Rabbi Nancy Wiener, D.Min.

Rabbi Nancy H. Wiener, D.Min, is the Founding Director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling at HUC-JIR/New York. She was named the Dr. Paul and Trudy Steinberg Distinguished Professor in Human Relations in 2012. She also serves as the rabbinical program’s Fieldwork Coordinator. Rabbi Wiener was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1990, where she also received an M.A. in Hebrew Letters in 1988. She earned a Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Counseling from HUC-JIR in 1994. Dr. Wiener is a board-certified chaplain with the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and holds a certificate in Pastoral Counseling from the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, New York. She earned an M.Phil. in Jewish History from Columbia University in 1986 and her B.A. magna cum laude in 1980 from Brandeis University.

As the Director of the Blaustein Center, Rabbi Wiener has created a program that integrates coursework, fieldwork, supervision, and mentoring, so that students can reflect on dynamic ways in which their work and study contribute to their intellectual, spiritual, and psychological lives and the lives of those with whom they work. Dr. Wiener’s innovations have resulted in changes in the pastoral care and counseling and fieldwork programs at all of HUC-JIR’s campuses and at other Jewish seminaries as well. She helped create and teaches the integrative seminars that are now the hallmark of the Professional Development required courses on the New York campus. She also offers electives in pastoral counseling and co-teaches an elective with Professor Merri Lovinger Arian on The Art of Creating Meaningful Worship. Dr. Wiener has been a consultant from the inception of the Blaustein Center in Jerusalem, and taught its first cohort of Israeli professionals. For over 20 years, Rabbi Wiener served the Pound Ridge Jewish Community, a small chavurah in northern Westchester, as its rabbi, finding the work fulfilling and a source of constant enrichment for her supervision and teaching. 

Rabbi Wiener has been a pioneer in the exploration of how Moral Injury and Soul Repair and the Jewish tradition relate to each other. She has conducted research, published articles, and taught at national conferences on Understanding Moral Injury and Soul Repair from a Jewish perspective. In the spring of 2021, she co-chaired the first ever Moral Injury conference focusing on Jewish teachings and values. Throughout the Covid pandemic she offered virtual workshops for rabbis and mental health professionals on Moral Injury and Jewish teachings. Rabbi Wiener also serves on the advisory board of the The Soul Repair Center at Brite Seminary. This work serves as a complement to the work she did during her 2013 sabbatical, where she studied with Father Michael Lapsley at the Institute for the Healing of Memories in Cape Town, South Africa.  

Rabbi Wiener has been on the seminary faculty of FASPE (Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics). She is a certified facilitator-trainer for Respecting Choices, a national program for Advanced Care Planning conversations. She is also on the board of What Matters, a New York based affiliate of Respecting Choices. In 2001, Rabbi Wiener offered counseling at Ground Zero to first responders, and to individuals and families at emergency family centers following 9/11 under the auspices of the Red Cross Disaster Spiritual Care Unit. She was also trained to train other clergy to respond to September 11.  

In the 1990’s, Rabbi Wiener helped draft the resolution passed by the CCAR on officiation at ceremonies for Gay and Lesbian couples, created materials for CCAR members to use for pre-marital counseling and same-sex ceremonies, and helped draft the CCAR’s first official statement regarding transgender Jews. She served on the UAHC (predecessor to the URJ) Gay and Lesbian Inclusion Committee, URJ Departments of Jewish Family Concerns and Outreach and Inclusion, committees, as well as a range of UJA/Federation Task Forces.  

Rabbi Wiener sits on the national board of T’ruah: The Jewish Call for Human Rights, and was its past co-chair. She is active in Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in New York City.

Rabbi Wiener has written 4 books and over 20 articles.