Animal shortly finds synagogue official (5)
I believe the answer is:
rabbi
'synagogue official' is the definition.
(rabbis are Jewish religious teachers)
'animal shortly' is the wordplay.
'animal' becomes 'rabbit' (I've seen this before).
'shortly' means to remove the last letter.
'rabbit' with its last letter taken away is 'RABBI'.
'finds' is the link.
(Other definitions for rabbi that I've seen before include "Sacks, for example" , "Jewish learned man" , "Hebrew teacher" , "Leader of worshippers" , "A Jewish priest" .)