The Bible says there is a time for every purpose under heaven. But for one group of rabbis whose purpose is teaching some of New York’s wealthiest and busiest people about Judaism, time has to be understood as a kind of standby ticket.

Financial crises occur. Personal trainers need their access. The All-Star Game can run late.

“I had some, uh, mixed feelings, Seth, about your missing our last appointment,” said Rabbi Stuart Shiff, sitting one morning the other week across the table in a Midtown office from one of his private students, Seth Horowitz, executive vice president of Modell’s, the sporting goods company.

Like many such sessions, this one began with an apology: Mr. Horowitz explained that he had been at the 15-inning All-Star Game with clients until 2:30 the morning of the last session, and on top of that his infant son had hurt himself — not seriously, but still. …

The rabbi thumbed the pages of the Torah on the table. “I hurried back from a weekend trip with my family to be with you,” he said.

Rabbi Shiff is one of five rabbis employed by an international Orthodox Jewish organization known as Aish HaTorah, which offers many services to regular people at its Upper West Side center, but offers some special attention to those whom its managing director, Rabbi Adam Jacobs, refers to as “very significant people.”

To participate in its Executive Learning Program, one makes a very significant contribution — $10,000 a year, more or less — and in return, a rabbi comes to one’s corner office about once a week to offer Bible study, Talmudic exegesis, personal counseling or just an hour of intellectual jousting.

Most participants are not particularly observant Jews, said Rabbi Jacobs, although he added that almost all have reached a stage of “looking for the big-picture idea” about life. Almost all are accustomed to personal trainers and personal services. In some cases, the incoming rabbi may meet the yoga instructor, out-going.

“I think of this as similar to my yoga class, only much, much more satisfying,” said Gary Goldstein, the chief executive of the Whitney Group, an executive search firm in Midtown, where he recently saw another rabbi, Chaim Sampson.

For reasons not altogether clear to him, Rabbi Jacobs said the number of participants doubled in the last year to around 50. He is trying to hire another rabbi.

“The economic situation is probably involved here somewhere,” he said. “People sometimes seek grounding when times get tough.”

Some new sign-ups, in fact, are recently unemployed — but still significantly affluent — “guys who suddenly have time on their hands,” Rabbi Jacobs said. One rabbi has been traveling to Greenwich, Conn., to meet with a man he used to visit at an office at Bear Stearns, and who was laid off after the troubled firm was acquired by JPMorgan Chase this spring.

But in most cases, the one-on-ones are sought by men — very few women are among the program’s clients — who consider their Jewishness a work in progress.

Some are not sure they believe in God. Most are believers, but not sure they want to be tied to the crowded calendar of observances that constitute observant Jewish religious life. Two of four men interviewed last month said their tutorials began not long after the death of their fathers. One said he became a participant soon after he married a “very secular” Jewish woman. All seemed interested in exploring the intersection of religious ethics and the aggressive pursuit of material success.

They are mainly businessmen, good at running meetings, and in most cases quick to interrupt if a rabbi seems to be drifting off the point.

“So, now wait, how does this come back to what I was asking about in the first place?” Mr. Goldstein asked at one point, several minutes into Rabbi Sampson’s discussion of Tisha Bov, the day of fasting, usually in August, that commemorates several misfortunes, including the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem, the first by the Babylonians, the second by the Romans.

On the coffee table between them, two books of the Torah sat atop a pile of magazines called Dealmaker, next to books with titles like “King of Capital,” “Career Warfare” and “A Million a Minute.”

“Because we were talking about gossip, and baseless hatreds,” said Rabbi Sampson. “The Torah says the temple was destroyed because the Jewish people were involved in too much of such —— ”

“Right. Gossip. The four categories of gossip,” Mr. Goldstein said, regaining the thread. “Too much negativity.”

Michael Silverman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, stopped Rabbi Shiff several times during his hour — in Dr. Silverman’s office off Fifth Avenue — with a favorite expression of doubt.

“Speed bump! Real issue here,” he said, signifying his concern with the logic or fairness of certain laws in the Talmud, like the one he called “the father thing” — a rule allowing a man to nullify promises made by his wife or his daughter.

As the rabbi gave a long and complicated answer, Mr. Silverman tapped absently on his desk, a space crowded with scientific journals and a brightly colored plastic model of the human brain.

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