• Separate and Integrated Perspectives
• Preparation
• Two Day Residential Session
• Faculty and Peer Coaches

Separate and Integrated Perspectives

The Institute brings together the perspectives of rabbis who are individually in the process of moving into or out of synagogues, and lay leaders who are involved in the process of recruiting and joining with new spiritual leaders. The Institute is designed to enable participants to learn each perspective. Rabbis first learn about the logistical, emotional, and political nature of the transition process and how, as spiritual leaders in new settings, to create working alliances with congregational leaders. Congregational leaders first learn about the logistical, emotional, and political nature of the transition process and how, as representatives of synagogues in transition, to create working alliances with new spiritual leaders. In Institute programs that contain both rabbis and congregational leaders, each then works to help the other understand and empathize with their positions and interests and in doing so learns to create the types of alliances each will need to create in their own institutions. In these integrated sessions, both rabbis and congregational leaders are joined around the task of learning to make successful, sustainable relationships. In Institute programs that contain only rabbis or congregational leaders, both perspectives will be covered through cases, exercises, and other materials.

Preparation

The Transitional Training Institute involves a two-day residential session, peer coaches, and coaching by Eitzah Center faculty. The process by which participants enter the Institute program commences with interested spiritual and congregational leaders speaking with a Center co-director to determine whether they are appropriate candidates for an upcoming Institute. Candidates also discuss who from their current or new congregations would benefit from attending the Institute as well. Candidates might include, for example, previous or current synagogue presidents and board members, emeritus or retiring rabbis, rabbis who have resigned or whose contracts have not been renewed, and other key staff or leaders who are likely to shape the outcome of rabbinical transitions. Those who enroll in the Institute prepare for the program by completing surveys that will enable them to reflect on previous experiences, examine current transitions, identify goals, and develop a personal agenda to pursue during the Institute program.

Two Day Residential Session

The Transitional Training Institute's two day residential session focuses on the theory and practice of effective rabbinical transitions and how they are best managed by synagogue leaders, rabbis, and other key players. Spiritual and congregational leaders are exposed to the principles of transition management through presentations, case discussions, dialogue, and readings. They are provided with structured opportunities to learn about how they previously dealt and are currently dealing with transitions. Participants work with the challenges that typically accompany rabbinical transitions: managing relationships with and emotions of those left behind (staff, clergy, congregants); bridging gaps between those who embrace and those who resist rabbinical changes; building new relationships between spiritual and congregational leaders; using transitions as opportunities to change congregational cultures and visions while honoring traditions; and enabling rabbis to create their own leadership styles and relationships in the midst of ongoing congregational relationships and politics.

These and similar topics are approached from the different perspectives of rabbis and congregational leaders dealing with rabbinical transitions. The residential session involves significant sharing of those perspectives, enabling participants to develop insight and empathy, share lessons, and learn to create working alliances across the traditional rabbinical-lay leader divide. Rabbis and congregational leaders will work, separately and together, to define the challenges they face in their transitions and to develop strategies by which to meet those challenges. They will leave the Institute residential session with a set of insights, tools, competencies, and behaviors to help them do so.

Faculty and Peer Coaches

As with each Eitzah Center program, the Transitional Training Institute involves two primary sources of support enabling participants to meet the challenges they have identified. First, Eitzah Center faculty members provide individual coaching. During the residential session, faculty members help participants diagnose issues that have surfaced during the transition process. They also offer support and guidance for a specified period after the residential session as participants put into practice what they learned during that session. Second, each participant is matched with a peer coach—a fellow Institute member from a different geographical area dealing with similar transition issues. who gives and receives support throughout the transition process.