Step by step, for the first 40-some years of her life, Dr. Marsha Silberstein, an anesthesiologist, followed a steady and very successful course: an Ivy League university for undergraduate and medical school, a residency in anesthesia, a private consulting firm, a high-level job with Independence Blue Cross and a vice president's post at CIGNA.
But somewhere in the back of her mind—though she had grown up with traditional Judaism and had accepted that she could not become a rabbi—she had never let go of this dream. In 2004, with a master's in Jewish studies and Jewish education from Gratz College already under her belt, Silberstein entered RRC and started on a new path.
From the beginning, she intended to combine her interests in medicine and the rabbinate. A summertime course in Clinical Pastoral Education confirmed that chaplaincy—an area where RRC's offerings are particularly strong—was where she wanted to concentrate her efforts.
For Silberstein, the challenge was not to gear up for her new undertaking but to slow down. "The hardest thing for me was learning how to just be," she says. "As a doctor, and in the rest of my life, I do. The idea of just coming in to visit a patient, saying hello, sitting down, holding someone's hand, making air time… I found a minute is a long time!"
Silberstein discovered that RRC's offerings in spiritual practice were useful in that regard. "One of the things that really helped was Jacob Staub's meditation course—you learn to sit and let things bubble up for you, or in this case, for patients. It's amazing, the things that come up with no prompting."
Serving as a hospital chaplain, Silberstein has found occasion to reach back to her memories of traditional Jewish custom. "There was a Jewish man in the intensive care unit whose family wanted his name changed, so that the angel of death would not find him," she recalls. "My colleagues asked, Do you know what this is? Yes, I said, I'll take care of it. It's traditional, though I hadn’t seen it in years. I looked in the rabbi’s manual to find the ceremony."
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