The differences between rabbis, in their role as counsellors in human problems, and social case workers, were delineated at a conference here today by Rabbi Richard J. Israel, director and chaplain to Jewish students for the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Yale University. Rabbi Israel addressed the 11th annual conference of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies’ commission on synagogue relations.
“For many rabbis,” he said, insofar as they view themselves as counsellors with a distinct function, different from that of the caseworker, that difference derives from their claim that they have some unique insights which they take from the tradition, and which can and should be applied to everyday life situations. Both liberal and traditional rabbis hold this attitude,” Rabbi Israel said.
“The social worker, on the other hand, usually contends that when at work he is a neutral technician of the soul. He works from an assumption about human nature which says that the sound psyche will itself be able to choose that which is appropriate.” Rabbi Israel said there was only “partial truth” in each of these claims. “We do not get our values handed to us whole from books, and neither do we form them altogether existentially out of our own inner lives that are in contact with the past,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
