Breaking the Mold of Clergy Entrepreneurship

Catalog description

In this course, we will examine some of the myths of entrepreneurship and equip participants with new tools, skills, and perspectives to undertake innovative action in your communities. You will identify your own rabbinic skills and how they match gaps in the market of Jewish communal life, and then how to refocus your efforts on the actual needs and challenges of your community members (“users”). Too often entrepreneurship is focused on products; we won’t be talking about your great idea, but rather about the steps needed before you develop a great idea. Through personal reflection, workshops on identifying needs in the marketplace and understanding your constituents needs, group work, and guest panels of entrepreneurial clergy in the field, participants will come out of this intersession course with the following: • A personal articulation of their own rabbinic calling, and superpowers • Understanding of the shifting marketplace of Jewish communal life and the gaps (opportunities) in the market, especially in a pandemic reality • An approach to creating Jewish community that is centered on participants themselves, instead of on organizational goals that may not be rooted in the loved experiences and yearnings of constituents • Skills for conducting user interviews and cultivating a mindset of empathy, to best understand their users and those users’ needs • An understanding of “competing pressures” and methods for removing the obstacles that prevent some Jews from accessing meaningful Jewish communal life The course will include some pre-reading to introduce students to the concepts, as well as a final assignment of approximately five written pages based on the learning done in the course.