A mere nine percent of respondents last year said that clergy score low or very low in their honesty and ethics - compared to 57 percent of car salesmen and 28 percent of U.S. senators. An informal survey of rabbis, psychologists and lay people indicates that in fact, Jews continue to hold rabbis in high regard as spiritual advisers. We are turning to them more frequently than ever for pastoral aid - in times of great crisis like a death in the family or end of a marriage, as well as for more routine advice. We expect them to be more skilled counselors than we once may have, some rabbis said, and to devote more time to us than we expected in the past. At the same time, people also are turning more and more to therapists for spiritual counseling, and that's having an impact on the profession of psychology.
People know that it's legitimate to expect some individualized guidance or attention from a rabbi.
Some may end up disappointed, though. They feel like the rabbi was there for the funeral but can't be there for the grief, that he's ill equipped to deal with it. They've had the experience that their rabbis, like a lot of their friends and families, have fled emotionally if not literally, especially around stigmatized things like suicide. Still, people still routinely seek answers from their rabbis to questions from their life challenges, just by dint of his or her ordination. I was amazed and stunned at how people would turn for advice, and pull you into the most intimate and painful and most joyous moments of their lives.