Chaplains in healthcare settings are often called upon to work in clinical ethics. Chaplain Karen Lieberman, Rabbi Jason Weiner and Rabbi Neal Loevinger discuss the intersection between the fields of chaplaincy and clinical ethics and challenges and opportunities that arise as a result.
Chaplains in healthcare settings are often called upon to work in clinical ethics. In this episode of the Neshamacast, Chaplain Karen Lieberman, Rabbi Jason Weiner and Rabbi Neal Loevinger discuss the intersection between the fields of chaplaincy and clinical ethics and challenges and opportunities that arise as a result.
About the guests on this episode
Chaplain Karen Lieberman, JD, MSJS, MA, BCC, serves as the Jewish Chaplain for the Midwest Region of Advocate Health. She is board-certified by NAJC and has worked in adult and pediatric hospital settings for over 15 years. Previously, Karen practiced law in both the public and private sectors and served as an adjunct law school faculty member at Marquette University. In addition to her law and Jewish studies degrees, Karen holds a master’s degree in bioethics and health policy. She has served on multiple hospital ethics committees and is the immediate past co-chair of the ethics committee at Aurora Medical Center—Grafton. She has a special interest in the intersection of law, medicine, ethics and spirituality.
Chaplain Lieberman is co-author of: “The Expanding Role of United States Healthcare Chaplains in Clinical Ethics,” from the Journal of Religion and Health, M. Jeanne Wirpsa, Nina Redl, Karen Lieberman & Krys Springer. She also contributed a chapter to Karen Pugliese & Jeanne Wirpsa, Eds., Chaplains As Partners in Medical Decision-Making, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
In addition, Chaplain Lieberman has published or been featured in a number of other articles in Plainviews, The APC Forum, The Journal of Legal Medicine, The Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, The Stanford Law Review, and The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
Rabbi Dr. Jason Weiner, BCC, is the senior rabbi and executive director of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where he oversees the chaplaincy team and all spiritual care services across the health system. He also serves as rabbi of Knesset Israel Synagogue of Beverlywood and as a senior consultant to Ematai.
Formerly the assistant rabbi at Young Israel of Century City, Rabbi Weiner holds two rabbinic ordinations, a doctorate in clinical bioethics, a master’s in bioethics and health policy from Loyola University (Chicago), and a master’s in Jewish history from Yeshiva University. He completed four units of clinical pastoral education and is a board-certified chaplain.
He serves on the executive committee of the Cedars-Sinai Bioethics Committee and is a past president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis. He has received chaplaincy and rabbinic leadership awards from the Rabbinical Council of America, Orthodox Union, Chabad On-Call, Chai Lifeline, and Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains, where he chairs their ethics committee. In 2023, he donated a kidney to a stranger.
Rabbi Weiner frequently lectures nationwide as a scholar-in-residence on Jewish medical ethics, pastoral care, and wellness, and teaches hands-on Jewish medical ethics to high school students throughout Los Angeles.
In addition to dozens of articles and book chapters, he is the author of Guide to Observance of Jewish Law in a Hospital (Kodesh Press), Jewish Guide to Practical Medical Decision-Making (Urim Press), cited in a Supreme Court brief, and Care and Covenant: A Jewish Bioethic of Responsibility (Georgetown University Press), a finalist for the Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Book Prize.
Rabbi Dr. Neal Loevinger, BCC, is the director of Spiritual Care and the Ethics Coordinator at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, in Poughkeepsie, New York, now part of Northwell Health. He has held rabbinic positions in Toronto, Massachusetts and New York, and has studied at both the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Neal also holds a Master of Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto, a Doctor of Ministry degree from Hartford Seminary, now called Hartford International University, and a Certificate in Clinical Ethics from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he is slowly working on a Master's Degree in clinical ethics.
He currently also serves as the rabbi of Congregation Temple Beth-El, in Kauneonga Lake, NY, the heart of the Borscht Belt, and is the kosher supervisor for the Vassar College kosher kitchen.