About This Course
This course will focus on the utilization of psalms, meditation, midrash, and poetry in pastoral settings. It is intended to complement and expand the pastoral tools that we studied in Basic Pastoral Care which were more clinical in approach. This class will offer the opportunity to develop a pastoral care toolbox that includes the vast array of Jewish creative expressions throughout the millennia that can provide comfort, support, and meaning. The course will consist of nine on-line classes, assigned Hebrew and English readings to be read prior to class, and assignments intended to develop your own creativity. Assignments for each class must be completed prior to that class, without exception, unless in the case of a medical emergency. For much of the course, you will be working in chavruta.
Class is every Tuesday evening at 8PM Eastern on Zoom.
Please register for this recurring Zoom meeting using this link.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students should, in general, have familiarity researching and accessing Jewish texts and specifically (i) understand how creative expression can be employed meaningfully during pastoral encounters; (ii) cultivate their own set of meaningful Jewish writings upon which they can draw in an authentic way; (iii) be able to translate, interpret, and contextualize the traditional writings that we have studied in the class; (iv) feel comfortable offering and leading one or more forms of meditation as a pastoral intervention; (iv) be able to incorporate Jewish writings in their offerings to congregants for the purpose of pastoral support; (v) be able to design and lead a healing service in a variety of pastoral settings.
Course Requirements
- Students must come to class having read the materials assigned.
- Attendance and class participation is mandatory. In the event of a student’s absence, that student will be required to prepare and record a half-hour teaching on that session’s material for the benefit of the rest of the class members, who will be required to reflect on that teaching with a short writing.
- Each week there will be a written assignment, based upon the reading assignments. They will vary in form from week to week.
- The instructor will specify which assignments are to be done in chevruta. Those assignments are marked with an asterisk.
- All assignments, those done individually and those done in chevruta, should be turned in via email to fredda.cohen@gmail.com
Required Reading
Dayle Freedman, Ed., Jewish Pastoral Care: A Practical Handbook from Traditional and Contemporary Sources, 2nd Edition (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing 2005) [Jewish Pastoral Care]
All other required reading materials will be provided on the PRS website, other than materials that can be found in a hardcover Tanakh or on Sefaria.
Download the PDF for all the information above as well as information from the introduction and all units in the course.
Meet Your Instructor
Rabbi Fredda Cohen, MA, JD, BCC, is the Director of Pastoral Care and Education at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York. She has lectured extensively in the fields of pastoral education, bikur cholim, palliative care and spirituality. Rabbi Cohen was ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2010, where she also earned an MA in Judaic Studies. She is a board certified chaplain under the auspices of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC), and currently serves on its board. Rabbi Cohen received the prestigious Chaplain of the Year Award conferred by the New York Board of Rabbi in 2015. Prior to her career as a chaplain/rabbi, she worked as a trusts and estate attorney.
Smicha, Jewish Theological Seminary
MA, Jewish Theological Seminary
JD, Fordham University School of Law
Contact information: (914-391-1655); fredda.cohen@gmail.com
