Torat Yovel: The Torah of Jubilee

Join us as we celebrate 50 years in the rabbinate of our members from the class of 1977.

Torat Yovel: the Torah of Jubilee is the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association’s annual celebration honoring RRA members who have served in the rabbinate for 50 years.

This year, we are thrilled to celebrate and honor five rabbis who have made essential and enduring contributions to the growth and strength of the RRA, the RRC, and the Reconstructionist movement. As always, we look forward hearing their Torah as they reflect on their work and offer their unique perspectives on being a Reconstructionist rabbi.

Rabbi David Teutsch (HUC '77) on October 13, 2026
Rabbi Jeffrey Schein (RRC '77) on December 1, 2026
Rabbi Bob Tabak (RRC '77) on February 3, 2027
Rabbi Jacob Staub (RRC '77) on April 6, 2027
Rabbi Alan Morse (RRC '77) (event date to be confirmed)

Join us for a live virtual presentation, including words from the honoree, comments by colleagues, students, congregants, and other admirers. and presentation of a special gift and a blessing for their service. (All Torat Yovel events are recorded and shared following the event.)

Each honoree receives an art print of the Etz Hayim (Tree of Life) commissioned for this occasion by renowned artist Rabbi Me'irah Iliinsky (RRC '07). 

These programs are free and open to all. We especially welcome all RRA members, RRC faculty, staff and students, members of the Reconstructionist movement and friends and admirers of the honorees.

To register for the events and to make a donation in recognition of one or all of our honorees, please use the form below.

To make a gift by mail, please send a check made out to the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) to RRA, 1299 Church Road, Wyncote, PA 19095. Please include a letter or memo stating that your gift is in recognition of "Torat Yovel" and the name of any rabbi(s) your gift honors. Thank you!

Rabbi David Teutsch (HUC '77) | October 13, 2026
David Teutsch is the RRC Wiener Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Jewish Civilization. Founding director of the Center of Jewish Ethics and past president of the RRC, he also served as executive vice president and dean of admissions. Prior to that he was director of the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot, director of program administration at NJRC (now CLAL), and rabbi of Ramat Shalom in Spring Valley, New York. He has served as a board member of the Conference of Presidents, as cochair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet of JStreet, as president of the Society of Jewish Ethics and of the Academic Coalition for Jewish Bioethics, and on several editorial boards. He was the editor in chief for the Kol Haneshamah prayer book series and editor of A Guide to Jewish Practice, as well as several other books and dozens of articles. His latest book, written with Marilyn Price, is From Gratitude to Blessings and Back. An avid bike rider and yogi, he continues to lecture, coach and consult. He is very proud of his two children, Nomi and Zach, and dotes on his five grandchildren. He has been married to Betsy for 53 years.

Rabbi Jeffrey Shein (RRC '77) | December 1, 2026
Jeffrey Schein grew up in Pittsburgh, where he remains a devoted Steelers fan. He met his wife Deborah at UC Santa Barbara; she is his ezer knegdo and his Shabbat hevruta partner. They have three children, Ben, Jonah, and Hana, their partners Robyn, Rachel, and Greg, and four grandchildren, Ilan, Talia, Aryeh, and Caleb. After rabbinical studies at RRC and a doctorate in education at Temple University, Jeffrey built a career as a "teaching Rabbi," including 11 years as a congregational education director, 10 years teaching at RRC, 20 years as Director of Education for the Reconstructionist movement, 23 years guiding master's students at Siegal College of Judaic Studies, and 14 years at the Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood as Senior Consultant and later executive director. He was the first non-pulpit Rabbi to receive the RRA's Ira Eisenstein Award (1999) and founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol HaLev in Cleveland. He has published over 40 articles and a dozen books on Jewish education, from Creative Jewish Education (with Jacob Staub) to recent works on Jewish education in a digital age, including Text Me: Ancient Jewish Wisdom Meets Contemporary Technology and L'Dor Va-Dor in a Digital Age. With Sandy Sasso, he co-edited two liturgical texts for children and families, Kol Ha-No'ar and Oneg Shabbat. Now 78, Jeffrey hopes to complete his most comprehensive work, Hazon v'Hinukh: A 21st Century Kaplanian Vision of Jewish Life and Learning, by 80.

Rabbi Bob Tabak (RRC '77) | February 3, 2027
Rabbi Bob Tabak, PhD, BCC, received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his doctorate in American history from Temple University. He is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He served as associate director of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia. For over 13 years he was a staff chaplain at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a past board member and officer of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. He has researched and written about Jewish chaplaincy, including contributing an article on non-military chaplains to the 2007 edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica.

Rabbi Jacob Staub (RRC '77) | April 6, 2027

Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he served on the faculty 1983-2021 and as Academic Vice President 1987-2004. A graduate of RRC (1977), he has devoted his career to articulating, developing and reconstructing the ideas, practices and institutions of the Reconstructionist movement. He edited The Reconstructionist 1983-1989 and Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations 2019-2026. He served as the Vice President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, as well as the Chair of the RRA’s Committee on Intermarriage and its Committee on Boundaries (Gevulot). He co-founded RRC’s program in Jewish Spiritual Direction with Barbara Breitman in 1998—the first program to offer spiritual direction to rabbinical students in Jewish history! He continues to direct the program. He is himself a spiritual director, and since he retired from the RRC faculty, he has served as one of the directors for RRC students.