Ask the Rabbi: Rabbi Marc Disick

Since his Sophomore year at SUNY-Albany in 1978, Marc Disick wanted to become a rabbi. His eclectic background took him from a Lubavitch Bar Mitzvah on Long Island, to a Kibbutz outside of Jerusalem and then to Reform Judaism's seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion where he was ordained in 1986. A pick-up pianist and accompanist, he played his way through graduate school and served in various congregational posts until 2011. In 2012, after more than 25 years of public life, Rabbi Disick changed course and entered the for-profit world by founding a company based on his own patent-pending idea: Kitty Cat Climber. He is happy to put his rabbinical hat on as needed and asked.

As a congregational rabbi, Disick learned from his mentor, Rabbi Charles Kroloff in Westfield NJ. He's served congregations in Kansas City MO, Wilkes-Barre PA and Massapequa NY. For seven years Rabbi Disick was also a Regional Director for the Union for Reform Judaism where he studied the synagogue as family system with Rabbi Edwin Friedman PhD z”l. Through 2011, he made Temple Sinai of Stamford CT his spiritual home. Sinai became well known as a profoundly caring synagogue with a deep and active social conscience under Disick’s leadership. He received an Honorary Doctorate in 2012 from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for 25 years of rabbinic service. Ever an "idea guy," he stepped back from congregational life to start his own company, Kitty Cat Climber, in 2012.

Rabbi Marc L. Disick DD graduated from SUNY-Albany in 1980 with a BA in Judaic Studies and Rhetoric & Communications. He lived in Israel for his Junior year, attending the UAHC’s College Academic Year on Kibbutz Ma’aleh HaChamisha and for his first year of rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. During his rabbinical studies, Disick served for two years as a Chaplain at Princeton University and completed coursework toward an MA in Jewish Education at NYU before attending Hebrew Union College in NYC where he was ordained in 1986. In 1992 He finished course requirements for a D.Min. (a clergy counseling degree) at New York's Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and hopes to write the dissertation which will finally get him the degree.