent article for
Sh’ma
,
Rabbi Cowan noted
that “finding ways to promote the spiritual forma-
tion, development, and nurturance of rabbis is a
critical issue for seminaries. As students develop skills
in studying and analyzing texts, teaching, preaching,
counseling, and leading services, they also need to un-
derstand the importance of cultivating their soul.”
Acknowledging that students emerge fromHUC-JIR
to enter intense lives in their professional placements,
she notes that “they need spiritual practices that
strengthen their
middot
,
their faith, their courage,
their equanimity, their sense of authenticity, their
prayer-life, and their vision, so that they can inspire
congregants and the larger community. These quali-
ties keep their rabbinate fresh and live, mitigating the
burnout and compassion fatigue that are dangerous
professional traps.”
Rabbi Cowan has witnessed this first-hand in her
capacity as Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality
(
IJS). The IJS seeks to develop, nurture, and disseminate through
mainstream Jewish institutions the vitally needed stream of contem-
plative Judaism that serves to enrich the inner lives of Jews, revitalize
the Jewish wisdom tradition, open Jewish institutions to new forms of
liturgical and ritual expression, and ultimately to link the search for
inner wholeness with social and environ-
mental activism. The IJS creates extensive
learning experiences for Jewish professionals
and lay people and supports Jewish profes-
sionals in creating environments in their own
communities that will provide such learning
opportunities for others. It guides Jewish in-
stitutions to develop their capacity to meet
more effectively the needs of their constituents
for a contemplative Jewish practice, and
nourishes a network of faculty and students
to support these goals. More than 50 Reform rabbis
have participated in the Institute’s rabbinical leader-
ship program and more than 20 Reform cantors
Pointing to the concept of “spiritual re-forma-
tion,” Rabbi Cowan advocates for the opportunity
to take the time and “look anew at our theology as
it evolves with life experience, to reconnect with
prayer.” This is crucial, she says, because “without a
spiritual practice of cultivating humility, clarity,
truthfulness, and discernment,” spiritual leaders
may run the risk of “not seeing how the power of
their ego can lead them to believe that they are ex-
empt from normative standards.” She believes that
the “core of spiritual formation for rabbis is simple:
God wants our heart; the essence of the spiritual life
is to work on ourselves; and we cannot teach au-
thentically when our role is divided from our soul.
We cannot give what we don’t possess.”
Rabbi Cowan received her B.A. in Sociology
from Bryn Mawr, and her M.S.S. from the Univer-
sity of Chicago. She served as the Director of the
Jewish Life and Values Program at the Nathan Cum-
mings Foundation and Director of Outreach at the
92
nd Street Y in New York.
Born to a Boston-based Unitarian family that
traces its roots to the Mayflower, Rabbi Cowan con-
verted to Judaism after sixteen years of marriage to the writer Paul
Cowan,
z”l
,
with whom she co-authored
M
i
xed Blessings: Untangling
The Knots in an Interfaith Marriage
and
A Torah is Written
.
She has
spent many years leading workshops for interfaith couples and ad-
vocating for Jewish communities to be more open to non-Jewish
spouses and to encourage their commitment to Judaism.
Rabbi
Rachel Cowan:
A Rabbi’s Rabbi
Jean Bloch Rosensaft
Rabbi Rachel Cowan, N ’89,
received the President’s Medal-
lion at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem
HUC-JIR ALUMNI
CHANGING THE WORLD
