Jewish spiritual care: what does innovation look like?

Professional spiritual care providers – most often called chaplains – have long been present in American society. Yet as research by the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab has clarified, chaplains often remain overlooked and underutilized.

Raising the profile of spiritual care from within Judaism

With support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, we’ve been exploring how this dynamic operates in the Jewish community, with fascinating results. Our work has confirmed that despite a robust tradition of Jewish chaplaincy, the settings to which Jewish chaplains could contribute powerfully often do not take advantage of this vital resource because they don’t understand its application or cannot make a successful case for funding. Despite the historical Christian roots of the word “chaplain” itself, there is a long history of providing spiritual care from within Judaism. Caregivers provide chaplaincy today from an enormous variety of faith and philosophical traditions, including atheism. In the Jewish tradition, terms like tikkun olam or advancing others’ experience of chai have sometimes described this work. From the standpoint of professional spiritual caregiving, calling this work Jewish chaplaincy better clarifies its purpose. But what does innovative Jewish chaplaincy look like, where does it happen, and who does it?

The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab set out to answer these questions, and to learn how they are being answered in the real world, in 2023. With support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab made four grants to organizations who proposed creative, evidence-based ways Jewish chaplains can meet the demand for spiritual and emotional support in their communities. The key criterion for applicants was that their projects would serve communities which, until now, have had little or no access to professional spiritual care. Their ultimate goal was to demonstrate what innovative Jewish chaplaincy could look like and how it could improve the lives of those in applicants’ communities.

An existing and robust network of Jewish community organizations suggested a strong foundation from which this work could take place, and the four successful applying organizations included organizational leaders as well as on-the-ground chaplains. The four grant recipients included organizations serving low-income older adults; area residents served by a Jewish community center; those struggling with addiction; and those bereaved by the recent loss of loved ones.

We had no idea just how relevant the project would become.

-Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab structured the grant program in a mentorship format. The program supported through grantees with an educator and a spiritual care mentor, who together brought deep experience in Jewish chaplaincy, for the duration of the project. Building a comprehensive support system for each project ensured the productive completion of each project while also making the wisdom of expert chaplains available to grantees. From the very early stages of this project until the end, grantees expressed their appreciation for the mentoring that helped guide their work, citing it as a vital component. By prioritizing a support team dynamic, the project was able to bring the communities of spiritual care education and on-the-ground practice into direct conversation, enriching both in ways that rarely happen elsewhere.

Four demonstration grants were available; with a deep applicant pool, our review team worked hard to determine who would receive funding. We awarded grants to Jewish Social Services of Madison; The Towers of New Haven; Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network; and Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

Innovative work by grantees

Jewish Social Services of Madison received a grant for a program to address substance abuse addiction in Dane County, Wisconsin. The grant enabled the project’s director, Rabbi Renee Bauer, to make a comprehensive study of the local community’s previous and present-day service to those facing addiction as well as pursue training in the overlap between the science of addiction and a midrashic approach to addressing recovery. Rabbi Bauer was also able to establish deeper connections in the local recovery community, including Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and CODA. Finally, the program hosted a recovery Shabbaton and engaged in extensive outreach to welcome community members experiencing substance abuse to the Shabbaton.

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco utilized their funding to establish a chaplain-in-residence program. The program deepened the Center’s offerings by incorporating a capacious spiritual approach to community care. That approach became crucial in the wake of the events of October 7, 2023 and the ensuing war. The chaplain-in-residence was able to offer one-on-one meditations; group counseling; hospice visits; and more, assisting community members with the spiritual implications of the ongoing tragedy. Young members of the community in their twenties and thirties found particular value in the program, with one participant saying “It was so good to talk face-to-face with others who are both queer and Jewish and have a lot of emotions navigating the post-October 7th world.” In an international broadening of services, the program also served Jewish Community Center staff, including explicit staff support in navigating the sharp political divisions that have widened in the runup to the 2024 election.

This project far exceeded our expectations.

-The Towers Foundation

In Michigan, the Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network provided significant support to community members who had experienced the death of a loved one. This support extended far beyond the days and weeks after a death and included both group programming and individual counseling. Participants in the Network’s programming expressed the helpfulness of gaining spiritual insights into their experience, hearing shared experiences, and feeling less isolated in and by their grief. Furthermore, the program was so helpful that group participants requested an extension.  The Network’s project allowed its community members to process their grief, with professional spiritual support, as it evolved over a much longer timeframe than the usual and formal observances of grief and burial after death.

We have made substantial progress in creating a supportive, meaningful bereavement program that meets the diverse needs of our participants.

-Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network

Finally, the Towers residential facility for older adults in New Haven, Connecticut set out to address loneliness and isolation, particularly among low-income residents. A signature component of this project was its skilful interweaving of practical and spiritual accompaniment of residents: meal deliveries were an occasion for visits and conversations that extended beyond the food, and chaplaincy visits often conneted residents with services and resources to address practical needs. In the case of one couple, the program was so successful that they moved from their house to the Towers residential facility as a result of the chaplaincy relationship forged by the project. In their assessment of the project, the grantee team identified four common resident struggles that chaplaincy visits were often able to address: the changes that accompany aging; end of life; the stress and painful experience of the ongoing war in the Middle East; and logistical challenges posed by construction and other facilities changes at the Towers residence.

The critical value of Jewish chaplaincy

To be sure, these four examples are not the only places innovative Jewish chaplaincy is happening in the United States; we received proposals from far more applicants than we had the funds to support. Yet as these four examples show, chaplaincy from within the Jewish tradition is a powerful resource both to meet people where they already are and to address the complicated intersection of spirituality, religion, and the struggles that many face over the course of a lifetime. It’s been a privilege for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab to collaborate in this inspiring and encouraging work.

Michael Skaggs is Director of Chaplaincy Innovation Lab Programs.