Jeremy Rosen
The Trials of Being a Rabbi
Summary
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen defines himself as a rebel and an outlier. Born into a rabbinical family and raised in London, Rosen sought independent positions both inside and outside the rabbinate. His father Kopul Rosen founded Carmel College, a Jewish boarding school in London. Kopul Rosen’s vision was to combine the best of secular culture with the practice of Jewish religious life and traditions. The elder Rosen passed this on to his son in the image of a grandfather clock - by combining the best secular education with the best religious education, like the swinging pendulum of the clock, one can walk a path with time in the middle.
Jeremy followed this path by obtaining both a rigorous secular education and a strong Orthodox education. Studying philosophy at Cambridge University, he obtained a degree in Moral Sciences and attended Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Rosen became a practicing rabbi in Bulawyo, Zimbabwe and later in Glasgow, Scotland, and later in London and New York City. Acting as a revolutionary rabbi in these roles, he shortened traditionally lengthy services and modernized them, showing how the practice of Judaism can be reconciled with modern life. Rabbi Rosen values connection with individual people rather than rigid loyalty to institutions, maintaining flexibility in his understanding of Jewish law and practice. At age 29, he became the headmaster of Carmel College, continuing his father’s educational vision.
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen shows that by centering one’s commitment to Jewish life and then passing that experience on to the next generation, it is possible to live a life that balances the Jewish religious experience with the demands of contemporary life.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
What resonates to me is not on the theological side, it’s living a life structured by Jewish law and traditions. It is the Jewish life that I find wonderful. I believe most people need structure and it can be the best help against depression. The Jewish rituals get you to think before you act - think when you wake up in the morning, think before you eat, think about how the week passes and how valuable the week is. All these things are very necessary and important in a person’s life. I’m less concerned with life after death - I’m concerned with living now, not just the slogans of love your neighbor as yourself but living it. I accept that many people find it too difficult, not everyone can lead an intensive Jewish life. We we choose as much as we can cope with, but I think that’s what really matters.
You can’t, you can only show them by inviting them. I seriously recommend they spend a year between school and university in Israel studying at an institution where they can have a positive Jewish experience. They going to spend most of their lives in a secular environment and they’re never going to go back to the Jewish studies. They will be advancing intellectually but if they don’t have a solid Jewish base, they won’t feel the commitment to Jewish traditions. That’s the advice I gave when I was a master of school. I tried to get as many kids as I could to go study for a year in Israel to study and explore their Jewish identity there. I find that young people are very influenced by their company, it makes such a difference if you mix in the company of people who have certain views and ideas.
My brother, Rabbi Mickey Rosen, founded Yakar in Stanmore, London. I became the director of Yakar in England at the early 2000’s and then we decided to move it to Israel. At that stage I stepped back, and then Mickey’s family took over Yakar in Jerusalem and it’s doing very well. I think it was a brave attempt to be an independent institution just as I’ve described in my lecture. But in the end, it couldn’t survive in London because it stood outside the establishment, though it’s doing wonderfully in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.