c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ Until recently most seminarians were freshly minted college graduates who marched in lockstep straight from the undergraduate campus to divinity school. But that predictable pattern has radically changed, and seminaries today are increasingly attracting second-career students.

More and more men and women are finding their first career choices unfulfilling and spiritually empty. Usually active as lay leaders in synagogues or churches, the new breed of seminarians are discovering they derive greater pleasure from their religious activities than from their regular jobs. Often married with children, they face severe financial sacrifices when they finally make the midlife change and enroll as full-time students in a seminary.

I met two such students last month in Houston during the 16th National Workshop on Christian-Jewish Relations. Serena Fujita, a senior at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, and Lant Davis, a second-year student at the Louisville Presbyterian seminary, attended the workshop as the Kurt and Sylvia Kelman Seminary Fellows of the American Jewish Committee. Both made radical changes in their lives when they decided to begin seminary studies.

For many years, Fujita was a Montessori school teacher in the Boston area while raising her two sons. Because of her professional skills, Fujita became deeply involved in her synagogue’s educational activities. In time, it became clear her Monday through Friday job was becoming Fujita’s avocation while her real vocation was the work within the Jewish community.

She began the five-year rabbinic program in 1995 and will be ordained next May.

Fujita’s first seminary year was spent in Jerusalem where she witnessed the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and several Arab terrorist attacks on buses and marketplaces, but on a happier note, her sons visited her in Israel. Like most second-career students, the return to the classroom and the endless series of exams and research papers was difficult at first. But in time, Fujita adjusted to being a student once again.

Davis was a lawyer in Birmingham, Ala., for 19 years before he decided to make the big switch and become a minister. He joked that he isn’t the first attorney to undertake a life in the church.”After all, John Calvin, who has profoundly influenced Presbyterian life, was a lawyer.” Davis’ local church has had a long and fruitful relationship with a Birmingham synagogue; indeed, over the years the two congregations have used each other’s building during construction or following a fire. Davis proudly notes the entrance door of his hometown church has a Mezuzah, the parchment scroll on which are inscribed two paragraphs from Deuteronomy, the Jewish”Shema”prayer affirming the unity of God.

This interreligious history spurred Davis’ interest in Christian-Jewish relations, and he hopes to make that a significant part of his future ministry. As a married student, he represents many second-career seminarians whose spouses and other family members must make major adjustments in their lives.

I strongly believe Serena Fujita and Lant Davis will be superb members of the clergy. Their rich life experiences, including family and children, as well as their previous professions as teacher and lawyer provide a maturity that will stand them in good stead as a future rabbi and minister.

But both Fujita and Davis urge seminary officials to make some important changes if they wish to attract more second-career students. Because older students are frequently accompanied by their young children, seminaries need to provide adequate day-care facilities for preschoolers. In addition, spouses of seminarians generally move from established residences in other cities and give up their previous employment. These changes can result in a severe financial crunch that seminary authorities must address.

Unfortunately, some professors and administrators view seminarians as easily malleable because of their youth. Many seminaries still have strict housing and even behavioral codes designed to control younger, unmarried students. Clearly, these rules make little sense for second-career students who bring families and decades of life experiences to seminaries.

But the greatest challenge lies in clergy employment. Do synagogues and churches accept the chronological fact that older clergy will serve congregations for fewer years than younger rabbis, ministers or priests? Should second-career clergy receive preferential treatment, a kind of affirmative action, in job interviews because of their earlier life experiences?

Older seminary students are nothing new. The greatest Jewish leader of the early second century in Israel was Rabbi Akiba. And he did not begin his formal religious studies until he was 40 years old.

DEA END RUDIN