by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

May 01, 2008

The founding director of the healing center at JCC MetroWest is stepping down to develop a new ecumenical project at the New York-based CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership.

Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu, who joined the JCC staff seven-and-a-half years ago, was the founding director of the JCC’s Center for Jewish Life and founding director of the MetroWest Jewish Health and Healing Center. The healing center offers pastoral counseling, support groups, workshops, and a visiting nurse program.

“I love being at the start of something new,” she said in an interview before her departure. “I love being in a situation where you really get to think differently and expand your mind and experiences.”

At CLAL, she’ll help rabbis find ways to bring Jewish wisdom into the American marketplace of ideas.

“So many people do not know what wisdom Judaism has to offer,” she said. “I’ve seen this in my position in health and healing. People go off on a search or find Buddhism. They are finding things there that they don’t realize are already in Judaism. The idea is to put Judaism in the public eye, keep Jews interested in Judaism, and continue to educate the world about what Judaism has to offer.”

The new CLAL program will serve rabbis and rabbinical students.

“The program is not about helping Jews becoming more Jewish but helping humans become more deeply human,” said Irwin Kula, president of CLAL. A five-year pilot project, it will formally launch in September. Kula called it “CLAL’s most aggressive attempt in its 15-year history to work with rabbis who see themselves as American spiritual leaders competing in the American marketplace of ideas,” rather than simply as Jewish leaders.

Sirbu will work with already-ordained rabbis. Kula pointed to Sirbu’s experience creating Rimon, a community-wide adult learning initiative, which asks area rabbis — “a notoriously difficult group to organize,” said Kula — to offer classes and programs beyond their own denominations and synagogues.

“I’ve watched programs across the country try to get rabbis across a community to teach,” Kula said. “They are not always successful. It can be hard to get a rabbi’s attention. But she has a tireless optimism and what I’ll call a fierce grace. She understands it’s a step-by-step process, and she’s a phenomenal listener.”

Sirbu sees some overlap between her new and old positions.

“My mission as a rabbi is to help people find meaning in life and have Judaism be the tool with which to do it,” she said.

At the Health and Healing Center, she often found herself taking Judaism out of a traditional context.

“To put together healing services, I would take parts of prayers and liturgy out of its context to use in a new way; and creating new rituals required me to think outside the box,” said Sirbu. “I think those experiences will help me find new ways to bring Judaism to light.”

Sirbu, who lives in Teaneck, received rabbinic ordination from the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in 2000. After six months as chaplain at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, she came to the JCC MetroWest to serve as director of the Health and Healing Center. After a year, she created the Center for Jewish Life, which coordinates Jewish educational programming at the JCC. She held both positions throughout her tenure.

Upon her departure, Rhonda Lillianthal, director of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School and the Hirschhorn Senior Adult Jewish Education Program, will become director of Jewish education, and take over those parts of Sirbu’s portfolio involving education.

The Health and Healing Center, which has had a partnership with the Jewish Family Service of MetroWest since its inception, will continue under JFS’ direction.

JCC fitness staff will take on the wellness programs she ran, including meditation, yoga, and tai chi.

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