Orthodox Rabbi at Harvard Hillel

Orthodox Rabbi

Harvard Hillel

Role Overview

Harvard Hillel is looking for a dynamic Orthodox Rabbi to foster a warm, inspiring Jewish community for students, faculty, and staff. The ideal candidate makes Jewish tradition exciting and meaningful through teaching, mentorship, and pastoral care, and is deeply aligned with the religious values, practices, and spiritual aspirations of our students. In addition to high level guidance, the Orthodox Rabbi engages with students on a day to day basis, building relationships and supporting their Jewish journeys. Within Harvard’s pluralistic Jewish community, the Orthodox Rabbi is a committed and inspiring exemplar of Torah and mitzvot, drawing on the depth and wisdom of Judaism to enrich the entire Jewish community and broader campus life. He collaborates closely with Hillel staff and student leaders to plan, develop, and execute programs that bring the community together while supporting student leaders in taking on increasing responsibility for their community, their own experiences and spiritual growth, and that of their peers.

This role is 10 months/year with June and July off.

What You’ll Do

• Advise the Orthodox Student Minyan: Serve as the student minyan advisor, providing shiurim, drashot, chavrutot, and organizational support. Act as a halakhic and hashkafic guide to Orthodox students, and the local Orthodox minyan as needed. 
• Teach Torah: Teach Torah in ways that are textually ambitious, intellectually sophisticated, inviting of questions, and responsive to students’ interests. In classes and informal settings, you’ll regularly facilitate complex conversations characterized by humility, curiosity, and respect for multiple perspectives. Beyond group settings, you will learn regularly in chavruta with multiple students.
• Welcome students in your home: Host students regularly for Shabbat and holiday meals, cultivating a sense of home and close-knit community for students away from their families.
• Create a warm Shabbat and Chag Environment: Support students and the rabbinic team in making Shabbatot and Chaggim times of connection and holiness, including at least one off-site Shabbaton for the Orthodox community.
• Provide pastoral care and mentorship: Build substantial relationships with a wide swath (> 100) undergraduate and graduate students through pastoral care, chavruta learning, teaching, and mentorship. Maintain a consistent, visible, and accessible presence in students’ daily lives, and work to make sure every Jewish student feels invited into and curious about deeper Jewish learning and practice, by modeling a grounded openness to their thoughts and experiences.
• Contribute to a pluralistic community: Grounded in Orthodox practice and identity, you will bring together elements of Harvard’s diverse Jewish community. This includes engaging respectfully and curiously with students’ and colleagues’ religious and moral commitments even and especially when they differ from your own. Beyond the Jewish community, you will participate in campus conversations and gatherings, including joining the Harvard Chaplains’ community.
• Be an exemplar of good middot: Unfailingly relate to students and colleagues with a warm, caring, and approachable demeanor. When questions or conflicts arise, you’ll approach them with energy and a commitment to working out solutions together with others - and will consistently try to take up others’ perspectives.
• Collaborate with the Hillel team: Join the student-facing programming team, collaborating closely with colleagues to plan and execute programs. All staff share responsibility for student engagement and bringing ideas to fruition, making their differences into points of connection and mutual appreciation. The Orthodox Rabbi reports to the Senior Director of Student Life and Executive Director and partners with the broader team to advance shared goals.
• Partner beyond Harvard: Serve as Harvard Hillel’s liaison to the Orthodox Minyan at Harvard Hillel, supporting scheduling, financial coordination, and student participation in the broader Cambridge Orthodox community. Maintain relationships with Jewish day schools and other pipelines to attract prospective students.

What You’ll Bring to the Job

• A commitment to and passion for creating Jewish community and inspiring students to grow in Torah, shmirat mitzvot, and participation in Jewish life.
• Appreciation for the value of a broader pluralistic Jewish community, and a desire to build bridges with other Jews.
• A warm, engaging, and approachable personality. 
• Experience in engagement and building meaningful pastoral relationships
• Facility in program design and implementation. 
• Relevant work experience in experiential Jewish education within Orthodox communities, Hillel, youth movements, or camp.
• A talmid hakham with strong textual knowledge and fluency, demonstrating deep familiarity with Torah, from traditional texts to contemporary Jewish wisdom, and the ability to engage students in the tradition of Jewish learning through learner centered pedagogy.
• Facility leading complex conversations that are intellectually serious and personally sensitive.
• A warm and welcoming home in which to host Shabbat experiences.
• Confidence initiating, running, and evaluating programs.
• A deep personal concern for the success of this work.
• A willingness to admit what you don’t know and excitement to learn in those areas
• Creative problem-solving, proactive communication, and the capacity to collaborate in teams both inside and outside of Hillel.
• Curiosity about… everything. You are hungry to learn and ask insightful questions before offering solutions. In this community, we are all learners, even the educators among us.
• Membership in good standing in a rabbinic alumni association with established ethical guidelines.
• BA and Orthodox rabbinic ordination.

What You’ll Receive

• Competitive salary range of $100,000-$110,000 for 10 months a year of employment.
• A network of students, parents, and university partners who will inspire you and become lifelong professional resources and partners.
• Opportunities for professional development, mentoring, and Jewish study.
• Colleagues and support from across the Hillel movement.
• Travel opportunities, both domestic and international.
• Stipends for Shabbat hosting experiences.
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Tax Deferred Retirement Plan, Life, AD&D, and Long Term Disability insurances, Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• Plenty of Hillel and university swag.

About Harvard Hillel

Harvard Hillel is the Jewish center of the world’s greatest university. Home to 500 Jewish undergraduates and 1,800 Jewish graduate students, Harvard Hillel’s mission is to train a generation of Jewish students to lead a divided Jewish community in an uncertain future - by helping mentoring them as they create an inspiring, life-shaping community of meaning with and for one another during their years as students. Cambridge, Massachusetts is a rapidly growing observant Jewish community with synagogues, independent minyanim, an eruv, kosher restaurants, and hundreds of observant Jews. Students, young professionals, young couples, and families call "Camberville" home. We also have many Jewish resources including mikva’ot across the river in Brookline, Brighton, and Newton.

Harvard Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.