Rabbi Stephen Roberts, BCC, MBA, reflects on his life and career in chaplaincy as well as his personal experience as an openly gay man and one of the first openly gay rabbinical students ordained at HUC-JIR. He discusses how he has navigated being true to himself while also forging relationships with more traditionalist colleagues and promoting and embracing a culture of inclusion throughout the field of chaplaincy. He also makes a compelling case for the importance of NAJC and its mission to promote Jewish spiritual care.
Rabbi Chaplain Stephen Roberts is a leading practitioner and teacher in the field of professional chaplaincy. He has written, edited and co-edited vital works that have become standard reading for CPE classes and chaplains in the field. These include his edited work Professional Spiritual and Pastoral Care: A Practical Clergy and Chaplain's Handbook, the first comprehensive resource for spiritual and pastoral care. He is also co-editor of Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy.
Earlier in his career Rabbi Roberts served as Director of Pastoral Care for the Beth Israel Hospital System (NY). He has served as Associate Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis and oversaw pastoral care services to over fifty facilities in New York City, Long Island and Westchester. Rabbi Roberts has served on American Red Cross' National Spiritual Care Oversight Committee since 2000.
Rabbi Roberts current focus as a chaplain is helping chaplains develop professionally through the organization ChaplainDL.ORG - Chaplain Distance Learning.
Rabbi Roberts has a Masters in Business from The Wharton School in Philadelphia, PA. He was ordained from Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1995.
A Board Certified Chaplain, Rabbi Roberts is a past president of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains and was instrumental in helping create the joint chaplaincy national standards. He is editing a textbook on required competencies for chaplains pursuing board certification.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Shalom and welcome to NeshamahCast, exploring Jewish spiritual care today. Brought to you by Neshamah, Association of Jewish Chaplains. I'm your host, Rabbi Ed Bernstein. When it comes to the field of chaplaincy in North America, our guest, Rabbi Chaplain Stephen Roberts, has seen and done it all. He has been a leading practitioner and teacher. He has written or edited or co-edited vital works that have become standard reading for CPE classes and chaplains in the field. These include his edited work, Professional Spiritual and Pastoral Care, a practical clergy and chaplain's handbook, the first comprehensive resource for spiritual and pastoral care. He is also co-editor of Disaster Spiritual Care, Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional, and National Tragedy. Earlier in his career, Rabbi Roberts served as Director of Pastoral Care for the Beth Israel Hospital System in New York. He has served as Associate Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis and oversaw pastoral care services to over 50 facilities in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester. Rabbi Roberts has served on American Red Cross's National Spiritual Care Oversight Committee since 2000. Rabbi Roberts is Current focus as a chaplain is as an educational entrepreneur. Rabbi Roberts helps chaplains develop professionally through the organization chaplaindl.org, chaplain distance learning. Full disclosure, I am a proud recipient of a certificate in disaster spiritual care in 2019 through the chaplain DL program. Rabbi Roberts has a master's in business administration from the Wharton School in Philadelphia. He was ordained from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1995. A board-certified chaplain, Rabbi Roberts is a past president of Neshamah Association of Jewish Chaplains, and was instrumental in helping to create the Joint Chaplaincy National Standards. Rabbi Stephen Roberts, welcome to Neshamah Cast. It is an honor to have you.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Shalom Aleichem. It is such a, really a bracha, a blessing to be here.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
As I noted in the intro, you are a trailblazer in the field of professional chaplaincy. I'm interested today especially in the spiritual and religious backstory of Rabbi Chaplain Stephen Roberts. What was your spiritual life like growing up and what was the path you followed in your youth and young adulthood that led you to spiritual leadership?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So I grew up in a religiously observant Reconstructionist home. We always lit Shabbos candles. The only meal of the week we were required to be at was Friday night. My father got up every morning and davened (prayed), laid tefilin. Whether we went with him or not, he went to Shabbat morning services. I grew up going to Jewish summer camps. and Judaism was a central part of our life. As I said, we're religiously observant, but from a Reconstructionist perspective, Mordecai Kaplan was a friend of my parents, and that's how my parents identified. I'm one of six children. You grew up in South Florida? I grew up in West Palm. My family's been part of South Florida for over 100 years. If anyone ever makes it to the Jewish Museum in Miami, my family's well-represented there.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
I'll look for you next time I'm there. I'm in Boynton Beach.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts:
So during college, I stayed very active. I actually did a junior year abroad at the University of Haifa. It had always been a dream of mine to live and study in Israel, which I did. Loved Haifa. Haifa, to me as a Jew, was the perfect city for me. It was, in some ways, very much like a Reconstructionist Jew, or a modern Jew. The buses and everything shut down Shabbat evening, and Shabbat morning the buses were open for all of us to go and enjoy the beach, which we did. There was that perfect mix of choice, of religious choice in Haifa. To this day, when I'm in Israel, I still find myself spiritually at home in Haifa. I think that, like chaplains, seems to meet one where they are. It allows one to make meaning and choose how they wish to live religiously. And that's always been important to me. I was very involved Jewishly in college. I actually ran the UJA campaign. I was involved in a Jewish fraternity. I'm involved in Hillel. Upon graduation, I worked for a couple years, and then I went back to school in Philadelphia from Florida, received my MBA, and at that time I became very active in a small congregation, which over the course of my involvement, I actually led it to become a member of the Reform Movement when I was president of the congregation. And after we affiliated, I had been working in corporate America for many years, I went through a downsizing, and I did a lot of really deep spiritual work. And when I attended the National Reform Movement Biennial on Shabbat afternoon was when I, to use a Christian term, had a calling. It became very clear to me, I was with two colleagues, that what I wanted to do wasn't to be in business, but rather to be a leader of the Jewish community and use my training in that. When I started rabbinic school, I never thought I would end up in chaplaincy. I was very blessed between my third and fourth year to take a unit of CPE, and the world changed for me. I found home. I found what I loved doing, which is meeting people where they are, where every single day I get to sit with someone as they struggle with God, higher power, creator, the source, however they understand that, where they really explore what does it mean to believe and how does that belief play a part in their life in a moment of crisis.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
How did you find your way specifically to the reform movement with your deep roots in the Reconstructionist movement?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So as I said, I had led my congregation through a long discernment process. We'd actually were in Philadelphia. We'd had a part-time Reconstructionist rabbi. And it became clear to me that the place that the congregation most lived was in the Reform Movement, and I met a number of colleagues who, when I decided to become a rabbi, all of them encouraged me strongly to apply to HUC, which I did. And I was one of the first three openly LGBTQ students accepted at HUC. I didn't apply because I was gay. I applied because I wanted to be a rabbi, but I was also able to continue to change the world.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Well, if we can, I'd like to delve into the coming out story a bit. We are going to drop this podcast in June during Pride Month, and that's a part of your story.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So I'm wondering... Very much a part of my story as a person, not so much a part of my story as a chaplain, because we chaplains, the work we do is about meeting somebody else. I almost never disclose anything personal about me. Currently, I'm working on a new book for the field. It's focused specifically on the standards. One of our standards is respect about boundaries, emotional boundaries. And one of the things that we constantly teach is one in our world almost never self-discloses. So most of the people I've worked with over the years have no idea about any of those parts of me that really matter. And that's a professional practice. But all my colleagues have always known. I've always been out and always shared my story to those who are interested.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Right. So I'm wondering if you could take us back to the 1980s. I believe Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was the first of the liberal seminaries to admit openly gay students. And you were among the first to attend HUC when they began admitting openly gay students. And my alma mater, JTS, came much later, well after I graduated in 2007. What was the landscape like then? And if you're comfortable, if you could share a little bit of coming out to yourself and coming out to others and how that shaped your path.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Sure. As I said, I grew up in a Reconstructionist household, but we attended a conservative congregation, as there were no Reconstructionist congregations in South Florida in the 1970s. No one even knew what Reconstructionist Judaism was. So we grew up in a traditional non-egalitarian conservative congregation where every Yom Kippur, I kept hearing that I was a sin. I grew up really understanding that I had to choose between being a happy gay man or being Jewish. That Judaism at that point was binary. You couldn't be gay and be Jewish. And when I first came out, there were no LGBTQ outreach congregations. And it was a very painful process for me because I have always been observantly Jewish. People are amazed when I tell them I've never had eaten lobster in my entire life. They're like, how can you do that? And I said, because I grew up kosher style. We grew up in a small community where it was impossible for my parents to keep kosher. The house was always kosher style. I've never eaten shellfish. But it seemed to me that in high school, I was being offered two paths that were non-connected, and it was a painful process. I remember near the end of my senior year at the Hillel at one point crying at the last services thinking that Judaism might not be a part of my life after that.
When I came out to my parents, they were not the most accepting. They were accepting, but I had a fear growing up that they would sit shiva for me. For those who don't know what that means, I was afraid that when I came out to my parents, they would declare me dead and they would cut me off. And that, by the way, happens up until this day. I know Jews who, when they come out to their families, have been declared dead, and their parents have literally sat for them as being dead. And that was a real fear of mine growing up. As I said, my father got up every morning and davened. And even though they were liberal Jews in the 70s, this was the time of Anita Bryant. I came out right at the heart of Anita Bryant in South Florida.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Who is that?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Oh, yes. Thank you. For those who don't know, in the mid-1970s, Dade County passed an anti-discrimination law regarding the LGBTQ community. Anita Bryant, who at that time was one of the best known actresses. She was known as the speaker for orange juice. In the 70s, you couldn't go anywhere without Anita Bryant being in your face. She led a active repeal movement to overturn the ban, which was very successful. And that was in South Florida. And I was in all the target markets where people were talking about how awful gay people were. And my parents never said anything otherwise. So I had lots of reasons to be fearful. When I came out and moved to my first job in Atlanta, Georgia, was the very first time that I was able to attend an outreach meeting of Jews. And it changed my life. I finally gathered with other Jews who really said one can be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and Jewish. And it truly changed my life. And later, when I was accepted and went to graduate school in Philadelphia, I joined an LGBTQ congregation and really found a way to integrate all of who I was. I was in a place of both shalom and shlemut, a place of peace, shalom, and shlemut wholeness.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
In 2018, I had the privilege of having a lunch meeting with our late colleague, Rabbi Raphael Goldstein, of blessed memory, who was then still the executive director of Neshamah. And he was reaching out to me to get more involved in Neshamah, and we had an extensive conversation. Tragically, Rabbi Goldstein died of cancer much too young, just a few years ago. But over lunch, we were comparing notes about our careers. And Rabbi Goldstein said that he was one of a group of rabbis who were ordained at HUC in the early 1990s who were openly gay. And I remember him saying that even though the Reform Movement provided rabbinic ordination, there were not many opportunities in the pulpit rabbinate at that time for openly gay rabbis. And he said that was a major factor in why he and other openly gay rabbis went into the field of chaplaincy. I remember Rabbi Goldstein telling me about his serving as a chaplain in the early 90s to men who were dying of AIDS, and that was when the rest of society was turning their backs on them. I'm wondering if my recollection of Raphael's analysis resonates with you, and can you help set the scene a bit more from your perspective? What was going on 30 to 35 years ago in the Jewish world and in the broader society, and how did that influence your path to your chaplaincy?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So I was really blessed. I never imagined myself doing congregational work after I did my first unit of CPE. It was clear to me that I was going to become a chaplain, and I went into chaplaincy as my first choice. There had been some colleagues already openly gay and lesbian who'd been hired, but for me, the world of chaplaincy was my calling. However, I did live by a don't ask, don't tell in the early days within the NAJC, within Neshamah. I never was in the closet, but because Neshamah is one of the few organizations in which Jews across the spectrum, rabbis, cantors, others, really work together, it was clear to me that to honor the organization, that it was a place in which I really lived. Don't ask, don't tell. And those who asked, I told. And those who didn't, and they all knew. I mean, even though Lashon Hara gossip is forbidden, it happens. All my colleagues knew that I was gay, but I never discussed it as to honor who we are as an organization up until this day. It's about meeting my colleagues where they are, about NAJC being the most effective Jewish organization, I think, in the world as it comes to rabbis across the spectrum working together. There is no other organization like the NAJC. It just doesn't exist in the Jewish world. It used to exist, but it doesn't any longer. And so as a member of this unique organization, part of my very open and practical decisions of respect was to have chosen Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And to this day, when I'm in an NAJC environment, that is how I honor my other colleagues who see the world differently from me, but all of us see chaplaincy the same. And what the NAJC really is about is about what we Jews have in common, not what we Jews have not in common, and that's unique. It is truly a nes gadol, a true great miracle is what those means when I think about who the NAJC is.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
In the last 30 to 35 years or so when you started your rabbinic journey, what has changed for the better in terms of inclusion of gays and lesbians and what work still needs to be done?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So the world of inclusion is not just gays and lesbians. It's about people of color, which the Jewish world is soon is around in America, North America is currently at least 10% people of color. Inclusion is about gender equality. Inclusion is about making sure that Sephardi Jews and their culture is respected, and it's about really one of our standards as a board-certified chaplain is respecting cultural differences. Another standard that we have as board-certified chaplains is being able to meet people wherever they are, including the gender line, the sexual orientation, marital status, to be a board-certified chaplain. It means meeting somebody where they are. That was not explicit when I started in the field, and that's been a major change in the field, both within the Jewish world and within the larger world. A very clear acceptance of different cultures, different sexualities, different sexual orientations, and to the point where an Orthodox, a self-identified Orthodox rabbi, can openly work with an openly lesbian Black woman. That's what the NAJC allows us. That's what our training allows us to do. Our training allows us to meet somebody where they are without giving up the core of our own religious beliefs. And that's really what professional chaplaincy is about. It's about I as a Jew, living my true Jewish values, but through my training also being able to help others live and meet where their Jewish values are.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
So we've made enormous strides as a community in the last generation or so. What more work do we as a community have to do?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
We have to live our values, and that takes generations, that takes time, that takes work on a whole range of issues. We have made tremendous drives, and now it is about those values being lived to the point of people not thinking about it. As I trained as a chaplain, people often don't know that as a board-certified chaplain, we do at least 1,600 hours of supervised training. we learn skills that become second nature to us. Acceptance in the Jewish community is not yet in that place of second nature. It is for a board-certified chaplain, but the larger Jewish community is still learning acceptance as second nature. I wish the whole Jewish community could get trained in chaplaincy. We'd have a radically different Jewish world. We would have a world in which, I think, that Hillel and Shammai, our great rabbis, would look at and say, this is what it means to be a Jew. And that Moses Rabbeinu would look at this and say, this is my teachings about what it means to live in a modern world. Moses Rabbeinu, if all Jews were taught in chaplaincy, would say, I don't necessarily understand the words, but the inclusion, I understand.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
So wonderful thing to dream about.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
And I've seen it. I've seen the Jewish world continue to change. And Neshamah has always been a leader in the change. And Neshamah really, our members believe that we meet people where they are. We are not the teachers and preachers of the Jewish. movement. We are the people who allow others to make meaning of situations they find themselves in. And that is a radical difference between what rabbis and cantors do in congregational life and what rabbis and cantors and board-certified Jewish chaplains who are not rabbis and cantors do as chaplains. Very different work. The same training is required, but how we use that training is very different.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
I read that you served a congregation on a part-time basis in North Carolina. Do you still have that part-time pulpit?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
No, I spent nine years in the middle of the Appalachians as an openly gay rabbi. It was a community that my family was and is part of for over six decades. And when the opportunity came to serve, it was a great way for me to give back because they were a small congregation and normatively would not have got somebody coming of my caliber who wasn't retired. It really allowed me, even in a small community, to lead just by being who I was. I had encouraged them for years to hire somebody full-time, and they did, and I left, and it was truly a blessing. This was a community that always should have had somebody full-time after a couple of years, and they finally, I was thrilled when they brought somebody full-time into the community, because that's what that community needed.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
So as someone who lives year round in New York, what was it like to go from the relative safety of New York City with its progressive environment to Appalachian, North Carolina? What did you encounter in that more conservative environment?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So I am actually a Southern Jew raised in the Deep South. When I grew up in Florida in the 60s, it was the Deep South. One of my formative experiences was being beaten up in second grade by a lot of other elementary school children and taunted about being Jewish, called the K word, and lots of just open anti-Semitic languages. I was being beaten up in second grade by other elementary school students. My parents then had to go and deal with it. So from a young age, as a Southern Jew, I had no expectations about the world being a kind place to Jews.
Another normative experience of mine was when I was 11 or 12, visiting my aunt and was in her swimming pool with the neighbors next door. And there was a girl of the same age and said, I'm really sorry you're going to hell as a Jew. She said, you're a really nice person. You should really think about Christ in your life. Otherwise, you're going to live in hell.
So the Appalachian, the world of the Appalachians was the world in which I grew up. It was a world and is a world in which people say what they think. It's not like many other parts of the country where people think it but don't say it. I knew exactly where I stood. I have an undergraduate degree in agriculture. I was one of three students in a college of 2,000 people. People said things in front of me. I remember one place in particular, I was driving to a National Agricultural Honor Society induction dinner where the driver started talking about the Jewish problem of South Florida. I was one of three people. And he went on and on and he finally said to me, you're not Jewish, are you? And I laughingly said, of course I am. And he went on and he finally stopped. and looked at the other two and said, he's not, is he? And they went, yep, he's a member, and mentioned my Jewish fraternity. And the guy just shut up. But in the Deep South, I knew what people were thinking. And for me, as a Jew, and now as a rabbi, it's always been important when doing life with you and those whom I meet, it's important for me to be able to meet someone and hear those stories and affirm stories, the stories of great love, but also the stories of great hurt, and affirm the true lived lives of we Jews, whether we grew up in New York City, surrounded by other Jews, or we grew up in South Florida, I knew every single Jewish kid in Palm Beach County when I grew up. There were 13 of us. There were two synagogues, a temple and a synagogue. I knew every Jewish kid when I was growing up, and that has really impacted my life and my life as a chaplain.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
what you were saying just triggered something in my mind. The online edition of Haaretz published yesterday an article about how in middle America, in red state America, there is a growing trend of people who grew up in Christian communities who come out of the closet who are LGBTQ and they gravitate to the local synagogues and there's a boom of conversion in local synagogues in red state of America among LGBTQ people because that's where they can feel accepted and come into religious life in the fullness of their being.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
And I think if you look at the number of Jewish chaplains in relationship to our percentage of all chaplains and of the world, we're, again, disproportionately represented. Because as chaplains, so much about the work we do is about tikkun olam, about repairing the world, specifically tikkun olam with somebody in the image of God. And that is a really basic concept. And it feels natural that the other Jews that I've talked with who are chaplains across the spectrum, most are, it's such a natural place to be because we're living our values, whether it's as a reform openly gay Jewish man, or I've worked with a woman Holocaust survivor with tattoos on her arm who self-identifies as Chabad. All of us have these values within us. Jews are really comfortable in the world of chaplaincy.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
I think that's what Rabbi Goldstein was getting at a bit when he was reflecting on his career path and that conversation.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
And it's really interesting because if you see the leadership of the NAJC, our leadership always is rotating through. You have no idea who our next leader is. We're as likely to have an observant, self-identified Orthodox woman who's not a rabbi lead our organization. with all the training as we are to have a mainstream male white conservative rabbi, or to have an openly gay reform rabbi lead our organization. Those are the values of inclusion which the NAJC really lives by, but it also reflects who finds chaplaincy, and we are really the only place in the Jewish world where Jews across the spectrum regularly sit in dialogue about what we have in common, can agree about what we have in common, and can agree about very practical theological issues and agree to disagree in a respectful way on the areas we don't agree on. And unfortunately, there's no other place but Nashama.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
I couldn't agree more, and that's why I'm proud to be part of Nashama. I want to shift gears a bit to a vital aspect of your professional identity. Last fall, our colleague Rabbi Shira Stern was on the Shama Cast for an extensive discussion about her chaplaincy in disaster spiritual care. We covered several of the incidents to which she was deployed on behalf of the American Red Cross, and I encourage listeners to check out that interview in our feed. But you literally wrote a book on disaster spiritual care, and I had the privilege of taking your online course on disaster spiritual care. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about this area of your chaplaincy. First, as with Rabbi Stern, everything you do for the American Red Cross is as a volunteer, correct?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Absolutely. As rabbis and leaders of the Jewish community, I strongly believe as a rabbi I must volunteer my specific specialty as a rabbi where it can be used and not be remunerated. To me, it's a part of self-care. We expect the Yidden, Jewish lay people, to volunteer. And we are Yidden as leaders of faith communities, and we need to lead by example. So since 1999, I've been a volunteer of American Red Cross. I've given a lot of money, but I've given it tens of thousands of hours of volunteer service.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
And you've been open about sharing a bit of your family history. I believe you also have a family history of volunteering for the Red Cross going back to your grandfather. Is that right?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
That is correct. He had a 50-year pin. One of the few Jews who was willing to fight the non-welcoming nature of American Red Cross back then, but he really is and was an inspiration about volunteerism.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
In your textbook, you lay out for the students, for the readers, what you describe as the life cycle of a disaster. Could you summarize what the life cycle of a disaster looks like?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Sure. Disasters have an ebb and flow. In some cases, you have a warning. And then when the disaster happens is when everyone's adrenaline is up and everyone comes together. It's amazing after disasters. If you were to show up after a big disaster three days later, you would think the world is a perfect place because everyone is normally working together. And that's a high point. You know, it's that place in which everyone feels good. And so it goes up. And then you begin a long downward stretch in which the reality of the disaster is. My home here in New York was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. I've lived that. I remember the vital spiritual care that I received from one of our colleagues. Seth Bernstein is one of our colleagues. And randomly, right, a few days after my home had been destroyed, Seth was in New York, and I got vital disaster spiritual care from Seth and really made an impact. And so then there's this long period in which life is troubled. I spent a year fighting with insurance companies, which is common, you know, rebuilding, and it's exhausting. And you reach, then, this bottom point. And then, like in the Jewish world, where we start at Rosh Hashanah, and we live, and we have the high points and the low points, we make it back again to Rosh Hashanah, but it's a new Rosh Hashanah, and we are a new person. And we never go back to who we were before. But hopefully, we find a way to be able to incorporate our experiences as disaster survivors, and to move on in a new life.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
When I spoke with Rabbi Stern last fall, we had met initially in September 2023. Then while the program was in production, October 7th happened. So Rabbi Stern returned to share initial reflections in the first days after October 7th, as the disaster was unfolding before our eyes. Now we're eight months later. As we speak, there are still some 128 hostages in Gaza kidnapped from Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced from their homes. An entire country is traumatized by the violence. And that's just on the Israeli side. The Palestinian people of Gaza are facing their own catastrophe. What stage of the disaster lifecycle is Israel in right now? And how are you, as an expert in disaster spiritual care, making sense of all this? What have you heard from colleagues in the field in Israel about how they are helping the community through this crisis?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So let me do two separate answers. One, the life cycle of a disaster, you can be at multiple places at the same time. There can be communal and personal. And in this case, Israel is in multiple stages simultaneously because there are hostages. They are still in an active disaster. So they're still stuck at that beginning area. But because there have been so many deaths, people are already going through that process. This is a very complicated disaster because of its ongoing nature, because of the war that then followed, because of the fact of hostages, because of the fact that it involved children, it is truly one of the worst ongoing disasters that a country can face, because it's still going on. The bracha for me is that the NAJC, I was actually at the first organizing meeting in Israel that began the movement of spiritual care. Cecile Asikoff, our previous executive director, had not been able to make a meeting, and I got a call 24 hours before a meeting was to take place in Israel, hopped on a plane, and actually was there when our Israeli colleagues decided to begin creating their own world. And the world of disaster spiritual care of chaplaincy of Neshamah in Israel is very now well developed.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Yeah, we had Valerie Stessin on NeshamahCast as well, also in the immediate days after October 7th.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Right. There is not a lot of need for me as an American to step into Israel. And I have to tell you, what I've actually been doing since then is I've been involved in writing another book for the field. And that's really had most of my time at this point. Our standards were just changed in January. We've added all sorts of new material, and I'm writing a new textbook that really focuses on the standards of chaplaincy. And as much as I would love to be involved in Israel as a non-congregational rabbi at the current time, as a chaplain, most of my energy has always been focused on education, and I'm hopefully by June or July the book will be finished.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Yeah, please share more about the book, why it's needed now and what you hope to achieve with it.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So the book is being produced by Chaplain DL, Chaplain Distance Learning. They are the organization behind it. So chaplains live by very clear standards for certification. Board certified chaplains like board certified physicians or board certified vets we have very exacting standards that we must meet to get the title board certified. Starting with, in addition to a master's level in Judaic studies from a Jewish institution, and I say that, somebody once applied who had a master's from Harvard Theological Seminary, and we said to that person, it's a nice degree, it's not a Jewish degree teaching Jewish values. If you want to be a member of NAJC, we need additional training. And they're like, no. And we said, well, we are a Jewish organization. Our standard is Jewish training. So you have to have a master's level from a Judaic institution or its equivalent. We have a number of ultra-Orthodox yeshivish and Hasidic rabbis who all have that equivalent training, and we accept that training. It's one of the ways where we meet people where they are. So we require that master's level, and then we require 1,600 hours of supervised training. And once you've done all of that, then there are 29 standards for certification that somebody must reach. Unfortunately, at the current time, there isn't a single source that somebody can look at and say, what does this standard actually mean? So one of our standards is respect for physical, emotional, cultural and spiritual values of the person we're working with. That is PPS4. What does that mean as a practitioner? What does it mean for somebody who's teaching the field? And at the current time, there is not a place somebody can just go and say, oh, that's what this means. That's how I learned to do this. We have the standards. We don't have the reference material. And that's what I'm working on. I'm going standard by standard, detailing what the standard means and how a professional chaplain uses these standards. I'm excited. It builds upon the other three books that I've either edited or co-edited. It builds upon the book, Professional Spiritual and Pastoral Care, which is a basic textbook. It also, there's a bit involved with the basic textbook on research in the field. And this is an additional resource for us in the field, for Jews, for Christians, for Catholics, for Muslims, for Hindus. Like all the work we do as chaplains, it is non-faith specific. And I'm really excited.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
I am too. Beshara Tova should come out at a good time and be used well by our colleagues and future colleagues. I have a bonus question. In 2016, you ran for public office, New York State Senate, and you fell a bit short. Did you get that out of your system then or could you see yourself running again in the future?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
So I don't think I fell short. I didn't get elected, but I did change the world. I was the first person in New York state to make it on the ballot without a party in over three decades. What I set out to do was to truly run without a party. And I had to get the same amount of signatures as the governor did to get on the ballot. I ran to really make a statement about the place of ethics in government. And I think I had an impact. I know at least I had an impact with the person I ran against because he's changed some of his ways. But it was always about the volunteerism. It was important for me to volunteer to do something. It wasn't about the winning. It was about the doing. We as chaplains rarely are about the doing. We are about the being with those. And so this gave me an opportunity to do something that I wouldn't do as a chaplain, which was the doing. instead of what I love doing and do so often, which is just the being with the Yidam. Where we find our brothers, our sisters, that's really where I'm blessed to be.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
As we near our conclusion, do you have any additional messages that you wish to add about Pride Month, managing the challenging times that we're in, or anything else on your mind that you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
There is. Neshama, N-A-J-C, is a full volunteer organization. We are the largest group doing interfaith work in America. The largest Jewish group. Day in and day out, we are involved in helping non-Jews understand Jews. If what you think we do as Jewish chaplains, as members of Neshama, has meaning, make a donation as large as you can. That's what you can do to support the work of all of the chaplains who are out there, day in and day out, representing the Jewish world. In many cases, to the non-Jewish world, we are often the only time many non-Jews will ever meet a Jew. Many of us work isolated in non-Jewish communities, and yet we're out there proudly as Jews. But we can't do it without Neshama, the Association of Jewish Chaplains, and we can't do it without donors who support it. I give. I beg you to give as well.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
This may be the most profitable episode of NeshamaCast to date.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
As a past president and a past treasurer and a leader of the field, it would be remiss upon me truly not to really remind people that the NAJC is an important, vital Jewish organization in the Jewish community, and that we always need the Jewish community's support because we are there for you. If there's a disaster, one of our trained professional members will be there anywhere in the country. If you find yourself in a long-term care facility, our trained members are going to be there working with you and your family. If you find yourself or your loved one in a hospice situation, there will be a board-certified Jewish chaplain. available to you. If our loved one is struggling with mental health and end up in a behavioral health hospital, we have board-certified chaplains with specialty in that field. If you end up having a child with an illness, I've spent years as a pediatric board-certified Jewish chaplain. We are going to be where you, the listener, are, and our only request is to meet us where we are, and that's to help fund this organization. We cannot do it without the shekel, without the dollar. And we need your contributions. And $18 makes a difference. Those of you who can afford $180 or $1,800 or $18,000, open up your credit card. No one writes checks these days. And get online and make a donation as large as you can.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Well said. Rabbi Stephen Roberts, you are a chaplain's chaplain. Thank you so much for coming on the Shammah cast. May you be blessed with courage and strength to continue your sacred work.
Rabbi Stephen Roberts
Thank you, and thank you so much for doing this. I am so excited to see our organization. And we are truly one of the leaders. We've always been leaders in the field. We are the first organization making use of regular social media this way. And I am so grateful for you. continuing to allow the Jewish community to lead the larger world. Todah Rabah, thank you so much for taking this major task on. It is truly a bracha, a blessing.
Rabbi Ed Bernstein:
Thank you. Neshamah Cast is a production of Neshamah Association of Jewish Chaplains. Thank you to our guest, Rabbi Stephen Roberts. Check our show notes for more information about him and his work. And as he invited us to do, please consider making a contribution to NAJC to support the NeshamahCast and all of the vital work that NAJC does to promote Jewish spiritual care. Just click on the link in the show notes to donate.
As a program note, Neshamah Cast is taking a brief hiatus for the month of July, but stay tuned for August and the beginning of an exciting second season, during which we will meet more of the diverse members of NAJC and hear their stories of providing Jewish spiritual care. Thank you to Rabbi Katja Vehlow for technical support and production assistance.
Additional thanks for logistical support to Allison Atterbury, NAJC Executive Director, and Rabbi Drew Kaplan and the NAJC Social Media Committee. Transcripts for this episode and other episodes of Neshamah Cast are available at neshamacast.simplecast.com and are typically posted one week after the episode first airs.
Our theme music is a nigun for Ki Anu Amecha, written and performed by Reb Cantor Lisa Levine. Please help others find the show by rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. We welcome comments and suggestions for future programming at leshamakast.gmail.com. And be sure to follow NAJC on Facebook to learn more about Jewish spiritual care happening in our communities. May we all work together to heal our world.