About RTI

JTS’s Rabbinic Training Institute is the premier continuing education program for Conservative rabbis in the field, bringing participants together for five days of intellectual, professional, personal, and spiritual growth. RTI is open to all Conservative rabbis.

RTI will be held from Sunday, January 7, to Thursday, January 11, 2024, at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Maryland.

JTS is grateful to the Rabbinical Assembly for co-sponsoring RTI 2024 through a grant to support elements of the program that promote the mental health and sustainable professional lives of our colleagues.

Five Days of Learning

A deeply stimulating and nurturing experience, RTI prepares participants to return to their communities rejuvenated in mind, heart, and spirit, and with new skills to serve as even more thoughtful and capable leaders.

Meeting at an offsite retreat center from Sunday to Thursday, RTI participants engage in text study and professional skill building with a faculty of world-renowned scholars and consultants, while also reflecting with peers on individual and shared experiences. The program offers:

  • Torah lishmah
  • Professional skills courses
  • Facilitated groups for personal and spiritual reflection
  • Meaningful davening and divrei Torah
  • Yoga, meditation, and private massage (optional)
  • Supportive and fun hevreschaft

Expert Faculty

The teachers and consultants who guide participants come from JTS and from diverse institutions around the world. Faculty for RTI 2024 will include:

Text Study 

  • Dr. David Fishman, Professor of Jewish History, JTS 
  • Dr. Sarah Wolf, Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS 
  • Rabbi Dr. Tzemah Yoreh, Independent Scholar of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Wisdom Literature; Rabbi, City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism

Professional Development 

  • Jakir Manela, Chief Executive Officer, Adamah
  • Dr. Kathy Simon, Communication Coach and Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication 
  • Faun Zarge, MA, Burnout and Resilience Expert, Trainer, and Coach 

Personal/Spiritual Development 

  • Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, Executive Director, Center for Contextual Change   
  • Bob Pelley, MS, LPC, Psychotherapist, Coach & Consultant 
  • Dr. Linda Stone Fish, MSW, Professor Emerita of Marriage and Family Therapy, Syracuse University 
  • Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, Director of the Block / Kolker Center for Spiritual Arts, JTS  

This list will be updated as additional faculty are confirmed.

Fees and Registration

The fee for RTI 2024 is $1,000. This covers tuition, all study materials, accommodations, all meals throughout the institute, round-trip transportation via group shuttle from BWI airport and train station to the Pearlstone Center, and a surcharge to offset the costs of Covid safety measures.

The actual cost to JTS is approximately $2,000 per RTI participant. The registration form will allow you to make an additional donation if you are able.

Discounts and Scholarships

  • First-time participants receive a 25 percent discount.
  • Rabbis within five years of ordination (ordained in 2019 or later) receive a 50 percent discount.
  • Generous need-based scholarships for female colleagues are available.
  • Limited additional scholarship funds are available for rabbis not in the above categories who cannot afford the full cost of RTI.

We are able to offer these subsidies thanks to the generosity of Marc Gary, executive vice chancellor emeritus of JTS, and Michelle Kravtin Gary (z”l).

What People Are Saying

“RTI is the best professional development I do all year. It nourishes my body, mind, and soul. It provides me with tools to serve my congregation and the Jewish people better. An amazing time of learning, living, and being.”

“As rabbis we teach and preach about the need to create sacred space for our congregants, yet overlook that need for ourselves. RTI fulfills that need, and I return each year from RTI spiritually and emotionally rejuvenated and invigorated.”

“RTI is an invaluable opportunity to personally connect with colleagues as they are, with all of our rabbinic masks taken off. We cut straight to the tachlis, the practicality, and strive to help one another in whatever stage we are at in our careers and in our mindset or emotional state.”

Contact Us

For more information and/or to apply for a scholarship, please contact Rabbi Julia Andelman at rabbinicresources@jtsa.edu.