Elul is Coming. You Don’t Have to Carry It Alone.
You’re working hard and carrying a lot—preparing for the High Holidays, supporting your community, showing up for your family, and somehow trying to take care of yourself in the process.
Sometimes, you just need someone to talk to.
The Elul Helpline is here to offer you a free, one-on-one, 30-minute coaching session with an experienced clergy coach. Whether you want to think through a sermon, troubleshoot a leadership challenge, find language for a difficult conversation, or simply get a little encouragement, this is a space just for you.
Since 2020, we’ve supported rabbis, cantors, and Jewish spiritual leaders during this season—and we’re here for you again this year.
How It Works
- Choose your coach from the list below.
- Register for one free 30-minute session. *
- The Elul Helpline runs from August 25 – October 10, 2025.
*Limit one session per participant. Please register for only one session with one coach.
Rabbi Ana Bonnheim
Rabbi Ana Bonnheim is the founding executive director of the Jewish Learning Collaborative.
Rabbi Bonnheim leads a team who provide ongoing personalized Jewish learning to professionals and board members at Jewish organizations and create flexible freelance work opportunities for clergy and educators. The Jewish Learning Collaborative is incubated at Mem Global (formerly Moishe House). Ana is also the immediate past chair of the Central Conference of American Rabbis ethics committee and previously worked as a camp director and development professional.
Ana’s work is focused on innovation, ongoing experimentation, creating pilots and scaling those that work, and investing in rabbis and Jewish leaders to create multi-vocal communities of ongoing learning.
Connect with Ana for a warm conversation filled with questions and reflection to work on strategy, trying something new, creating consensus, building teams, navigating organizational dynamics, and bringing your vision to life (or articulating your vision).
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Rabbi Menachem Creditor serves as Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation New York and is the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. A prolific writer, Rabbi Creditor has authored and edited over thirty books, including A Rabbi’s Heart, and After October 7: Essays. With millions of views of his daily Torah videos and essays, his leadership has helped shape national conversations on gun violence prevention, LGBTQ inclusion, Zionism, Interfaith organizing, and Jewish diversity. Rabbi Creditor’s music, including the well-known song Olam Chesed Yibaneh, is sung in communities around the world.
He is a Senior Lecturer at the Academy for Jewish Religion and speaks widely about the role of faith in building a more compassionate world.
Connect with Menachem for conversations about spirituality, social justice, text, Israel, and congregational life.
Faith Leener
Faith Leener is the Chief Innovation Officer at The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Faith previously served as the founding Executive Director of Base (basemovement.org), leading the network of Bases and driving Base’s strategic development, fundraising, and expansion efforts. Faith is also a writer, speaker, coach, consultant, educator and facilitator. She is currently pursuing certification in Thomas Hübl’s Timeless Wisdom Training (TWT), a rigorous multi-year program combining trauma-informed methodologies, contemplative practice, and mystical principles to support individuals, groups and organizations in navigating complexity, fostering resilience, and creating environments grounded in presence, empathy, and systemic awareness.
Faith holds a BA in American History from Brandeis University, an MPA in Public Policy & Non-Profit Management and an MA in Judaic Studies, both from NYU. Alongside her husband Rabbi Jon Leener, she serves as Rebbetzin to the Prospect Heights Shul and is a proud mamma of three. In her spare time she collaborates with friends and artists on creating and leading experiences grounded in Jewish spirituality and mindfulness practices.
Connect with Faith for a warm conversation about imagining possibilities, mindfulness, innovation, Jewish learning, entrepreneurship, or anything else on your mind.
Dr. Betsy Stone
Dr. Betsy Stone is a nationally known, retired psychologist who serves as an adjunct lecturer at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She has been teaching and working with rabbis for the past 19 years, both through HUC-JIR and privately. She teaches and consults with Jewish professionals across North America and Europe. She also leads clergy support groups in her local community and nationally. She received her Doctorate in Psychology from Yale University.
Connect with Betsy for an experienced listening ear in addressing issues of burnout, trauma, exhaustion and moral injury.
Rabbi David S. Wolfman
David S. Wolfman: Consulting: The Human Side of Change® was founded to help you embrace change and move forward toward new possibilities.
Change is something to embrace, not fear. David S. Wolfman Consulting: The Human Side of Change® was founded to help you embrace change and move forward toward new possibilities, whether it’s in the congregations and organizations you lead or in your own life and career. Covid 19, 10/7, and the rise of the Millennial Generation of new adults – the largest and most important generation ever to live on this planet – have made us throw out the playbook!
Connect with David for coaching on embracing change and moving towards new possibilities. As a rabbi, coach and consultant he can help you navigate during this chapter of your rabbinate and help you pivot and reinvent for the present and future.
Rabbi Mary L. Zamore
Rabbi Mary L. Zamore is the Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network (WRN) and a nationally recognized thought leader.
Drawing on her vast 18 years of experience as a congregational rabbi, Rabbi Zamore now supports and guides the 700+ rabbi-members of WRN, advocating for the values they uphold to create equity and safety in Jewish communities, especially pay equity, paid leave, and accountability & repair. Celebrating her 11th year at WRN, she is passionate about supporting rabbis, often coaching WRN members through the joys and challenges of their rabbinates, whether it be reflecting on sermons/ programming, navigating difficult relationships or conversations, or thinking about the bigger questions of work and life.
Connect with Mary for a conversation with open hearted listening, as we think together to help you find your path forward no matter the presenting issue, small or large.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin
Rabbi Asher Lopatin was the rabbi of the Modern Orthodox Anshe Sholom in Chicago (350 families) and now is the founding rabbi of the MO Kehillat Etz Chayim in Detroit (65 families), while also working full time as the JCRC director in Ann Arbor. He has ordination from Rav Ahron Soloveichik and Yeshiva University, as well as an MPhil in Medieval Arabic thought from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Asher is passionate about creating a welcoming, meaningful community and reaching out to the broader world and engaging in challenges both internal to the Jewish world and those the entire world faces. Always eager to think outside the box, Asher is married to Rachel Lopatin and they have four children.
Connect with Asher for conversations about meaningful community-building, Jewish thought, global and Jewish challenges, and leading with purpose across roles.
Please check back soon to schedule a session with Asher.