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stances of interfaith cooperation going on in the United
States today. It's interfaith work on a very high level, and
a very creative level," says Dr. Schorsch.
"I'm in the environment business for two reasons,"
he says. "I think it's a global crisis: I worry a lot about
feckless depletion of natural resources, overpopulation,
pollution. I'm engaged in the environmental debate be-
cause I think Judaism has so much to contribute to the
debate."
Dr. Schorsch has helped to raise the level of environ-
mental consciousness on JTS' small, urban campus as
well. The seminary supports recycling and maintains a
compost heap on the property. Patrons of the campus cafe-
teria must pay a surcharge to use plastic utensils. And
throughout the dormitory, students have pasted notes on
their doors instructing exterminators to stay out.
Through his work with the National Religious Part-
nership on the Environment and COEJL, Dr. Schorsch
has developed friendships with the late Carl Sagan and
Vice President Al Gore.
He was particularly fond of and fascinated by Mr.
Sagan, the Jewish astronomer. "I think that if he had
lived longer, I would have succeeded in showing him [some
new] dimensions in Judaism," Dr. Schorsch says. "He still
had a 'bar-mitzvah perspective' on Judaism. Clearly,
that's where he departed, and he had a lot to learn about
Judaism. He was prepared to ask questions he hadn't
asked in many decades."
Dr. Schorsch has spoken eloquently on the role of Shab-
bat in promoting environmental consciousness. His words
on the subject at a March 1992 COEJL conference were
so compelling that Mr. Gore, then a senator from Ten-
nessee, raced back from the Senate chamber after a vote
to hear the end of his remarks.
"It's not very frequently that senators run down the
hall for anything, let alone the chancellor of the Jewish
Theological Seminary," says Paul Gorman, director of the
National Religious Partnership on the Environment, who
was with the senator at the time.
"Everything I hoped might take place through this
work I see taking place in Ismar Schorsch," Mr. Gorman
says. "He has a responsibility to make sure it contin-
ues. And he'll make sure it happens for others by mak-
ing sure it continues to happen for himself
"Because it isn't complete, and neither is he."
More recently, Dr. Schorsch has turned his attention
to the nation's health-care crisis. He is one of the leaders
of an interfaith effort to develop a national religious coali-
tion on the ethics of health care. This November, the first
meeting of the National Religious Coalition on Health
Care Delivery will be held at JTS.
"It's an ethical issue," says Dr. Schorsch. "I think that
this debate is so restricted to financial considerations that
we are ready to overlook the ethical considerations that
a civilized society has to address."
The role of the clergy, he says, is to be the moral con-
science of the government on such policy matters.
"Ws our obligation to speak in the ethical vein, that the
almighty dollar is not the only consideration in the de-
termination of public policy," he says, almost angrily.
Dr. Schorsch, a father of three who married his high-
school sweetheart, Sally, passed his values on to his chil-
dren. All are involved in Jewish pursuits.
Jonathan Schorsch, 34, is a doctoral student in Jew-
ish history at the University of California at Berkeley.
He also has done environmental work with a nonprofit
organization. Rebecca, 32, is a doctoral student in Jew-
ish studies at the University of Chicago. And Naomi, 29,
is assistant director of ARZA, the Association of Reform
Zionists in America.

Rabbi Schorsch: "I am not doing this for the greater glory of Conservative Judaism. I do this as an unconditional Zionist."