Rabbi Mychal B. Springer is the manager of Clinical Pastoral Education at NY-Presbyterian Hospital. She founded the Center for Pastoral Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in Manhattan in 2009. Over a ten-year period she oversaw an intensive hospice chaplaincy training program in collaboration with Metropolitan Jewish Health System’s Hospice. She began her career as a hospital chaplain in New York City, and in the 1990s became the director of the Department of Pastoral Care and Education at Beth Israel Medical Center. Mychal was the first Conservative rabbi to be certified as an Educator by ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care & Education. Mychal served as The Rabbinical School at JTS’s associate dean and director of Field Education. Her publications include Sisters in Mourning: Daughters Reflecting on Care, Loss, and Meaning (Cascade Press, 2021) with Dr. Su Yon Pak and “Presence in a Time of Distancing: Spiritual Care in an Acute Care Setting” in Jewish End-of-Life Care in a Virtual Age: Our Traditions Reimagined, Friedman D, Levin D, Raphael SP ed. (Albion Andalus, 2021).

Mychal received her BA in Judaic Studies and Religious Studies from Yale College magna cum laude. She was ordained a Conservative rabbi and received her Master’s in Judaic Studies and Doctor of Divinity at JTS. Mychal is a certified Jewish chaplain in Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains.

In the interview, Rabbi Springer recalls her friend from childhood, Aaron Kushner, and how his tragic illness and death inspired his father, Rabbi Harold Kushner (who died in 2023) to write his best-selling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Here is Rabbi Ed Bernstein interviewing Rabbi Harold Kushner in 2013.

Rabbi Springer makes cameo appearances in two memoirs:

”Choosing My Religion: A Memoir of a Family Beyond Belief,” by Stephen Dubner

”The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions,” by Jonathan Rosen (Rabbi Springer’s husband).

Here are links to other resources mentioned by Rabbi Springer: 

Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler. 

Dr. David Senesh interviewed on the Invisible Wound podcast.

Haverut: The Healing Arts  led by Rachel Ettun.

The solemn prayer Un’tane Tokef that is recited on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur  was the inspiration for Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire.”

About our host:

Rabbi Edward Bernstein, BCC, is the producer and host of NeshamaCast. He serves as Chaplain at Boca Raton Regional Hospital of Baptist Health South Florida. He is a member of the Board of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. Prior to his chaplain career, he served as a pulpit rabbi in congregations in New Rochelle, NY; Beachwood, OH; and Boynton Beach, FL. He is also the host and producer of My Teacher Podcast: A Celebration of the People Who Shape Our Lives.

NeshamaCast contributor Rabbi Katja Vehlow was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and is Director of Jewish Life at Fordham University. She trained as a chaplain at Moses Maimonides Medical Center in New York. Previously, she served as Associate Professor of Religious Studies at University of South Carolina. A native German speaker, she is planning a forthcoming German-language podcast on the weekly Torah portion with a focus on pastoral care.

NeshamaCast contributor Chaplain David Balto is a volunteer chaplain at Washington Hospital Center  in Washington, D.C. and Western Correctional Insitution, Maryland’s maximum security prison. He coordinated the annual National Bikur Cholim Conference. 

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Transcripts for this episode and other episodes of NeshamaCast are available at NeshamaCast.simplecast.com and are typically posted one week after an episode first airs. 
 

Theme Music is “A Niggun For Ki Anu Amecha,” written and performed by Reb-Cantor Lisa Levine.

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