Spirituality and Mental Health
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., explains why spirituality can be such an important aspect of mental health.
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 co-directs Bekhol Levavkha: A Training Program for Jewish Spiritual Directors at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He has served as a faculty member and board member at Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality. He is the Sadie Gottesman and Arlene Gottesman Reff Professor of Gender and Judaism.
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” (2013), and the editor of a Zeek issue on 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).
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., explains why spirituality can be such an important aspect of mental health.
Staub recounts his spiritual biography and offers ideas about how to build a personal relationship with God.
When you stop believing that God is the cause of everything that happens to us, you don’t necessarily stop believing in the presence of the divine that infuses all things.
Rabbi Jacob Staub brings Hasidic thought to bear on a contemporary spiritual question.
Reflecting on his own coming out, Rabbi Jacob Staub examines the varieties of tolerance, inclusion, and being considered “normal.”
In valuing parenthood, Rabbi Jacob Staub argues, we must not devalue the experiences and wisdom of those who are not parents.
Reflections on teaching and learning virtuous behavior
Meditation on the spiritual lessons of parenthood.
Reflections on the spirituality of impending parenthood.