The Institute for Jewish Spirituality & The Amen Center for Civic and Spiritual Leadership’s New Report Released:

Holy Work, Human Limits, Communal Potential: A Pulse Check of Rabbis and Cantors in North America, presents findings from a rapid-response "pulse check" survey conducted in December 2025 regarding the well-being and professional experiences of North American rabbis and cantors. The study gathered 726 responses—450 rabbis and 276 cantors—to assess the sustainability of current clergy roles and the state of shared leadership in congregational life.

It’s surprisingly hard to know what is happening in the inner lives of rabbis and cantors – spiritually, emotionally, and professionally – within the complex dynamics of congregational life. We can describe the pressures in the abstract – rising pastoral need, communal anxiety, unending deadlines, post-COVID strain, the post–October 7 reality, threats to Jewish life, the stress on American democracy, the ongoing horrors and heartbreak in Israel, and the accelerated devolution of the American Jewish consensus on Israel. But abstraction is also a way of not looking too closely.

This report seeks to capture the learning from a rapid-response pulse check designed to look more closely. Not as a scientific study, and not as a comprehensive portrait of the field, but as a wide listening tool focused on two questions that determine whether the current construct of this sacred work is durable: How are clergy doing, really? And how shared is leadership in congregational life?

Here are two resources for exploring these findings further:

• An eJewish Philanthropy article discussing the report.

• A panel conversation hosted by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality that brings together leaders to reflect on the report's implications for clergy well-being, shared leadership, and the future of congregational life.