LIFELONG LEARNING
Lifelong LearningLast updated August 2008
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Boundaries: Preserving Jewish Identity in the Modern World
Sheva Zucker and Sandy Kessler will offer a seven week Lifelong Learning class at Beth El this fall entitled "Boundaries: Preserving Jewish Identity in the Modern World." Our class will discuss different ways of being Jewish in the modern world and some of the threats modernity poses to Jewish identity. Issues to be considered include assimilation, intermarriage, male and female roles within Judaism, sexual identity, the "who is a Jew" question, belief and skepticism, and navigating Christian holidays. Readings will include selections from Anne Roiphe's “Generation Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America”, "Chava" from Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman, "Yentl" by Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Letter to Harvey Milk" by Leslea Newman, "Gilgul on Park Avenue" by Nathan Englander, poems by Yankev Glatshteyn and Yehuda Amichai, and "The Loudest Voice" by Grace Paley. The class will meet every Sunday morning from September 7 through October 19 from 10:15 to 11:30 in the Freedman Center Lounge. Please notify Krisha at 682-1238 or bethel.sec@verizon.net if you wish to participate. Readings will be distributed to class members prior to each meeting. Reading Materials are available in class and from the office. Click here to download a copy of the course outline.
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LIMUD/Learning: A Shabbat In the Mountains From Despair to Renewal: Tisha B’Av to Rosh HaShannah Friday*, August 8-Sunday, August 10 at Wildacres, Little Switzerland, NC About the theme: The calendar dates of our LIMUD/Learning: Shabbat at Wildacres establishes the theme for the weekend: With the end of Shabbat on Saturday night comes the beginning of Tisha b’Av/the ninth day of Av. This day that marks the destruction of both the 1 st and 2 nd Temples has made mourning a feature of our calendar, part of the rhythm of the Jewish sacred calendar year. This day of mourning marks our deepest despair even as it marks the beginning of the season of renewal that leads to Rosh HaShannah, the beginning of the New Year. It is precisely at this season that we begin to consider: How do we make the turn from despair to renewal? What claim does the past exert upon us? Can we rise above the circumstances of yesterday? Are the circumstances of yesteryear, such as Tisha B’Av itself, important for us? Can we renew ourselves? Can despair and mourning be creative forces for us? Beginning on Tisha B’Av, we meet the broad topic of Teshuvah/Return, the great Jewish project of purposeful reflection and action that extends from Tisha B’Av to the time of the New Year. Our weekend of Shabbat celebration, food, song, and learning will take place in a most beautiful site in the company of old and new friends. At the end of our Shabbat, after Havdalah on Saturday night, we will sit by candle light on the patio on our southern spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains in order to read Eicha/Lamentations. Although some observe the fast of Tisha B’Av, breakfast will be available on Sunday morning before our closing program. Register for LIMUD Shabbat In the Mountains by email: bethel.sec@verizon.net Space is limited to 50 registrants. *LIMUD participants are invited to register for Thursday afternoon, August 7, for an extra evening in the mountains and a pre-Shabbat program. Costs (based on double occupancy): Adults: $115 for two nights; $150 for three nights Children** 6-12: $75 for two nights; $85 for three nights Children** 3-5: $45 for two nights; $50 for three nights Costs include: Two (or three) nights and all Kosher meals. Modest fees for the LIMUD Shabbat at Wildacres reflect generous support from the Blumenthal Foundation. **Families with children are welcome, but neither children’s programming nor child care will be provided. Please send a 50% deposit by June 1 made payable to Beth El Synagogue with “Wildacres Limud” in the memo line. The purpose of LIMUD/Learning is to engage classical Jewish texts that speak to contemporary Jewish life. The Director of LIMUD is Rabbi Steven Sager.
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Beth El and the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation One Talmudic sage told his students: When it comes to the mitzvah of honoring your father and mother you would do well to imitate a certain non-Jew who lives in Ashkelon. This led the students to reflect: How can one who is not commanded, who is not part of the mitzvah community, serve as an example for how we should fulfill a mitzvah commanded us at Sinai? In the world of the Talmudic sages, side by side with the sacred story of a Torah given from Sinai, stands the very clear reality of an intuitive Torah—a Torah/way of being and acting that we have “received” not from Sinai, but by virtue of being human. Clearly, the honoring of parents is a commonly held human cause; does acting because we were “commanded” neutralize altruism? Is it, perhaps, better—more meritorious, more virtuous—to act aright without having been commanded to do so? Should we give, act, aid, support and honor simply because it is the right thing to do? Is it important that such acts be grounded in Jewish values? Are there Jewish questions to be asked about the allocation of resources? What is the benefit of acting through Jewish frameworks—“frame -words”—such as “Mitzvah,” “Tzedakah”? Is it important for Jews to participate in common causes as members of a Jewish community? Could we, perhaps, build a better universal community if we followed the "intuitive Torah" that transcends a particular religion, working as individuals on behalf of the many fine agencies that have no religious affiliation? Hand in hand with allocating support from our “Jewish address” is the issue of how we prioritize our efforts and our contributions. Do Jewish causes trump common causes? What happens if part of the mitzvah system argues with a good of the “intuitive Torah”? Our project for Sunday, June 1 is to learn from traditional Jewish texts that reflect upon these issues. Our learning will take place in small groups as well as in a large gathering. During our last hour together we will have a discussion with Dr. Ron Strauss who has served as the chair of the Allocations Committee of the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation. In our discussion with Ron we will hear just how these questions and issues inform, guide and challenge community allocations. Please register for our Yom LIMUD/Day of Learning by phone or by email: bethel.sec@verizon.net; 682-1238 by May 27.
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A Report and Excerpts Concerning: A Day of Torah Learning Berachot/Blessings and Thoughtful Jewish Life Sunday, June 3, 17 Sivan 5767 Click here to download a PDF version of the following In our Day of Torah Learning, held at Beth El in Durham, NC, we engaged the theme: Berachot/Blessings and Thoughtful Jewish Life. Seventy participants from Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh studied Torah, Talmud, Siddur and poetry in Hevruta/small groups and in larger gatherings. (Please see the following link for pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/GenesOtherEmail/TorahLearningDay07 ) We shared lunch, prayer time and social time throughout the day, strengthening a sense of community as we addressed the rich and important theme of how we gather consciousness, tradition, language and experience into the making of berachot/blessings. What follows is a series of excerpts from our studies—a few short texts and some of the questions that they generated along with just enough explanation to allow for the questions to take center stage. I preface the texts with a few questions that shaped our day of study: What do we learn from the expression—in Hebrew, Yiddish and English—make a beracha? Of what is a beracha made? If a beracha is made merely of words, then why does one make and not say a beracha? Here is one text from the Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 40b: If one sees a loaf of bread and says: “How lovely is this bread! ‘Baruch’ is the Ever Present One who created it! He has fulfilled his obligation”. If one sees a fig and says: “How lovely is this fig! ‘Baruch’ is the Ever Present One who created it! He has fulfilled his obligation.” This is the dictum of Rabbi Meir. But Rabbi Yosi says: Anyone who alters the “stamp” with which the Sages have stamped Berachot has not fulfilled his obligation. A few words about the text: Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yosi lived in the land of Israel in the mid second century, during a time when liturgy was rapidly developing. A form, or “stamp” has already come into being: Baruch ata Adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam…While Rabbi Yosi insists that a proper beracha requires this form, Rabbi Meir maintains that the beracha “stamp” of the sages is not the only genuine way of making a beracha that celebrates one’s engagement with the world. That is not to say that Rabbi Meir is against the idea of a beracha form. In each of his examples, Rabbi Meir uses the word ‘Baruch.’ He also names God as the Ever Present One/The Place; in addition, he refers to God as Creator. The makhloket/difference of opinion between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yosi makes room for important questions about form and content in a beracha: Questions that become quests: Is a beracha made of certain words and not others? Is form an essential ingredient of making a beracha? What does Rabbi Meir’s form have in common with Rabbi Yosi’s beracha form? Does a beracha have to begin with “Baruch”? Does a beracha require certain statements of belief? Is personal belief essential to the making of a beracha? Do you find Rabbi Meir’s form or Rabbi Yosi’s to be more personally appealing? Are intention and frame of mind important ingredients of a beracha? What is the relationship between form and community consciousness? What if the beracha form excludes us because we do not subscribe to the beliefs or the language attached to that form? Are we then including tradition while excluding ourselves? The next text that we learned—from the very same Talmud page—continues to explore the question of whether an authentic beracha can be made without the “stamp” of the sages. But in this section, the debate expands to consider whether a proper beracha can be made outside of the Hebrew language and, if a beracha can be made in the local language, can it be inventive in its language or does it have to be an exact translation of the sages’ Hebrew version? Benjamin the shepherdate bread and then said [in Aramaic, not Hebrew]: Blessed is the master of this bread. Rav said: He has fulfilled his obligation for Birkat HaMazon/Beracha after the Food. But hadn’t Rav taught that any beracha that does not mention God’s name is not really a Beracha? In fact, Benjamin had actually said: Blessed is the Merciful One, the master of this bread… What do we learn from Rav’s teaching? Obligation is met even if one made the beracha in a secular language. But, if this is Rav’s message, we have already learned this in a Mishnah which taught: These berachot can be spoken in any language: the oath of suspected adultery, the liturgy of presenting tithes, the Shemah, the Tefillah/Amidah and Birkat HaMazon. And yet, Rav’s teaching is necessary. For, based only on the Mishnah that allows other languages it might occur to you that the beracha, while it could be made in another language, it still needs to be made in a way that translates exactly from the Rabbis’ Holy Language version. If one made the beracha in a secular language but not according to the words of the Holy Language version, I would say that he has not fulfilled his obligation. Rav’s teaching informs us that a version such as Benjamin the Shepherd’s is valid. (Babylonian Talmud Berachot 40b) The implications of this text on our berachot led us to consider the work of Marcia Falk as it appears in her book, Next, we considered how this talmudic discussion anticipates important issues in our own life with berachot. Marcia Falk’s, The Book of Blessings became the lens through which we examined the issue: “As a poet, I have long been drawn to the power—the lyric intensity—of the Hebrew b’rakahah. I first began to write blessings of my own, however, because I was extremely uncomfortable with the heavily patriarchal image of God in the traditional blessings. I have now been writing new Hebrew blessings for over a dozen years, and during the course of that time my understanding of the greater context, the greater whole—my theology, if you will—has evolved, revealing itself to me in unexpected ways, each of which became part of the creative process, influencing my liturgical forms…. I never completely abandoned any station on the journey—I did not reject the old compositions, I just moved on to write the new…. Looking back to the genesis of the journey, I see that my first blessing were based closely on the traditional blessing form: they exhorted the community to bless or praise, celebrate or seek out the presence of the divine in relation to specific occasions, such as beginning a meal or ushering in a holiday. Yet they departed sharply from the traditional blessings by offering new images for divinity—images that called into question the rabbinic depictions of God as the Lord and king….For example, I composed my Blessing Before the Meal as an adaptation of the traditional hamotzi prayer, which praises God for “bringing forth bread from the earth.” Yet by imaging divinity as eyn hahayim, “wellspring (or fountain, or source) of life,” rather than as adonay eloheynu, melekh ha’olam, “Lord our God, king of the world,” I was suggesting another way to apprehend the divine and to awaken gratitude for the body’s nurturance.” (from the introduction to The Book of Blessings, by Marcia Falk) Here is Marcia Falk’s Blessing Before the Meal: N’vareyky et eyn hahayim hamotzi’ah lehem min ha’aretz. Let us bless the source of life that brings forth bread from the earth. I will close these excerpts from our Day of Torah Learning with a ‘thank you’ to those who participated, with an invitation to “stay tuned” for future gatherings, and—finally—with Marcia Falk’s Sheheheyanu beracha: N’vareykh et ma’yan hayeynu sheheheyanu v’kiy’manu v’higi’anu laz’man hazeh. Let us bless the flow of life that revives us, sustains us, and brings us to this time. Sincerely, Rabbi Steven Sager
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