JSA2016-18: Rabbi Jacob Staub, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary

Rabbi Jacob Staub, Chair, Department of Medieval Jewish Civilization, Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality, and Director, Jewish Spiritual Direction Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wynnewood, PA, is the guest on this week's Jewish Sacred Aging Podcast. [spp-player] About the Guest Rabbi Jacob Staub Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., graduated from RRC in 1977. Staub has served on the RRC faculty since 1983; he served as the College's vice president for academic affairs and academic dean from 1989 to 2004. He was instrumental in developing RRC's Spiritual Direction Program and has taught Jewish spiritual direction across North America, including at Spiritual Directors International and the Spirituality Institute of Metivta. He is also a faculty member at Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality. His prior teaching experience includes appointments as assistant professor of religion at Lafayette College and as a Mellon Fellow in Jewish Philosophy at Washington University. He has served as rabbi of Bristol Jewish Center in Bristol, PA, and of Congregation Beth Shalom in Arlington, TX. Staub has served as chair of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, of which has been a fellow. He has been vice president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and served on its board until recently. Jacob also has chaired the RRA's Gevulot Committee and its Committee on Intermarriage. Staub earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Master of Arts and doctorate in religion from Temple University, where he specialized in medieval Jewish philosophy. He trained as a spiritual director at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. He completed certification in Mindfulness Leadership Training with Sylvia Boorstein and teaches meditation and contemplative practice at RRC. Staub served as editor of The Reconstructionist from 1983 to 1989. He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides (1982) and "A Guide to Jewish Practice: Shabbat" (forthcoming in 2013), and the editor of Reconstructionism: Denominationalism That Works?" (2010). He is co-editor with Jeffrey L. Schein of Creative Jewish Education: A Reconstructionist Perspective (1985) and co-author with Rebecca T. Alpert of Exploring Judaism, A Reconstructionist Approach (1985, revised edition 2000). Among the awards he has received are RRC's Gladstone Award for Fine Teaching (1997), the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation's President's Award (1989), the RRA's Yedei Emunah Award (2001, 2013) and RRC's Keter Shem Tov (2004).