Advice to New Teachers: Be a Rabbi, Not a Priest
With the Yoga Oasis Community
This is the latest installment in my series of Advice to New Teachers, which is really advice to teachers in general. If you missed the first essays, you can find them here.
Note to readers: All names have been changed. And, I am surely missing some nuances about Catholicism and Judaism, priests and rabbis. And, it seems I can’t talk about rabbis and priests without being a little preachy. Thanks for your generosity in advance.
Okay, onward.
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Around fifteen years ago, a colleague and friend of mine, Karen, compared my teaching style with another teacher, Susan, saying, “You are more like a rabbi. Susan is more like a priest.”
I grew up in the Methodist church. We had ministers. No rabbis. No priests. Not understanding Karen's metaphor, I asked, “What do you mean?”
She said, “Well, in the Catholic Church, a priest has a special relationship with God. They function as an intermediary between their parishioners and God. In the Jewish tradition, a rabbi is no more or less special than anyone else and claims no privileged position with God. A rabbi is simply a more learned member of the community.”
Karen went on to say that when she studied with Susan she knew that Susan was teaching exactly what her teacher taught and this gave her a lot of confidence that she was learning the method we all studied exactly as the founder intended. When Karen studied with me, however, she felt that she was learning what I thought of, felt about, and had integrated from, what our teacher taught. She said she found my offerings interesting and useful, but distinctly different as a student.
I have reflected on this conversation over the years. Karen articulated two primary qualities of my teaching philosophy that I didn’t have words for at the time, but which have become an essential part of my life and work as a teacher. I was mostly trained by “priests” in yoga. I learned from senior teachers who had travelled to India every year to study for as long as I had been alive, with the founder of a system whose skill and charisma gave him an aura of “special powers,” and with my guru who sat at the top of a hierarchy (literally on a very special throne) as though he was at the “right hand of God.” But that is not me and has never felt like me. And while I have enjoyed closeness with many of my teachers, and while they made me feel special in a way that was psychologically healing, those relationships didn’t make me more perfect, closer to God, more enlightened, or less of an asshole at times than anyone else walking the path of being human.
I am not saying that kind of thing does not get projected on me occasionally. And since I generally tell the truth here on my blog, I should own up to the fact that I have played my part in the dynamic. I have been placed on a pedestal and been torn down off it more than a few times. I have benefited from some notoriety and exposure, some of which I like to think has a little to do with some skills I have honed over the years, but as we all know, plenty of talented, skilled, and hard-working people do not get noticed beyond a small sphere of influence. That is an entry for another day.
My point here is that I would rather be a rabbi than a priest when it comes to teaching yoga. I would rather take the seat of the teacher as a learned member of the community than as an intermediary for God. I would rather find the confidence that comes from belonging to my community in a shared process of awakening than what might exist in standing above, outside, or beyond others in my specialness. Each one of us is on a unique life journey; each one of us is special in our own ways. Each one of us is seated at God’s right hand because each of us is sitting down next to ourselves, the teachings, and one another in the shared intention to move toward greater expansion. And what else is God other than the power that binds all this together in Love?
As far as teaching exactly what my teacher taught or teaching what I made of what my teacher taught, well, that ended up getting me in a big fight with that same teacher almost exactly a decade ago, but that, too, is a different story for another day.
I have been blessed with great teachers and I borrow directly from their wisdom and do my best to give credit where credit is due, but I have yet to find a yoga that exists outside the person practicing it. Whether it is dealing with short arms binding in maricyasana 4, a long torso bending in kapotasana, or being a spoiled white girl in 2021 applying teachings from a different time and culture to her privileged, modern life, I am part of the subject of the yoga I am studying, not separate from it. I can’t help but teach—not just what my teachers taught me, but what I learned— because I am teaching a process as much as a subject. I am sharing what I learned along the way in the hopes of helping people engage their own process as authentically and courageously as possible.
So, my advice is— be a rabbi, not a priest. Teach what you learned, not just what you were taught. Stand with others, not above them. Aim to be a trustworthy, learned member of your community. Let everyone be special— it will relieve a lot of pressure.
Like that.
Sermon over.
For now.
