How ALF Impacted My Career as a Rabbi

By Rabbi Shaul Osadchey

ALF Houston Senior Fellow Class VIII 

Advisor and Faith Leader-in-Residence

A rabbi, a minister, and an imam walk into a bar.  The bartender asks, “Is this some kind of a joke?”  Indeed, can clergy be taken seriously as leaders?  From my experience, it seems that the seminaries emphasize religious/spiritual leadership which primarily entails equipping the student with religious knowledge, ritual skills, and lifecycle expertise.  In another words, the understanding of religious/spiritual leadership is being competent to “hatch, match and dispatch!” Teaching about religious leadership is based upon examination of ahistorical Biblical heroes such as the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.  The difficulty with extrapolating their leadership roles with those of today is that they were often commanded to act in specific ways by God and thus the element of choice was absent.  So how does a rabbi, for example, learn how to navigate synagogue politics and deal successfully with lay leaders and boards so that the rabbi can accomplish worthy goals for communal growth and vitality?  Few of my colleagues were ever prepared for the often brutal reality of congregational politics and for dealing with supposed leaders whose personal reputation and need for control overshadowed their responsibility for serving the needs of the membership. Fortunately, the rabbinical seminaries are now offering leadership classes to address this need.

My year as an ALF Fellow widened and deepened my understanding of how to exert authentic leadership, how to articulate a vision and align others in achieving it, and how to utilize consensus building skills and collaborative models to propel a congregation with people from diverse backgrounds toward a shared and vibrant future.  What I learned from both the formal and experiential aspects of the ALF curriculum enabled me to guide the congregation toward the best possible outcomes when they celebrated milestones as well as when they faced inevitable financial or membership challenges or crisis of purpose.  As importantly, the ALF experience enabled me to glean profound lessons from my classmates and their leadership journeys.

And so, the rabbi, minister, imam not only walked into the bar, but they left together with a better appreciation for one another, for their respective traditions, and for their common roles as religious leaders who strive to serve not only their congregants but to bring shalom/peace/salaam to the world.

If you’d like to start a dialogue with Rabbi Shaul, you can reach him at sosadchey@gmail.com