Eschewing every stereotype of what the life of a member of the clergy is like, a new four-hour documentary called “The Calling” debuts its first half on PBS tonight.
The first half follows five people — Presbyterian Rob Pene, progressive Muslim Tahera Ahmad, African Methodist Episcopal Jeneen Robinson, Open Orthodox Yerachmiel Shapiro (the one at the wedding in the trailer above) and progressive muslim Bilal Ansari — from their lives as seminary students, interns and chaplains into the early days of their ordained professional lives. (The website says there are seven in “The Calling” — presumably the remaining three will be introduced in the second half.
Shapiro is a graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the seminary founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss, the controversial leader of Open Orthodoxy who also ordained Rabba Sara Hurwitz last year. Shapiro’s struggles make up an interesting look into modern left-wing Orthodoxy. While most of the Orthodox Jewish world is drifting to the right, Shapiro is struggling to find a balance between his chosen profession and his wife’s. She is finishing dental school at the same time that he finishes his rabbinical education. And then they find out that they’re pregnant.
Over the course of a few interviews with the couple and a meeting between them and Weiss, it becomes clear that their notion of a woman’s role is not part of the same rightward drift that characterizes most of Orthodoxy today. Weiss offers Shapiro a job at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, the best job a YCT graduate could possibly hope for. But the Shapiros don’t want emphasize his career over hers or hers over his. Throughout the first night of “The Calling” he struggles with whether to take the HIR job or take a part-time job at small and dying congregation in Red Bank, NJ, that would allow him time to be a father. I won’t give away which he picks at the end of the first night, but I can’t wait to find out what happens on the second night.
The documentary itself is beautifully shot. Although it was filmed by several different directors, it is pieced together nicely. The topics and locations meander, but the core of the film is a look at a new generation of religious professionals, generally of a liberal stripe. Despite the title and despite shoe-horning in clips of each one mentioning their “calling” at the beginning of the film, most of “The Calling” isn’t about a calling. It’s mostly about personal struggles, personal identity and the personal choice to become a rabbi or a reverend, etc. And that’s probably just symptomatic of the way modern Americans conceive of themselves and their relationship to community.
Watch “The Calling” on PBS tonight and tomorrow night. Check local listings for times.
